Religious Trauma & The Body with Liz Milani & Erica Webb

00:18 - Sam (Host)

I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which I live and work the Gundagara land and people. I pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. I also want to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands on which you, our listeners, are joining us from today. I recognise the deep connection that First Nations people have to this land, their enduring culture and their commitment to the preservation and care for their country. This land was never ceded and it always was and always will be Aboriginal land. Hey there, and welcome to this special bonus episode of Beyond the Surface. In these episodes, we take a break from the personal stories and I get to chat with experts on all things related to religious trauma, cults and deconstruction. These conversations are foundational and educational. They provide deeper insights and understanding into the complexities of the experiences we hear in the stories. Whether you're just beginning your journey this is the first episode you're listening to, or maybe you're looking to expand your knowledge in general, these episodes are packed with valuable information that will help you navigate wherever you are. I'm your host, sam, and this is Beyond the Surface. Welcome, liz and Erica, thanks for joining me.

01:46

I love these bonus episodes. They're so fun. I love being able to get multiple people in the same virtual room that I mean this is the first time that you guys have met and so I love, you know, just connecting different groups of people. Today is a bonus episode. As I said, we're going to be talking all things as typical religious trauma, but with a particular focus on the body and the disconnection that so often comes from religious trauma and being involved in a organized religion or a high control space, and ways to navigate that disconnection and become more embodied and rebuild that connection back to your body. So I'm joined by the wonderful Liz Malani and Erica Webb, and so I might start by just getting them to. I'll just get you guys to give a brief introduction as to who you are and what brings you to this space. So I'll throw to you, liz first, because you're on the top of my screen.

03:01 - Liz (Host)

Well, thanks so much for having me, sam. I'm so excited to be here with you and Erica. My name's Liz, obviously. I used to be a pastor. I was a pastor's kid and a pastor myself for more than a decade, until we were thrown into a season of deconstruction that was involuntary, completely terrifying and unsettling and this was a decade ago that we left the church. Deconstruction wasn't really a word. We didn't really know what was happening to us and it took us a little while to find our feet and figure out what was going on. But since then we run a social media community space called the practice co. It started off as a bible devotion, a daily devotional, while we were still pastors in the church, and it's definitely morphed and evolved along with my own journey to be a space where we reclaim our own sense of faith, our own sense of connection to ourselves, god and the, and create our own faith pathway, whatever that looks like, with an emphasis on post-church deconstruction vibe. I don't know what else to say. There we go Over to you, erica.

04:19 - Erica (Host)

Awesome. Thank you for having me too, sam. It's really lovely to be here. So I'm Erica and I am a somatic exercise coach. I've been teaching mindful movement for 14, 15 years, something like that, and I'm a counsellor as well, and my background, with religious trauma, was that I grew up in the church, so I was born into a Christian home, you know, just knew nothing other than that, and I left the church and left religion completely, like it was kind of like one fell swoop when I was about 18 or 19 years old from memory, and so it's been an interesting thing for me to then, as an adult, notice the, I'm going to say, like shadows and echoes of the way that I was raised and how that's created some challenges for me as a grown-up and navigating what the world looks like outside of control and really black and white rules. So, yeah, happy to be here and looking forward to talking about all of this.

05:28 - Sam (Host)

Amazing. So obviously when we talk about trauma, we talk about it in terms of that. It lives in our body. We don't think our way out of trauma. We process and heal trauma through the body, and too often we see that those who come out of high control and fundamental spaces have a disconnection from the body. I know that in the church that I was a part of, the body is simply a vessel. It's just like worldly and fleshy and despite the irony that it's also a temple and you're supposed to look after it. But we won't get into the irony of that, but it is. It's just a. It's just a way for you to move through the world. It's temporary and so it's not necessarily trustworthy, and so you start to develop a disconnection from your body. But I'm going to throw back to Erica and wonder whether you can speak to what that body disconnection actually looks like in relation to trauma and why we hold trauma in our body.

06:44 - Erica (Host)

Yeah, it's such a complex area, so I will do my best to wrap some words around it that I feel good about. I think, in the context of religious trauma in particular, the disconnect that you talk about there is really about disowning the wisdom of the body. We're kind of taught in religious religious spaces and in the church that we can't trust ourselves right, we can't trust our instincts, we can't trust our inner dialogue and we can't trust our body. I was very heavily impacted by purity culture and I think that comes into this a lot that often our natural bodily functions are shameful, and so what we do is we have this disconnect between what we feel and what we're told is right, and so the most effective way to deal with that is to just live from here up, because the body is always communicating with you right, always. You can't actually turn that off. The way that your brain and body exchange information is happening, whether you can interpret it or not, and so it's less about your body not being able to give you information and it's more about kind of not being able to interpret it, not having that kind of inner ear to go oh, that's what my body is telling me, that's the wisdom of my body. It's kind of like hang on, I can't trust this.

08:11

And we often will outsource to something outside of ourselves to know what is right, and that will often be a man and it will often be something very much outside of who we are, and so there can be a lot of fear, I think, associated with who. You know the messages that can come from our body, because we really do believe that we're unable to trust them. And so when you think about trauma living in the body, really what we're talking about is a nervous system response living in the body. Really what we're talking about is a nervous system response. Trauma lives in the body because the body doesn't forget what has been a threat to our survival in the past. And so we will go into protective mode.

08:56

We will do things that are really designed to protect our space in the world, our survival in the the world, which is about social connection as much as it is about, you know, just staying alive, um, and so that trauma will kind of live in our body as a pattern of protection, and so it might be that we spend time kind of in this, um, almost like fetal position, walking around the world, kind of trying to protect ourselves, and we might not even know that we are doing that, and there's just a lot to be learned from how our body responds to our environment, how our body responds to our thoughts, how our body responds to the structures around us. And if we aren't trusting of our ability to listen to that information and act on it, then that's where the disconnect is. The disconnect is there's information here. I can't access it, so I'm going to live from here up and try to think my way through it. I hope that makes sense.

