Episode 141 - Understanding Religious Trauma Part 1 with Kendra Hill
People-pleasing and codependent tendencies often stem from a religious upbringing. In my own journey of unraveling those behaviors, I’ve had to confront what I was taught to believe about God, obedience, and how “being good” kept me in line. In part one of my conversation with licensed therapist Kendra Hill, we define religious trauma and explore how fear, bypassing, and chronic self-surveillance get wired into us. Here’s what we cover:
Why many women feel terrified to stop people pleasing when religion is involved
How growing up with a fear of divine punishment can shape your nervous system
The difference between religious trauma and religious hurt
How spiritual bypassing teaches us to ignore our emotions
What happens when you’re taught to trust authority instead of trusting yourself
Kendra Hill is a neurodivergent artist, beauty seeker, exvangelical, and believer in people. By profession she is a Licensed Professional Counselor in the State of Colorado and an online coach across the nation with a specific focus on providing space for those who have some kind of religious background, religious trauma, are deconstructing their faith, or come from high control environments. She has recently relocated to New York City but remains passionate about holding space for people's stories - especially the ones it seems like no one else understands. Kendra co-owns a private practice called Unraveling Free Therapy & Coaching and is currently accepting new clients.
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https://unravelingfree.com/resources
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Transcript
Sara Bybee Fisk 00:57
One of the things that I have bumped up against as I have unraveled my behavior from people-pleasing and codependent tendencies is my religious upbringing, what I was taught to believe, what I was taught to believe about God and how he looks at me and how I'm supposed to please him by being obedient. There has been a lot there for me, and maybe there is for you too. I hear a lot from women who grew up in religious congregations, sometimes very conservative like mine, and how scary it is to not please people anymore, especially when God is involved. My conversation with Kendra Hill on religious trauma speaks directly to that. We define it, we talk about what it is, what it isn't, and how to begin to unravel it with love. Kendra is a licensed therapist, she is neurodivergent, she is a beauty seeker and an ex evangelical herself, and she really believes deeply in people. I think you're going to love this conversation, part one and part two will be available soon. I am here with Kendra Hill, and Kendra, we are not complete and total strangers, but I found you online. When I was researching religious trauma, it's something that I've been wanting to have a conversation about with someone for some time, and I read through a lot of your materials on your website, and I feel like if we lived closer, we might be best friends.
Kendra Hill 02:29
Aww. I wish we could find out. I wish we could find out. We can be online best friends. That's okay.
Sara Bybee Fisk 02:35
That's right. But one of the things that I appreciated about you is before we even started recording, and I'm just going to say this because if I don't, I'll forget.I'm going to have you introduce yourself in just a second. There are a couple of things we wanted to do and a couple of things we don't want to do. And one of the things we don't want to do is come to this podcast as some kind of healed, refined, perfect versions of ourselves. We are both still very much in the things that happened. And so I just, I wanted to start by acknowledging that for myself and my appreciation for you in being here.
Kendra Hill 03:13
Yeah, thanks for acknowledging that. I think it's so important.Yeah, I think sometimes there can be this assumption even for therapists that because we're therapists or coaches or because we help guide people that we have it all figured out and we really don't. We have some skills. We have, you know, we have some ability to walk with people, but yeah, very much still human. Okay.
Sara Bybee Fisk 03:40
much. What would you want people listening to know about you, what you do, how you came to that work?
Kendra Hill 03:50
What I would love for people to know is what I do professionally is I am a therapist. I'm a licensed professional counselor in the state of Colorado. I currently live in New York City, but still see people online. And as a coach, I see people across the nation. But really, one of my specialties is helping people who have experienced some type of religious trauma, religious harm, who are going through a faith shift, a faith deconstruction, deconversion, and also people who just come from high control environments in general.So I didn't necessarily grow up in a super fundamentalist environment. I did grow up kind of culturally Christian. And my parents took us to church on Sundays, but it was really more of a moral act than a devout Christian habit. And so it wasn't really until college that I really got into Christianity and joined a campus ministry. And oh man, I like soaked it up like a sponge, but I needed it. So I was at a place in my life where I needed that kind of structure. I needed to feel like I belonged somewhere. I needed to feel like I had some kind of family. And so it was just kind of like, Oh, here it is. Here's my answer. And had some really great experiences there. And then, you know, on the flip side of that had some more damaging experiences. But fast forward to, you know, I had some of my own kind of church trauma. And then I went to seminary for my counseling degree. And there's this joke that people call it cemetery instead of seminary, because a lot of people start deconstructing and questioning things when they go to seminary. So that was the case for me. And I had questioned some things all along, but it was really when I started really learning about mental health, and really like how people change and heal, that I started seeing all of the incongruencies in what I was learning and what I was seeing in my church. And I noticed that a lot of what I was seeing in my church was just a lot of like shame based motivating people to change and fear, fear based motivation. And it just really contradicted what I was learning about how people thrive. And there was a lot more to it. That went into kind of the questions I was asking, but it started there. And then I ended up working at a Christian group practice for a couple of years when I graduated. And I'm so glad for that opportunity, because as I was still deconstructing my own faith, I was sitting with people who really needed a space to do that they were coming for Christian counseling. But what I was finding is that people, like person after person that I sat with had these stories of how certain things had been twisted or certain, you know, their emotions had been really bypassed because of spiritual concepts. Just like person after person, they just shared these things in common. And it really made me want to focus on that and give people a space where they could explore how they've been hurt by religion, how they've been hurt by church, how they've been hurt by belief systems, all of that. And so that's what led me to where I am.
