January - Spiritual Abuse Awareness Month

So...I won't even pretend as if I knew this was a thing before today. But then of course, when you've unknowingly grown up subjected to spiritual abuse, it would make sense to be oblivious to a cause bringing light to it...because then you'd likely wake up and leave your situation. Are you with me? If not, the definition I snatched from www.tearsofeden.org should help.

Case-in-point: I have gone from being a Christian who was certain I was in the "right religion" to going rogue and feeling unsure as to whether the God in the Bible truly exists. I mean, if he does, dude is clearly an egotistical jerk, but we can get into that another day. It's the breakdown of your relationship with yourself and others that I want to focus on this month, because those are the most crucial fall-outs, in my opinion.

Why do I feel that way? For many reasons, but here are two simple ones.

1. There are 450+ million atheist/agnostic people in the world who operate perfectly fine daily with zero relationship with God. Do you have any atheist friends? I do, and they are the sweetest, most non-judgemental, well-rounded people I know. No exaggeration. It's mainly us with a religious background who seem to have issues. 😬

2. There is not a licensed health professional in the world that would recommend daily comparisons of yourself against impossible standards and/or to cut off families ties solely on the strength that you and a family member have different spiritual beliefs. Yet, spiritual abuse encourages and breeds these behaviors. And the heaviest offenders tend to be those lead by someone who is not licensed or formally educated at all. Make that make sense...🤔

The shame and guilt that comes from organizations that employ spiritual abuse can be crippling. I recall hearing the importance of having "the proper fear of God" often from the platform and those words definitely impacted some of the choices I made. Not anymore though. I'm free. And more importantly, I'm aware, and doing the work to heal. I hope you are as well, from whatever you may need to heal from. I'll be back. 😘

P.S. Another one session write-up. Go me! 🙂