09:55 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, absolutely, and I I mean I've heard obviously a lot of people talk about trauma being in the body, but I really love the term that it's a pattern of protection. I really love that. I don't think I've heard that particular phrase before and I think it is a really great way of also reminding us that our body is not against us, like it's not working for our harm. It's actually trying to protect us from what it sees as harmful and unsafe, and so I yeah, I love that. I think that's a really great way of describing why it's living in our body. Liz, I know that you grew up, obviously already interviewed Liz, so if you want more about Liz's story, head back to that episode. But what was the way that the body was viewed for you growing up in a extremely you know Pentecostal space, and how did you see that disconnection in your own life growing up in that space?

11:06 - Liz (Host)

Well, it's exactly what Erica has said. You know, I was taught from a very young age. My parents became Christians when I was a toddler. So the messaging for me about my body from you know two and three up was that it's just a shell, it's just a means to an end. It was definitely like so many different angles. Purity culture was an influence.

11:33

I remember not being allowed to go to sex education classes at school and I would be pulled out of those classes and I would go to a class at the church which was run by our senior pastor, who was a man and very archaic kind of you know information about all of the different things about the body. So, from right then, at the beginning, my education around the body, its function, how it works, was limited and delivered to me through a very narrow lens, even to the point where I got my period when I was 10 and I had absolutely no idea what was happening to me and I felt so much shame I had to go to my friends and um nick tampons and pads off them. Sorry if that's too much information, but this is the very real way in which some of these practices can influence and impact our bodies and our relationship with our bodies. And so you know, everything from desire is wrong. You can't trust your body, you can't trust your thoughts, you can't trust the sensations that arise. So the nervous system kicking in to try and protect us, to try and keep us safe. You know, because we were taught to not trust our bodies, any attempt to interpret sensation in our body. There was a disconnect even there. So to try and figure out, why am I afraid, why do I feel excited? You know you just were taught not to even go there and so you were separated from that from the very beginning, if that makes any sense at all and then even into areas like sickness and illness. I remember being a teenager and I had migraines all through high school and just being taught that you know you've got to pray about it. You've got to go to the altar. You've got maybe there's sin in your life. So even reasons around physical illness, sickness, things that were happening in your body, weren't seen with critical awareness. They were seen through a lens of you've got to pray about it. There must be something wrong with you spiritually and this is why you're having a physical problem. So the answer to it was never look at yourself physically and see what's happening. It was go to god and get that whiz, bang, miracle healing out the front. And if that hasn't happened to you, well then maybe god has you sick for a reason, like all of these silly things. Um, that can come around with that.

14:02

I remember when I was 21 one of my best mates died of a brain tumour and I saw him the day before he died, went to his house and visited him and it was horrific Went to church the next day he died through the night. Members of our church had heard about it and they were all saying to me oh, it must have been his time. You know, god planned it and I I just sorry if it's triggering for anybody, but I just remember thinking to myself. I saw him the day before. God would never plan this.

14:32

Like if God is our loving God who is all-powerful and almighty and gracious. What's happened to my friend is not of God at all. So there there was a disconnect there. You know, all through my toddler years, my tween years, my teen years, my early adult years, there was such a disconnect with my body, not just interpreting the science but interpreting illness and sensation and desire and the nervous system reaction. There was a huge disconnect between all of those. Does that answer your question? I can't even remember what it is now of course, it answered the question.

15:10 - Sam (Host)

I mean, it is, um, like, there's just so much there that we could unpack in terms of, like, the bypassing, the over spiritualization of very normal things that are happening in the body. Um, purity culture has a lot to be responsible for in terms of it's fucked so many people up, and not just women and queer people, like men as well. Like it, purity culture sucks for everybody basically, um, and it just essentially is, you know, rooted that your body is not your own. Uh, for women, that it is, you know, it's just for the purpose of, you know, male desire and sexual reproduction, essentially. And so, yeah, it's just all of those things that are reinforcing, um, to to not listen to your body.

16:02

Yeah, uh, okay, we're going. I want to uh, define something a little bit, because I know that we're going to throw around the word somatic quite a bit. I would imagine moving forward and, um, and people. Probably there are some people who would have never heard of that term or would hear it thrown around in terms of, like, therapy jargon and things like that, and perhaps don't necessarily know what that means. So, erica, when we use the term somatic, what are we talking about?

16:34 - Erica (Host)

Yeah, so it gets used in a lot of different ways, to be honest.

16:39

But really, what it means, if we refer to something as somatic, we're referring to something of the body, um, so that's the the easiest way to think about it. If you hear the word somatic, people are just using a kind of fancy, scientific word that really just means of the body, um. What I think is helpful to recognize, though, is that it gets used in very different context and context, and it gets um, it kind of gets grabbed and used for various things. So, like I'm a somatic exercise coach and I'm a counselor who works through a somatic lens, but I'm not, for instance, a somatic experiencing therapist, which is quite a different thing. So when you hear the word somatic and when you hear the notion of somatic therapies, they're not all the same thing, even though the word really just means of the body. So you could I think it's a little bit like walking into a yoga class. You might think you have an idea of what you're about to walk into and then find out that it's something completely different, because it's a broad term used to describe a lot of things that kind of fit under an umbrella, but I think when it's used in a therapeutic context, there will be people who use it with a kind of fairly structured system, but the way that I think about it and the way that I use it in my own practice for myself and for my clients, is to really reconnect. It's really that reconnection piece of can you feel what's happening in your body, can you be kind of like a co-participant in that communication that's always happening.

18:19

I love to think about the way that the body and the mind connect as literally being a conversation, you know, conversation between like beloveds, conversation between friends, people who you know, two, two entities that are really one but who really have each other's best interests at heart.

18:34

They, they, they adore each other. Um, and so I think of somatics as that. It is reconnecting the pieces so that you have access to the wisdom that your body possesses. I think one really beautiful quote to describe why somatic practices can be so important is a quote from Deb Dana, and she's very big in the world of polyvagal theory and she's a therapist and she talks about, she says the brain narrates, or the mind narrates what the nervous system knows, and that really speaks to the fact that the body holds wisdom often far before the mind um, and so it's. A lot of somatic work is about being able to say well, what does my body know that my mind's trying to make sense of, that I can perhaps be a little bit more curious about the body's actual needs rather than my mind's interpretation yeah, I think it was.