Sara Bybee Fisk 07:54
Amazing. I would love to start by just defining some terms.When you talk about religious trauma, is that the same as religious hurt? Is it different? How would you either differentiate those two terms or are they the same?
Kendra Hill 08:15
It's a great question. I would say they are different, and I use both for a very specific reason, because often when people actually have religious trauma, they wouldn't name that they have religious trauma. And so it's a little more accessible to say I have religious harm or religious hurt, even if it could be considered trauma. I just like to have the option for people to, if one is more accessible.But here's how I would differentiate them. Religious trauma is a form of trauma. And so what trauma is, is basically it's not what you experience. It's not what happened, but it's how your nervous system responds to what has happened. And everybody has a different nervous system, and so everybody has a different response. So one person may experience something, and it shows up in their body as trauma in the aftermath. Another person might experience the same thing, and they don't end up carrying trauma as a result of that. So basically, trauma happens when something is so overwhelming that your nervous system can't cope with it. And then there gets to be this stuck energy inside. With religious trauma, it really just means that the harm happened in some kind of religious context. So religion was weaponized against somebody. A pastor or a church member was the cause of harm. The system, the church system, was the cause of harm. Thank you.
Sara Bybee Fisk 10:05
Okay, I want to add a couple things to that, and I want you to just tell me, I think we're talking about the same thing. So I remember being terrified of doing something that might get me punished by God. And that for me was a deeply unsettling, like I couldn't make it make sense. So sometimes God punishes you because you're bad, but he doesn't punish all the bad people.And sometimes you get punished even when you're good, just kind of accidentally, it just seemed like in I don't even have a real frame of reference for the age at which I began to feel that like, kind of like whack-a-mole existence of like, wow, this, I could get punished if I inadvertently do something wrong. So I have to try really hard to never do something wrong. But sometimes good people get punished anyway, and sometimes bad people don't even get punished in that just kind of the unsettling feeling that kind of always lived in my body below the surface. So that would be an example of trauma that comes from religious teachings. Yeah.
Kendra Hill 11:16
Yes, it's a great example, actually. And I think it leads to something else that's important here is that, you know, trauma can happen from like a single incident. So that's where we get the term PTSD a lot of times.But when we talk about religious trauma, it's often something called complex trauma. And complex trauma is a pattern of behavior over time or a pattern of harm that happens over time. It's often harder to see, harder to talk about, harder to identify. So people who grew up in abusive households might develop complex trauma. It's often relational. And, yeah, that's a great example of, it's not like you can pinpoint one thing that happened that made you afraid. It was just the teachings themselves over time, and how you interacted with them and probably your brain as it was developing, not being able to hold the nuances of like, what does it mean that I'm going to go to hell if I punched it, right? As a child, it's just like, that's so scary. You can't make sense of it.
Sara Bybee Fisk 12:39
can't make sense of it. And then you don't have a loving adult who's like, wait, wait, wait, wait, let me help you understand these big feelings you're having.Let me put this into context that matters for where you are developmentally, just kind of being left alone with this idea of a god who both loved me, but also needed to be paid off because I was going to sin and do things wrong. And Jesus had to die so that God could be paid off and be convinced to love me and let me come live with him again. It was a pervasive just fear. And I can actually feel it again in my body right now as we're talking about it. And I can hold it with some kind of detachment and love at this point, but it was really pervasive. And so if you're listening and feeling some of that fear first of all, I'm sorry. And second of all, that is so common to have these pervasive fears, anxieties, terror even that come from the way we were taught that God was watching us, evaluating us, whether we're good enough, worthy enough, and so normal. And then you kind of pair, at least in a lot of Christian religions, especially the one I grew up in, in particular Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Mormons, the practice of punishing people who were not obeying the rules. Sometimes that punishment was very public, and sometimes it was less public. But when you kind of line up the landmines, like first of all, I have to be so good so that God loves me. And if I'm not, He might punish me, but I'm definitely going to get punished by my congregation, or there's going to be some kind of consequence, even if that's, I'm not allowed to participate in certain things. Another type of traumatic event can be punishment, or withholding, or being separated, or singled out, or deemed not worthy or not good. I'm interested in your thoughts about that.
