On a recent episode of my new podcast, Survivors Discuss, I mentioned something about my own psychology that had plagued me for years: the inability to trust my own intuition. No matter what the topic or issue at hand was, if someone had an opinion other than mine, I would immediately dismiss my own thoughts as wrong and conclude that this other person had to be right.

I was so disconnected from my own body and my own intuition that I had lost the ability to trust myself, even on matters that I had studied well, such as theology (a topic that I’ve been passionate about for as long as I can remember).

I believed deeply in knowing my own role in the grand scheme of things. As a child, my role was to submit to my parents as my authority. As a Christian, my role was to submit to my pastor/teachers as my authorities on how to understand the Bible and live my life as a believer. As a woman, my role was to submit first to my father and then to my husband.

At no point was I allowed to follow my own path in life. I was actively taught that, should I disagree with my God-ordained authority figures, that was the start of a slippery slope right into the pit of Hell. I was merely a child, or merely a woman, and as such I was not qualified to hear God for myself or to make my own choices.

This accomplished the goal of making me a submissive and compliant person. I was sufficiently frightened enough of breaking away from what I was told was Biblical truth and orthodoxy that I studied and adopted others thoughts and beliefs as my own. I did not have the ability to disagree with something that already had the stamp of approval from my authority figures, because that was the same as inviting heresy into my soul which, if left unchecked, could lead to damnation.

Learning to let go of the need to be right about everything has been hard. Learning to trust my own instincts has been hard. Learning that the stakes actually aren’t as high as I’d been taught from childhood has been hard and, at times, terrifying.

It is a disorienting experience to learn how to make your own choices

But I did slowly learn that I can do this work.

It started when I moved out of my parents home for the first time. I left home at 28, which was later in life than most people. I’d stayed for so long due to a number of reasons such as bad health and low income that made it difficult. I’d also had conversations with my father a few times over the years that left me feeling unable to care for myself adequately if I did make the choice to leave. In the end, I did make that choice but only after I sought out my parents approval (which I really thought of as permission at the time. If they told me no, I wasn’t going to leave).

Later on when I started to see things that bothered me with my church, I felt like it was time to leave. No one but me could have made that call, and I decided that I needed to find a more God-honouring space. This led to me losing my entire local support system, but I did it anyway.

The biggest test of my intuition would come with my now husband. He had deconstructed entirely out of Christianity by the time we became good friends. I knew that dating him was super high up on the list of “no-nos” I had been ingrained with for my entire life. Dating a nonChristian was choosing to be unequally yoked, and therefore living in direct rebellion against the will of God.

(Never mind that he was far more my equal than any Christian man I had like before him. Never mind that his values were more Christlike than a lot of the values I saw within my own Christian community. Never mind that he treated me like a full human being, whereas so many of the Christian men I knew saw me as a thing, a child, to be managed and handled)

There were, of course, many other choices I made over the years that I made because my intuition told me they were wiser and better choices than the ones my Evangelical upbringing had trained me to make.

Slowly, I learned to trust myself

Since I’ve left home and evangelicalism, I’ve slowly been rewiring my brain to be able to trust myself as someone who is wise enough to make her own choices.

This means buying clothes that feel good on my body, not just clothes that I’m expected to wear. Learning to feel connected to that feeling when I slip into something that makes me feel genuinely good about myself has been a big part of learning to trust myself.

Trying new foods that I’ve never tried before. Buying new brands of toothpaste or reading books that were previously off-limits to me as educational tools, were also low-stakes choices for me to make to help me learn that I can make my own decisions and the world doesn’t end.

Choosing to get married and move to another country. Choosing to go to therapy. These were big choices, and obviously high-stakes involved for the level of risk that they might carry, but making those choices anyway and realizing that I was not just okay in the end but also happy and thriving, were also helpful in learning that I am an adult and I am fully capable of choosing my own path in life.

Hard Days Are Not Indicative Of Bad Choices

Like anyone else, I have bad days. Healing from trauma and grieving the loss of important people in my life can also mean that sometimes I have days that I really just struggle to get out of bed or days where I eat my feelings (or, if I’m in a particularly bad stretch I might even forget to eat at all).