19:40 - Sam (Host)

Uh, I remember when I first learned that, uh, the vast majority of the messages that are sent through our body are sent from our body to our brain and not the other way around, was just, you know, I remember learning that and going like, oh okay, like we've got everything back to front, like it's completely the wrong way around. You know, even to you know, when I I'm also not a somatic therapist by you know, in training, but I work similarly in terms of, like you know, I understand that trauma is in the body and we have to process it that way. And so sometimes, for the first time, when I'm working through a somatic lens, I'm going like, what does hunger feel like? Like let's just pull it back to things that are like super neutral, things that don't have an emotional connotation for a lot of people. You know, we don't often shame people or judge ourselves for being hungry unless there is, you know, some other trauma or complex things at play, unless there is, you know, some other trauma or complex things at play.

20:48

But what does hunger feel like? Because too often we, you know, we eat out of routine or we eat out of our schedule and we don't often eat because we're actually hungry, and if we do, it's an automatic like grumbling of the stomach, right. But actually there can be so many other things that are happening in our body when we simply get hungry and that's before we go down any path of. You know what shame or guilt or resentment or fear feels like in the body, like what does hunger feel like? And so, yeah, I love you. Know that of um having a conversation with your body and going like, what are you trying to tell me, um? And I know that you know from chatting to Liz um about her story that your body told you very loudly when you left the church that things were not okay. What was that like for you?

21:49 - Liz (Host)

It was really scary, to be honest, because up until then I was, I think, in my early 30s when we left, maybe 30, 31, and just had my second baby, and so there was a lot happening for me, physically anyway, that I may have missed some of these early signs of there was something wrong, but I was taught so heavily to disconnect myself from what was happening and if something negative was happening in my body, to fight it and to see it as, oh, my body's not going to keep me from the Lord's work. Do you know what I mean? Even volunteer culture? I should have said this earlier, but volunteer culture in the church is these same slums around our church will sleep and we're dead.

22:38

I'm like okay, well, we're all going to get there sooner if we don't sleep while we're here. So you know that's what I think now there sooner if we don't sleep while we're here. So you know, that's what I think now. But back then I saw it as a spiritual I don't know pedestal how far you could push your body in order to fulfill the call of God on your life. And I was definitely in that space.

22:59

When I was pregnant. I worked up until the day I gave birth in both pregnancies and then went back to work weeks later and saw that as a you know, um, I won something. Look at me, I'm sacrifice, I'm doing it and I'm putting my body on the line. And so when chronic illness first started creeping in after we left the church because I thought leaving the church would solve all my problems I thought, now that I'm out of this environment, I'm out of and I'm discovering some of the religious trauma that I'd experienced from a young age up until, you know, my late 20s, I thought that'll dissipate now that I'm out of that environment.

23:38

But really it gave my body permission to feel exactly how it was feeling While I was in a toxic state, while I was in an environment that didn't allow me to process how my body was feeling or acknowledge how my body was feeling or reconnect with my body in a healthy way, it was much easier for me to defend my behavior and to push down those feelings. So when I removed myself from that environment and I was finding rest, I had more time in my day-to-day schedule, my body finally had the space to say, all these years, for the past 30 years, hello, this is what's been happening in here and we've been trying to get your attention and now you finally got some space to hear what we have to say. So that came out very practically for me and I think it would be different for everybody. But I developed severe insomnia rather quickly. I've always had trouble sleeping, but it ramped up and there was a period of about six months where I was sleeping one to two broken hours a night. I was relying heavily on over-the-counter sleeping pills and nothing was working. It was awful. Um, it showed up in gut issues, hives, lots of little complaints that were very disruptive that no doctor could explain away.

25:04

So that that kind of is the banner of chronic illness, right, all these little symptoms that come together and there's there's a few words that can be band-aided across them but no real pathway out of them. And I remember my doctor just saying to me you know, this could be it, like this could be it, and me thinking in my early 30s, with two little kids, this can't be it. Like I can't feel like this forever. There's got to be something more. And so then I started to play. I found a new doctor, started to play with a few different things and I didn't make the connection that it was a result from those years of trauma in the church for a couple of years.

25:46

So, when the chronic illness was really bad, at its height, I was able to temper it with diet therapy, was able to temper it with some talk therapy, some supplements, and I got to a point in my healing I was sleeping better, I was feeling a little bit more regulated. But it wasn't until I made the connection with another therapist that, uh, trauma is stored in the body and a lot of this is your well-being. You can think of your body and what the capacity for trauma and challenge is. Your well is overflowing. And wasn't until I made that connection that I started to engage in some mind body therapies.

26:33

That really not completed. I don't think we're ever truly healed in the sense that we're living a life in a body on the earth, and so there's always going to be things. I see healing now more as a way of life, not a means to an end, and so I'm constantly healing. I'm constantly engaging my body, asking it questions, reading it signs and trying to get it what it needs. It's not a once-off thing. This is now a way of life for me, so that's sort of where I have landed from that journey.

27:06 - Sam (Host)

Oh, I mean, spiritual burnout is real. Hey, like we don't talk about that enough. You know, the like, the exploitation of, of volunteers and church staff in a lot of spaces is just, you know, heartbreaking and so damaging. I mean, we know that the effects of burnout is damaging to your body in general. Um, when you add a layer to that, that it is identity rooted and that suffering is somehow a spiritual success, um, it is so dangerous and it just is going to eventually wreak havoc on the body that you're moving through the world. I want to ask this question to both of you because I think you know hearing differing perspectives on this is what is the best part of this podcast? Really? The best part of this podcast, really? But what was it like starting to connect that what was happening in your body was trauma related and then start doing therapy from a body perspective, not just a mind perspective?

28:21 - Erica (Host)

So I'm going to leave it to whoever wants to jump in first on that question we're too polite, erica, I don't want to talk over anyone, I'm happy to go, though, um, I'm like one of us has to do it, um, do you know, I think, um, I think for me, when I really realized that it was living in my body and you know, liz sort of said like too much information before and, and you know I'll give that warning now but for me it very much came about around that purity culture. I was married very young and still with my husband we just actually celebrated our 20 wedding, 20 year wedding anniversary, but, which is wild, but married very young and very much had been raised in that purity culture of you know well, we all know what it is. And that was where I really came unstuck as a you know, grown up woman in a marriage and I just couldn't make that work. Like I was so ashamed of my body, I was so ashamed of um sex in general and it created a lot of problems for me, um, so I think that's the first time I really made that connection and that was quite close to um, I guess, the time that I had like left the church, um, and, and if I'm honest, I really didn't heal that for a very long time. I didn't even know what to do, like I didn't know who to talk to, I didn't know where to go. I did connect with a few therapists, but never really got that far.