Kendra Hill 15:00
Yeah, I agree with that. And I think with trauma, if it ends up showing up, then it's often in the form of I'm not safe, other people aren't safe, the world isn't safe.And then with, you know, this added layer of religion, God's not safe.
Sara Bybee Fisk 15:27
Yeah, this God that I'm supposed to love and trust is actually not safe. And that creates just such a disconnect, like how do you reconcile that God's ways are not my ways. God's ways are higher than my ways. I think that kind of was the line that I was handed a lot, like, Sara, you're just not meant to understand everything.And that kind of gets into the second thing I wanted to find, which is bypassing. Because I think bypassing is used to kind of wallpaper over a lot of those traumatic events. And so how would you define bypassing?
Kendra Hill 16:07
Yeah, I think you're right. I think bypassing really is kind of any strategy to avoid actually feeling emotions or actually being with an experience that you're having. So an example I hear a lot is, you know, that if somebody is feeling anxious and they're told, well, do not be anxious about anything. Just pray about it. Just pray about it. Or have more faith. Or if somebody loses someone, well, they're with Jesus now, right? And no matter how well intentioned those comments are from other people, it really does take somebody away from what they really need to feel in order to move through whatever it is that they're experiencing.And so then what happens is you just push it down, right? And you receive this message of like, okay, well, if I feel something that's not acceptable, so I need to figure out how to just bypass it myself, right? I'm going to internalize that and go, well, clearly this isn't allowed. And so what do I do with it? I got to find a way to not address it. And then it just like builds and builds and builds.
Sara Bybee Fisk 17:29
This isn't allowed. Yes.Or I'm bad for feeling this. Like nobody else is feeling this. Everybody else, you know, somebody dies and I get the explanation. Well, God needed them in heaven and everybody else seems to be fine with it. Why am I not fine with it? It must be that my experience is somehow bad or I'm bad for feeling this.
Kendra Hill 17:54
Oh my gosh. You're saying so much there, Sara. Like you keep coming back to this concept of loneliness and isolation in this context. And it's so true.And that's actually part of what causes trauma to be embedded in our nervous systems is when we feel really alone in the midst of something overwhelming. And I'm hearing that from you over and over again, like, these things are overwhelming. And yet nobody else seems to be feeling this way. Nobody else seems to understand. Nobody is there to like help me through it. And on top of that, you're wrong for feeling that way.
Sara Bybee Fisk 18:32
And the antidote for feeling bad and wrong is to double down, to believe harder, to read the Bible or scriptures more, to pray more, to trust more, to believe your leaders more. And that that is the way that you will overcome all these feelings that you're not supposed to be feeling.And you will become not only just a better follower of the religious canon or a better whatever, a better Muslim, a better Christian, a better Baptist, a better whatever. But that by doubling down, I did this for so many years. I would feel anxious. I would feel alone. I would feel isolated. I would feel like literally the sentence in my head was like, there's no way I'm good enough. Like with everything that God expects, I was having dinner with some friends. This has many years ago, some Mormon friends. And we were playing kind of a question game. And the question was, if you could be in a room with any historical figure and ask them any question, what would it be? You know, very typical dinner party question. And people are like, Abraham Lincoln, you know, how did it feel to write the Emancipation Proclamation or give the Gettysburg Address or other people? And I said with like so earnestly and so sincerely, like, I want to talk to Jesus. And the question I would ask him is, is it enough? Did I do enough? And I'm even feeling some emotion of that question right now, not because I currently feel it, but because I remember what it was like to carry the weight of that question every single day. Is it enough? Am I doing enough? And never, I don't think I ever was able to have like a real solid yes. I think I felt better about it some days than others. But that's what kept me kind of in this try and try and try and try loop. And I wonder if that is something that you, you know, have any thoughts about that you wouldn't mind sharing.
