spiritual abuse
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The way I see it is, we can use life’s challenges to make us soft or we can use them to make us hard. I think the world’s tendency is toward hardness. We’re given the impression that hardness equals protection, equals safety, equals “smart.” This makes sense in a lot of ways. The tortoise retreats
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[This is the second in a three-part series. I recommend that you read Part 1 first.] Work Days in the Life: I first came to work at the pet store in June of 2017. It was Keefy himself who suggested the idea. The store was owned by three of my friends (a husband, wife and
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If you’re wondering what it’s like to be in a high control group or relationship, the first thing to know is that words cannot actually give the experience. It is an all-consuming way of life that impacts your being on every single level: physical, emotional, psychological, spiritual and physiological – all at the same time,
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When my sister reached out to me in an email in late Fall of 2020, my heart quickened in my chest. Once every year or two, she would throw out some little message or feeler. For the last decade, I had rarely responded, and the few times I did, the exchange was brief. It had
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I half-stood, half-slumped in the middle of his office, sobbing in his arms. He’d stood up in the midst of my confession, spreading his arms wide in an invitation to embrace. With great hesitance, weighed down by shame, I pulled myself up off the couch to meet his invitation with proper response. As soon as
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It’s been over 40 years now in my search for safety. I can quite honestly say I have searched everywhere I know to look, both high and low. I have looked for it in parents, family, the religion of my youth; I have looked for it in education, career choices, various communities, and in money;
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When I met the life coach, who would ultimately claim to be my “teacher,” in 2008, he offered me spiritual and metaphysical answers for every confusion, every fear, every doubt and every hurt I had ever experienced. He told me grand stories of his life and all the trials he had traversed. I learned that
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Between the ages of 9 and 18, I saw so many unusual things, interacted with people from almost every walk of life and coped with innumerable harrowing situations. Like the time my family was doing a Sunday morning outreach at the homeless shelter in downtown Savannah, right after we moved there… I was 13 years
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[In writing this series, I quickly discovered that this issue is at the very heart of how and why I ended up in the positions, and the relationships, of my adulthood. In my attempt to unravel, understand and accept how all of it happened, Safety is a primary key.] In the Beginning… All I wanted
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A glimpse into the early days and conditions of my evangelical indoctrination.
The Journey 