30:08

And the thing, ironically, that actually felt more of a healing in that sense was when I birthed my first baby. Um, that was the healing thing for me and I I still haven't quite put the pieces together as to why, but I think it was something around feeling power in being a woman and so for me it was less, I guess, therapy at that time. I've done a lot more since then, but that was a huge thing for me. But I mean, I didn't have my first baby until well, I mean I was still fairly young, I think I was 29 when I had my first baby. So it wasn't like you know, it wasn't like this was a problem for a short period of time. It was a problem for a really long period of time, but it was definitely the first time that I went oh, this is trauma, like you know, and maybe I maybe didn't have those words, but it was like very much like God, this, the after effects of this, live in my body, because it doesn't matter what I think up here, I can't convince myself through my brain, it's just doesn't work.

31:16

've been a yoga teacher since: 2010

31:58

And it wasn't until I learned to use my movement practices, a way of getting into and listening to my body, that things changed.

32:05

So I can't really point to a particular moment or a particular therapeutic practice or a particular thing that I did, but for me it was very much learning.

32:14

Ah, this movement practice, this mindfulness, is not a way of like getting out of myself, it's a way of getting into myself. And that's going to be messy, much messier than a 60 minute, you know quick asana class is going to give me the space for so I think it was, you know, the space for. So I think it was, you know very much for me a slow hum of change. It wasn't a big like boom of change. Um, yeah, it and it's, and it's ongoing, like, like Liz said, I don't think there's a point where you go done, you know, even like I'm 41 years old now, so I've been out of the church longer than I was in it and it still impacts me, if not daily, every other day, you know it's still there and I think that's remarkable in so many ways and really deeply sad as well. So I don't know if I answered your question there, sam, but that hopefully paints a little bit of a picture of what you asked me.

33:19 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, absolutely, I think it's. It's just about, I think, hearing people's personal stories, because I think too often you know too often you know books are great and theory is great and you know education is great, but we live as human beings and we don't live the way that the books write a lot of the time. And, and so, I think, for people to understand what it is like to start that reconnection journey I hate the word journey. As I said it, I was like, oh, that's a such a gross one. Um, I don't know what to replace that with yet, I haven't worked that out um, ah, let's go with path. Um, I don't know that that's any better.

34:13

Um, but that reconnection experience through life, um, um, I, I think it's. We learn so much more from hearing how other people are living it as well, because, um, you know that shared experience and that connection of going, oh, my gosh, I get that, like I've had that. Yeah, liz, what was that reconnection process, or the beginning of that process, where you started to step into those mind-body exercises and therapies? What was that like for you?

34:55 - Liz (Host)

It was like learning a whole new way of life. To be honest, I remember when we first I think I spoke about it on our previous episode, sam that my husband and I had very different experiences leaving the church. I'd been in church since I was young, very, very little. Like I said, he became a Christian when he was 21. So he had a little bit less exposure than I did, had a bit of religion in his younger years, but not quite as churched as what I had experienced. So our deconstruction paths were very different and took different capacity from both of us to find our own individual ways. So when I don't know how much to say so when we quit church, we were both working for the church. We quit our jobs. We said we were campus pastors. We were like we'll be back in a month, we're going to take a holiday and we're going to be back in a month. In that month holiday we were finally able to feel what we were really feeling. The dissonance got a voice, our feelings got a voice and he's I love my husband for this.

36:03

I'm a very different creature. I'm an enneagram four. I'm a highly sensitive person. I just did an empathy test with my therapist and I'm in the 95th percentile for empathy. So sometimes it's really difficult for me to pinpoint how I feel because I'm so busy picking up everybody else's feelings. He's the complete opposite. He's like this is what's happening, this is how I feel and this is what I'm doing. So he was like on that holiday, I'm not going back ever. You go back if you want to, I'm done.

36:33

And I remember growing up in the church seeing a lot of women who were there without their husbands right, this was a very bit of a stereotypical, you know, lady in the church. And I remember thinking to myself I'm going to be that, that lady going to church without my husband in the church. But when I had that thought, there was like an eight, let's an eight and it wasn't about going to church without my husband in the church. But when I had that thought, there was like an ache and it wasn't about going to church without my husband, it was about going to church. And when he was like I'm not going anymore and we would talk about it, I just noticed this was the first time really I just noticed how much relief flooded through my body and I remember thinking I don't have any fight in me to go to church without him, to have the arguments of how we're spending our time, to want him to come to church with me. I'm like, I'm not interested in any of that.

37:26

And I was completely baffled because I'd grown up a pastor's kid. I was a pastor. I'd given myself my body, my blood, my sweat, my tears, everything to this place for nearly 30 years. And yet the thought of not going, just there was something happening in me that I couldn't name. But I somehow managed to follow that feeling and I often say to Jesse I would never have been able to leave the church if you hadn't had left first.

37:57

And so sometimes I think the journey out, we feel like we have to do it all by ourselves, or it has to be done a certain way, or you're not brave unless you come up with it in your own way. But I guess my little encouragement around that is it's not shameful if there's scaffolding around you, if there's structure around you. If you like, chain your wagon to somebody else's experience that you feel is healthy, that you're aligned with. That's helping you. That's okay to do. It doesn't have to be whiz, bang, miracle, breaking off chains in an instant kind of a process. It's very much, I believe, a uh, what do you call it? Like a following the crumbs, following the hints? Uh, left foot, right foot, next right thing. Not a whole protocol of here I am. This is where I want to be. Let's devise a plan to get there it's very much like a choose your own adventure type situation.