Kendra Hill 20:48
Yeah. Well, I appreciate you going there. I think a lot of people know what that's like. You've been in these kinds of environments.Yeah, I even remember I worked for my campus ministry after I graduated from college, and the very first kind of training had like a week of training. And the very first training I went to, I remember afterwards feeling that, like they were talking about, I don't know, like qualities that leaders need to have in this ministry. And afterwards, I went up to the presenter and I said, I don't think I should be doing this. There's no way that I'm good enough to do this. No way. And I remember being told, like something like that, that's normal. Like it's, you know, a lot of people feel that way, but it was so confusing. Right. And so I think part of that is that you get really like contradictory messages where on one hand you're told, well, you're not good enough. And that's what this is about. You need a savior because you're not good enough. And so you don't have getting these messages over and over and over again, that you need to be this, this, this, this to please God, to be a good Christian, to be in God's will. It's so confusing.
Sara Bybee Fisk 22:25
So confusing. And your brain has to hold these very contradictory ideas and somehow make sense of it. And you look around and in my congregations, a lot of people seem to be doing that with no sweat, right? And it didn't seem to be bothering them a lot.And so that's what created a lot of the lonely feeling for me was like, I'm the only one who is struggling to make sense of this. And I just wonder if people are listening and they have grown up in religious organizations that they have some religious hurt or harm, or they can even identify some things that feel like what you and I have been describing, how might it be showing up in their lives in ways that might not be really super obvious to them.
Kendra Hill 23:23
That's a great question. So we get this question a lot.What does this actually look like? How do I know if I have religious trauma? And there's actually a blog post on our website with that title. Do I have religious trauma or something like that? It shows up different for everyone. You know, an interesting thought I was just having about this is if you have religious trauma, it's probably going to be really hard to identify that you have religious trauma. Because part of it is that you can't trust yourself. So going back to that idea that trauma kind of instills this sense in you that you're not safe, the world's not safe, other people aren't safe, God's not safe. But especially when you have been conditioned with the spiritual bypassing that we're talking about, that means that you haven't had the chance to really understand your own experiences or your own emotions, which emotions are information. They give us information about what's wrong and what we need. So if we're taught to ignore those things, and then you pile on purity culture, that your body is bad or don't trust your body, don't feel things in your body, right? It's going to be really hard to be connected enough to yourself to go, I think I have religious trauma.
Sara Bybee Fisk 24:59
Yeah.
Kendra Hill 25:01
So at first it might show up as like something just feels really wrong, right? Like, but there might be a lot of conflict. I shouldn't be feeling this way.I shouldn't be feeling this way. There's nothing wrong. There's nothing that should make me feel this way right now. So if there's that, even that kind of struggle, that might be an indicator that like, there's something to pay attention to that's trying to come to the surface.
Sara Bybee Fisk 25:30
It just strikes me as so fucking convenient that one of the things that is possible to be taught inside of religious communities is you can't trust yourself, but you can trust the leaders. Don't trust yourself. Trust me. I know how to guard you. We know better, right? And in my experience in Mormon land, it was all old white men who knew what was better for me. And that is very convenient.You can't be believed and you should believe me. And then the second thing that your comment brought up for me is you are trustworthy as long as your experiences line up with what the church teaches. But if you have any feelings or inklings or receive any ideas that don't line up with what the church teaches, then you're wrong. So fucking convenient and such a catch-22, right?Because there's no clarity that I can rely on that comes from me. So I might as well just not believe myself and just believe authorities and leaders outside of me.
Kendra Hill 26:48
Yeah. And that's something I see a lot when I sit with people. And something I really like I work hard to reduce my authority, or even like how people sense that I have authority, because a lot of people who have religious trauma are coming from these environments have an external sense of authority. So it comes from outside of me, not inside of me. And so I have to be really careful with that because of course that would be transferred to me as a therapist or as an expert, right, of some kind. And I don't want that.I really want to help people recognize that, oh my gosh, what if authority doesn't have to just be outside of you? What if you actually can trust yourself?Well, thank you so much.
Sara Bybee Fisk 27:46
that I really struggled with that idea of having authority in and of myself. It was really something that took me a long time.I felt very disconnected from my ability to know that something was right for me. Like, how do you know something is right? If somebody outside of you doesn't tell you. It was really difficult for me to even look around at other people who seemed to have skills and abilities that I wanted and know, is it okay to become that? Is it okay, for example, in my Christian tradition, feminism was not something that was okay. Is it okay to want that? What if I feel this wanting of some of those ideas and of that worldview, but I will be judged for it? It just all felt really tangled up and hard to decipher even my wants. Well, from what I was told, I should want.
Kendra Hill 28:47
Mm-hmm. Oh my gosh.Yeah, there's like this constant surveillance of yourself. Yes. So you can't just, you can't just be, you can't just be feeling what you're feeling or experiencing what you're experiencing. It's always these layers of, well, but should I be feeling that or experiencing that or is that okay to feel an experience and, oh, it's exhausting.