My religious upbringing might tempt me into thinking that if I had just stuck to the straight and narrow road I’d been trained to, maybe today I wouldn’t hurt at all. But let me tell you a secret: that’s nothing more than wishful thinking.

The truth is that I left my evangelical world behind because it wasn’t healthy or good for me. The relationships I had in that world all came with an agenda that insisted upon me remaining in my pre-ordained role as the good, submissive, and compliant girl. As someone who longed to embrace her independent nature, that was a disaster waiting to happen.

The truth is that I was very unhappy having to fulfill a role I agreed to only because it was the one option in life I was given, but something in my soul knew it wasn’t for me anyway. The more they tried to box me in, the more unhappy I became.

I’m sure if I had stayed, I would have ended up in a marriage with someone who saw me as his helper, not his equal partner. I would have had babies that I was not emotionally or mentally ready to care for, let alone guide them to become thriving adults. Cycles of unhappiness, and even abuse, would have been passed along to my future babies.

Becoming that person who breaks cycles and chooses healthier ways of living, comes with its own share of pain and grief. But it also allows for new levels of happiness that I never even knew existed.

Life goes on

I still struggle with decision-making and trusting my intuition. I think I probably always will to some degree because I learned another secret no one ever told me: adults don’t always have all the answers. We can be confused about next steps sometimes too.

Add normal human confusion to a traumatic history that robbed me of the chance to learn how to make choices for myself at developmentally appropriate moments, and it’s only natural to struggle in this area.

But I still show up in my own life, rather than allow others to make choices for me. As an example, a very recent choice for me was to stop attending church all together.

It was a surprise to me, honestly, earlier this year when I did a check-in with my body about church involvement. I actually found a church where the community seemed to be rather healthy and committed to nurturing emotional and spiritual health in their congregants. I did try for a couple of years to get involved and form community there, but I never felt at ease.

Then, while checking in with my body, it suddenly clicked for me why I could never feel relaxed, even in a healthy church community.

Much of the trauma I’ve survived, if not all of it, has been connected to church in some way. Even the unhealthy dynamics in my family of origin found its roots in some sort of religious ground. People of faith had never really been safe for me, and my nervous system has learned that it cannot relax in that environment.

So I decided to be kind of myself and my nervous system and I made the conscious choice to stop trying to force myself to find community in a church. Maybe one day in the future, I’ll feel safe enough to go again, but that day is not now, and I deserve to rest from it all.

So, following my intuition’s lead, I’m done with church.

If other people feel safe in their church, I love that for them and I support them wholeheartedly. But my intuition has made it clear to me that the right choice for me is to stay away for now. And so I will honor my intuition’s voice.

A successful Life Is not Governed by formulas

Unhealthy religion loves its formulas.

“Live by these rules and you’ll be happy.”

“Believe the right things and God will bless you.”

“Live the lifestyle we tell you that God wants, and you’ll be safe.”

That’s not how life works thought. Success cannot be won through following formulas or teachers. Life is life is life – it’s beautiful and painful, and lovely, and messy no matter what choices we make in this life. And no one has the formula to avoid the painful and messy bits. If someone tells you that their formula can do this for you: they’re lying.

There are many churches or church leaders who sell themselves as discerning individuals who understand the will of God due to their close relationship with Him and/or through their study of the Bible and they promise to share their wisdom with you so that you can experience the full blessings of God and church.

And this is one way that we lose our ability to trust our own intuitions and make choices for ourselves. we learn to internalize that we need external guidance:

Following the formula is how we stay safe and happy and saved. Following our own path is how we end up damned in hell.

If someone tells you that they know how to live a life pleasing to God and they can teach you the steps: run.

If they try to tell you that they can guide you into the path of righteousness and safety from the dangerous outside world: run.

God gave you a mind of your own. He gave you the ability to reason and make good choices for your own life. If anyone teaches that you are incapable because you’re a woman or because you’re not as strong in your faith as them: they are a con artist and they cannot give you what they promise.

You got this. You are fully capable. Believe in yourself and the brain that God gave you.