38:56

So that first time that my body was filled with relief, I just tried to follow it as closely as I could. And then, about six months into our deconstruction journey, the Liturgist podcast was first with Michael Gungor and Mike McCarg, and I remember listening to those episodes. It was my husband's birthday, bottle of wine, candles podcast, deconstruction. I've never heard anybody talk about it before and we just sat there crying like babies, uh, feeling like we weren't alone. So, I think, surrounding yourself or trying to find people who are experiencing similar things. It's why these conversations are so important, because it was one of the only ways I found my own way out was connecting with the journey and stories of others, not to follow in their footsteps but to glean their courage and to know that it's okay to follow my own path, it's okay to crawl my way out of this until I can walk, until I can skip and jump and dance and do all of those sorts of things.

39:58 - Sam (Host)

Um, yeah, so that was sort of how it began was trusting that sense of relief in my body yeah, I think you know I will often say to my clients slow is fast, we can't get there immediately yeah right and and when you are like I'm also sort of thinking like when you are taught so heavily to divert everything in terms of like thoughts, beliefs, values, everything to either father, husband, pastor, god, essentially some form of generally male authority. You can't just step out of that and suddenly know how to listen to you and know how to listen to what you want and what you need.

40:45

Most of the time, you don't even know if that's what you wanted or what you like, or whether it's just what you were supposed to like because of the, the picture that you were supposed to fit, um, and so for me, similarly, it was about, you know, diverting to, uh, women particularly. I wanted to start, like, let's start shifting the, the gender alignment to start with, and, and people who, and people who were not telling you what to do in terms of like the church often will teach you what to think, not how to think. And so, like, diverting to people, not for their sense of authority, but just for their sense of how they were experiencing the world. And, you know, I remember quite early on, joy Vetterlein, who was my first guest for the podcast, was that person. And it is about, you know, shifting to people who allow you to crawl on your own, even if you stumble, also, who are teaching, not dictating, and I think that that's a really big difference in terms of that diversion of trust and authority. And, yeah, obviously the ultimate aim is that we, our authority and trust comes from within, but we can't get there immediately like it's.

42:18

You know, I would love to say that, you know, by the end of this episode, we'll have like a 10-step plan for you to to get to that place, but it's just that's not the reality, um, and it doesn't mean that you won't get there, but it means that, um, there is you. I mean, your body will take you as fast or as slow as you need to go. Um, yeah, I think, um, like, in terms of like, I didn't pre-warn Erica about this question, so apologies, but I've just thought in terms of, like, people who are out of the church or who might even still be in it and just wrestling with things, not necessarily feeling like there is, you know, complete alignment, as they usually had. What can people look for within themselves in terms of signs that this is something that they should move towards? Like? How do they know that for themselves?

43:32 - Erica (Host)

Yeah. So how do they know that perhaps where they are isn't serving them? Is that kind?

43:36

of me yeah, yeah, I think it's a lot of what Liz was just talking about in terms of paying attention to the things that you feel in your body, and I think, um, liz, really your example was so perfect because it brings up contrast, right, I have this thought of like well, I could go back to church or I could not go back to church, and each of those will have a feeling associated with it, and so I really like to use those sorts of scenarios to be like well, what if you just get curious? Let's forget about the fact that your brain's going to give you some sort of narrative about what you should do. Let's just see if we can say, like I value your thoughts, let's just pop them to one side for now. Let's turn the volume down on that, and when you say those things to yourself, like you know, I'm going to go back to church or I'm not going to go back to church what do you feel? And you don't have to know what it means, but just describe what the feelings are, right? Oh, I've noticed that there's a tightness in my chest. Okay, we don't need to know what it means yet, but that's interesting. What does your chest feel like when you think about the other alternative. Okay, cool, like that's some really interesting information.

44:48

So I think the thing to be on the lookout for are feelings that you can be curious about, that you can explore within contrast, because the contrast, I think, can help you to have something to essentially compare against right, whereas when we're kind of just thinking like there's one path, there's one path. I've always gone to church, so I'll always go to church. The things that are happening in your body are probably very familiar. They might've already been happening right. There might've already been a constriction every Sunday morning when you woke up and put your clothes on. But if that's how you always feel, then you haven't got anything to compare it to. And I know I went a number of years with really high anxiety and I felt anxious all the time, like I couldn't. There was no waking moment when I wasn't anxious and so it was normal, it was just regular. You know that just was the normal feeling, and so sometimes we have to be willing to do something or think something or just to kind of like, open up a possibility of like what, if? So that we can see what the contrast is.

45:57

So my number one tip I know you didn't ask for a tip, really around that. But my number one tip would be like what if you simply just commit to being more curious? You do not have to make any kind of decisions, you don't have to do anything at all. But what if you can just be curious and be like, well, it's my body. I always like to use that Like what are you okay?

46:18

Let's just imagine for a moment that your body is trying to communicate with you and that it is working for your greater good. Let's just say that that's true and play an experiment. What do you notice then in the way that it communicates with you? The narrative that my body is my enemy, my body's always working against me, my body's just like breaking. And you know, that kind of narrative is what we have to sort of step outside of, and it doesn't happen just because I tell you that your body's working for you. So the curiosity piece is the most important part, because you can just play with the idea what if? I'm willing to just sit with what if? For a moment, because I could always come back and pick up my, my longstanding beliefs. That's fine. So yeah, curiosity, contrast and playing with this notion of what if I think is really powerful and playing with this notion of what, if I think, is really powerful.

47:13 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, I'm going to share the load of unexpected questions and throw one to Liz, because I know that there are going to be people out there listening to what Erica just said and go, yeah, but curiosity is dangerous, right, that's like and fearing the curiosity because of what they've been taught about questions and about the world and and to just essentially fear anything that is not um, that is not of of God immediately. And so, uh, I'm wondering whether you can speak to that fear around curiosity and actually even just getting to the point of even just feeling that there are different sensations in your body and, yeah, that fear that is around that for a lot of people.

48:11 - Liz (Host)

Oh, so many people, myself included. So I completely agree with everything that you said, erica. That's been my experience and I think it can still be really hard. That gateway of curiosity because we're taught so in fundamentalist spaces, whether they're religious, educational, familial fundamentalism, I think is the root problem of a lot of toxic spaces. And fundamentalism is where there is one way, there is one authority figure. Uh, it's really boiled down to a basic you know, authority figure lemmings, you do what you're told, everything works. And I think a lot of religious spaces behave that way now, maybe not for people who just attend, but definitely for people who are involved in running a fundamentalist church of any kind Pentecostal, evangelical, catholic, uniting, anglican, whatever. They can all be places of fundamentalism. So to really engage that curiosity piece, that can often be the hardest wall to break through for people, because we're not taught to question, we're actually taught not to engage critical awareness. I think we spoke about that last time, sam, that critical awareness is a sin because you are exiting the program, the dogma and the doctrine. You can't question that. So to recapture, that critical awareness piece for me was or the curiosity piece for me, and the critical awareness piece for me was probably the hardest part of the work.

49:48

Luckily for me, my work in writing daily Bible devotions really helped me there, because in studying and crafting these pieces I came across a lot of history from Jewish culture and Judaism and how the Bible was originally written and taught. That really broke apart some of the things that I was taught in Pentecostalism, and so the way that Jewish people encounter and engage the Bible is full of curiosity. It is full of questions, and if you're not questioning what a leader has spoken to you or has told you, in a lot of Judaism, jewish circles, they would say that you don't have faith if you're not questioning, which was a real contrast to the way that I was brought up. When I started learning these things, alongside the idea that God is big and mysterious and you can't box God and God is all powerful, which I was also taught but I could never really connect how we couldn't question God like you can't question God because he's so big, but I'm like God is so big that our questions can fit inside the paradigm. So I think that was the first place where my curiosity was like got the tick of approval of my path, my journey, whatever we want to call it now where I went. Actually, this can be a spiritual practice. This can actually be a sign of someone who has faith, whatever kind of not religious faith, not Christian faith, just faith, just the hope, just the idea that there is something out there that I don't know, and my curiosity will connect me to it.

51:32

And then I started realizing that my life was just not working. And so I think when you give yourself space to analyze and ask yourself your questions which having that month off from church was a gift when we first left and maybe that could be a great practical piece of advice is if you can give yourself some space to really sink into these feelings. You don't have to know the answer. It's not about finding answers, it's about digging more into the reality of your situation. And so in that month, we really allowed ourselves to go.

52:08

You know what? Our life isn't working. We've got two little kids. Our life isn't working. We've got two little kids. They're both working 60, 70 hour weeks. Two little kids earning the shittest money that you could imagine. How are we going to make our life work? Like? How is? Where is this going to go?

52:25

We started asking ourselves if we stay on this path, where are we going? Because I think a lot of church religious culture sorry I'm so long-winded is um, it's urgent. You're just, you're living week to week. It's week to week finances. It's week to week schedule. It's week to week. We just have to get through this weekend. We just have to get through this weekend. We just have to get through.

52:52

We really weren't planning for our future at all and so giving ourselves time and space to go and is the path we're on going to get us there. That can often be a really great gateway to being able to engage that curiosity to be able to go. Well, what if? What if one of us quit? What if we both quit? And I want to say too and then I'll be done that, um, quitting didn't happen overnight.

53:24

So I shared the story in the first podcast episode with Sam. When new pastors took over our church and we were still working for the church, we, we gave it two years. We had a conversation with each other, my husband and I let's give it two years and we'll see what happens. So for two years we were like we were on board. We were there every week, we were explaining away all of the things, all of the dissonance. But we were really digging into this for a very long time and then when my husband said I think I'm going to quit, it was still six months until he quit.

53:59

So I loved what you said, sam faster, slow, no, slow, fast. Always do that. Thanks, ray. Slow is fast. In a miracle driven culture and an urgent driven culture it can be really difficult to give yourself faith and time and curiosity cannot live in urgency. So removing yourself from that urgent, I've got to know. Now I've to get my where's the silver bullet that's going to fix everything? No silver bullet, guys, sorry. And I really don't think that the real miracles are the whiz-bang ones. I think the real miracles are being able to stay in that dissonant place. They are being able to find that sense of curiosity in a prescriptive world, like that's a freaking miracle right there.

55:00 - Sam (Host)

So being able to give yourself some space and some time and some permission, that's where that curiosity might be able to begin for you, yeah, yeah, I mean, if, if people have not learned by now also, um, the three of us are not structured people like we just like sit here and chat for like days upon days. Um, I wanna I'm going to sort of merge something that you said a moment ago, liz, with something that I know that Erica does, because I think that the church attracts a particular type of person also, right. So, liz, you mentioned that you're an Enneagram 4, which I also am. I don't know, erica, what Enneagram you are, but I know that you are. Oh you, okay, yeah, okay. So all fours, um, we are in good company.

55:50

Um, the great Dr Laura Anderson, who is known as, like, she's like religious trauma expert, is also Enneagram 4. I feel like we are a nice good company here. But the church attracts a particular type of person which is often the compassionate, the empathic, the like, the giving, the generous. And, erica, I know that you work in particular with the highly sensitive community, which I also am, and so I'm wondering whether you can just speak to for a moment to the people who, like, sometimes listening to your body can be really freaking, overwhelming, like, and everything is like on, like feels, like it's, you know, um, really overwhelming, really high, really intense, um, and and actually tuning in to what your body is saying can be a really jarring experience at times. So I'm wondering whether you can sort of speak to that yeah, absolutely.

57:02 - Erica (Host)

What I want to say to create some context around that, or to to create some hope around that maybe is that, whilst the church perhaps does attract the highly sensitive, um and if not the church, then, yeah, the yoga spaces and and other places where perhaps there are similar vibes, at times it's also the superpower that you possess to get yourself out. So I think it's important to point that out at the start, because sometimes it can feel, I think, when you, especially when you are learning what it means to be highly sensitive, it can feel like a real crutch. You know it can feel like a really unfortunate thing. Unfortunate thing, but it is. It is incredibly powerful, and I personally believe that it was my sensitivity that kind of made me go hang on a minute. This, this isn't right, you know. So I think I just want to create that context, but I guess you're so spot on when you are highly sensitive, when you are empathic and and, and, like Liz said, sometimes it's bloody hard to tell the difference between, like, what is mine and what is yours. Like that can be incredibly difficult. So the thing that I always like to work on with my highly sensitive clients is finding a way to ground, um, and that can be very literal grounding, you know, grounding into where your body connects with whatever you're sitting on or standing on, or it can be a part of your body that has a sense of depth and connection to you.

58:36

Because often the anxiety will live in various places or the worry, or the fear, or the am I, I doing it right? Or the do they like me or are they okay? Can live in certain parts of our body that feel quite all consuming. But if we are curious and we pay attention, we will often find like a little Island where that is just not true. You know it doesn't exist. So for me that's right deep down in my belly and often when I'm stressed out, I will notice that I crunch around it. You know I almost protect that place and so I have to look for it. I have to be willing to go. Oh, I know that place exists and if I can find it then it doesn't actually matter everything else that's going on. I mean it does matter. That's a little bit flippant. It does matter, but I have a refuge from it. You know I can. I can withstand it because I know that it's not all of me, it isn't the only thing that exists, um, but when sort of tuning into your body feels overwhelming, then that's where I would go to like your periphery. You know, where does your bum connect with the chair? Where do do your feet connect with the floor? Can you literally hold your hand on the wall and push on it and, and you know, find something in your peripheral?

59:51

Um, because often being highly sensitive can feel like you're trying to float off into the ether.

59:58

It's sort of this.

:: 00:00

You know, the energy that really is upward, um, and so we need to balance that out with finding a way to like, tether ourselves to the, to the earth, essentially, and tether ourselves to our intuition, to into our knowing, because those things that make it uncomfortable being a highly sensitive person are also the things that make you incredibly good at picking up on bullshit, incredibly good at knowing when not to walk down that alley, incredibly good at knowing when something isn't right for you and when to walk away, um, but often you're also so wrapped up in what will please other people and that will be at odds with what your body's telling you, and so, to be able to anchor, to be able to just go, I don't like, like leah said again like that, to be able to anchor, to be able to just go.

:: 00:45

I don't like, like Liz said again like that, to be patient and go. I don't have to have the answer now, but can I at least ground into something that's real, something that is distinct from the overwhelm? Then we have the space to go. Okay. Well, when I am able to make a decision, at least I'm grounded into something. I'm not being kind of pulled and tugged by my thoughts. Did that?

:: 01:10

answer that question.

:: 01:11

Yeah absolutely, yeah, I love that. And also, like, I think, yeah, high sensitivity gets a bad rap sometimes and, yeah, it can create, you know, challenges, but everything can have challenges accompanied with it. I remember my therapist first put it as that it meant that I had a finely tuned nervous system, and that was language that I understood being like coming from a musical background, like you want a finely tuned instrument, right, like that's the perfect kind of instrument that you want, and so to have a finely tuned nervous system actually means that you know that's not a disservice to your system. That's actually the reason why it can work in such harmony. And, and I agree in that, um, yeah, I, I think your high sensitivity and that empathic nature uh means that you do spot the bullshit and you go, yeah, uh, that does that doesn't, um, feel quite right, um, and uh, you know, I think that that's, um, yeah, the superpower of, of that, uh, sensitivity.

:: 02:39

Um, one of the things that I love people to get out of these podcasts is something that they can take away, whether it's a word of encouragement or, in this case, being um, like a practical tip or a tool in terms of what's something that was really helpful, really healing really effective or just really enjoyable. Also because, like, we can have fun in life and not everything needs to be serious In terms of being able to help you not just listen to your body but reconnect and come back home to your body. So I'll throw to Liz first.

:: 03:23

One of the things that I found really powerful from the get-go was just really simple breathing exercises and it's like what you were saying, erica, finding something that you can ground yourself in, and I started learning about the vagus nerve and the mind-body connection really powerfully through breath, the mind-body connection really powerfully through breath. I think a lot of people, when they start on any kind of healing journey whether they're healing from a physical illness, trauma we want the silver bullet and we want it now and we want it to be some grand, big. You've got this thing and this is the fix. But a lot of the time, time healing journey is just a step by step, breath by breath, moment by moment situation where you're following, you know the crumbs, the hints that are in front of you and so, just starting from that real home base of the breath of this is what I have right now.

:: 04:21

I actually have tattooed on my arm, um, a little thing. It just says here I am because I think for a long time in the church I was always. I'm going to be in heaven one day. I'm doing this to get into heaven. We're gonna one day have this massive church. I'm one day gonna have this huge church career. Uh, what about those sins I committed 10 years ago that actually ground myself in the present moment with my breath, finding your home, my? I listen to this, uh, meditation coach a lot and he uses that word home base and I love what you said, erica, because it sounds like your home base lives in your belly.

:: 04:58

We all have one, we all have a place, and for me it's my breath, feeling my breath going in and out of my chest.

:: 05:05

When I feel like I'm anxiety spiraling, when I don't know what I'm feeling, when I'm not sure what's next, home base, home base, home base I just breathe. One of the other things that I found really powerful, which is taught by a social worker in the US named Nicole Sacks, is stream of consciousness journaling, and so I practice that when I'm feeling particularly overwhelmed, when I'm not really sure what's going on, when my physical symptoms are bouncing around, where you say the things that you feel like you can't say or you don't even know what you want to say, and most horrific things come out in my stream of consciousness journaling, but it's stuff that's in my body, but I obviously feel like I can't get out, because what will people think? Um, no woman speaks like that. Like it's full of the c word, the f word, all the words like, and then it has things in it like I've written.

:: 06:00

I hate being a mom, because there are moments where I hate so I'm whispering as if there are children in the room. But there are moments that that is the truth for me and if I let it live in my body, and ashamed of it, there's power there. So, stream of consciousness, journaling, getting out those thoughts, getting out those feelings, and I just set a timer for 20 minutes on my phone, on my ipad.

:: 06:24

I type like a mad freaking woman and then I delete it because out of my system now it's a ritual out of my system on the page, and then what is on the page may or may not be true, their thoughts, they may or may not be true. We're just going to delete them and we're going to move on. And so, alongside that, is this idea from Rilke sorry, I'm giving you three things that no feeling is final and that has just become such a mantra for my life. No feeling is final. No feeling is final. I'll tear up just thinking about it, because whenever I feel like I'm in a panic or oh my God, everything is ruined, or I'm on the mountaintop and it's always going to be like this, no feeling is final. No feeling is final. Everything evolves, everything moves. It won't always be like this, in good and bad ways like it. That's become a bit of a touchstone for me. So there we go.

:: 07:21

I love that. Yeah, erica, what's been particularly helpful for you?

:: 07:29

I love the examples that Liz shared. Um, I I had written breath down as well, and I think that's a really important one, and I've also found that sometimes people come to me and they're like I can't focus on my breath. It makes me feel which I think is an important thing to consider when we're thinking about somatic practices, anything that is of the body we have to then listen to. Okay, well, how does my body respond? So I like to be able to say, well, have a whole bunch in your toolkit, right, which I love that Liz gave three, because you want to have multiples, because even your go-to sometimes you'll be like, well, this just isn't hitting right, you know. So it's important to have things in your tool belt.

:: 08:07

Um, I would say that, like, a couple of my favorites are literally moving my body, and I want to give a really simple example. So I obviously teach mindful movement and and um, I teach something called somatic exercise, which is really just about it's a little bit more complex than this, but it's really about effort contrasted with ease, and so I like to do things like literally just rolling my shoulders in really slow circles and recognizing what a gift that is to my body. Our bodies thrive on movement. They love it, they need it. It's how information gets from our brain to our sorry, from our body to my body. Our bodies thrive on movement, they love it, they need it. It's how information gets from our brain to sorry, from our body to our brain. It relies on movement, and so something as simple as making your way through the joints of your body and just moving them and noticing well, what does it feel like when I tense that part of me, what does it feel like when I let it go? That's been a practice that is a staple for me, and it feels very nourishing just to do simple things like that.

:: 09:07

So that would be one that I would recommend for sure, because you don't have to turn a video on to do that. You don't have to have any really specific sequence in mind. You can literally just be like even where do I just feel a little bit sore, I'm going to move, that you know. So just very simple, responsive movement in the body, and then I would go back to what I said before grounding. You know, can I feel my? Can I feel the effect of gravity? Essentially Like, can I let myself be held and really practicing. What does it feel like to give permission to the thing that I'm sitting on, standing on, lying on, to really hold me and to trust in the stability of that thing?

:: 09:50

Because so often when we are worried, anxious, sad, we're sort of, like I said, trying to levitate, you know, and the effort of responding to that can feel so upward and so practicing, what does it feel like? Where do I feel pressure? Where is there actually no pressure between my body and this thing that I'm on and where is there something in between so we can start to notice like volumes in our body? Oh, there's a really loud amount of pressure under my left bum cheek sitting on this chair. The pressure under my left bum cheek sitting on this chair, the pressure in my right bum cheek is there, but it's much less right and and then there's space. There's a little bit of space behind you know. So it's kind of like noticing that, the subtleties I think that's a really nice way into to grounding ourselves.

:: 10:39

But then also learning to listen to the information from our body in a slightly more complex way than just, um, it hurts or it feels fine, you know, like kind of being able to listen to the volumes, I think is really um really valuable. So grounding and moving, they're my, they're my two tips.

:: 10:58

I love that and yeah, and I think it's so love the, the way that you describe the grounding, because I think when we use that term, um, I mean I just have like the imagery in my head of, like the sign, like name, five things that you can see and things that you can hear and and, whilst all of like I say that with like sarcasm, but um, like they can be super helpful, but sometimes, like, at some point, grounding can actually be much more than that and can be much more of a whole body experience than that, and and more layered and complex um than just um, noticing your surroundings, um, and what's happening outside of you, grounding into what's happening inside of you.

:: 11:49

So I love the way that you've sort of, you know, explored that and teased it out into becoming a much more expanded concept, probably for a lot of people. Expanded concept, probably for a lot of people. Um, now, I will obviously have all of this in the show notes, but if people want to connect with you, um, where can they find you? I'll throw to Erica first.

:: 12:14

Awesome. Um, so I have a website, ericawebcomau. I'm at ericaweb, underscore selfkind on Instagram, and I have a podcast as well which is called selfkind with Erica Webb. So if you look, if you just search my name, you'll find me. I'm. I've been online long enough that I'm fairly easy to find. So, yeah, I would love you know, come, come and connect, and if you've got questions, I'm, I'm very willing to you know, have a chat as well, and thank you, sam, for having us.

:: 12:47

Thanks, erica. Liz, you can find me at my website. It's called thepracticecocom. I'm at thepracticeco on Instagram but, sam, if you search my name, you'll find me on all the socials and the website. I'd love to see you there. Oh and I should say because I always forget, because I'm terrible I have an app and it's called the Practice Co and you should go subscribe. I'm terrible at marketing my own stuff. It's the best way to support my work and also it's a daily inspirational place to help you find a sense of groundedness and spirituality in your own beautiful ordinary life. So that's where I am.

:: 13:31

And I mean it's wonderful and for those who might be, you know, cautious, because I know that there are people out there who might be, there's no overt biblical jargon or gross language, right, and you know, and as like a taster, you know, just, Liz's newsletters are probably one of my favourite thing. They're just Including the spelling errors. Yes including pointing out the spelling errors.

:: 14:05

I'm a noun for them, um, and and so you know if there is some some caution and and I understand where people have those cautions um, make that your your taster in terms of what to expect. Um, and you know, I think in anything when it comes to healing from religious trauma, I think self-compassion is is at the paramount Um and um. Erica's podcast gives that in spades. So please go out and support these wonderful women and thank you both for joining me. I appreciate it and I'm sure that people have gotten many things out of this bonus episode. So thank you both.

:: 15:01

Oh, it's my joy and privilege. Thanks so much for having us, sam, appreciate it. Yeah, it's my joy and privilege. Thanks so much for having us, sam, appreciate it.

:: 15:08

Yeah, thanks, Sam. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Beyond the Surface. I hope you found today's conversation as insightful and inspiring as I did. If you enjoyed the episode, be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with others who might benefit from these stories. Stay connected with us on social media for updates and more content. I love connecting with all of you. Remember, no matter where you are in your journey, you're not alone. Until next time, keep exploring, keep questioning and keep moving forward. Take care.