The Power of the "&"
First in a series of Sunday posts that aren't about religion.
Last week during a conversation with a ministry leader who had read Trauma in the Pews and was now reading my first book, Brave: A Personal Story of Healing Childhood Trauma. Like most who only know me through reading Trauma in the Pews, she was completely surprised by Brave. In a good way. The difference between the two books caught her off guard.
If you were to hide my name on all four of my books, only the third one gives a clue that I am the author of all of them. I am consistent in what I say in all four, but you cannot even begin to understand me without reading Brave. Hotel Candelabra took my storytelling to another level! I am an author with many styles and topics. I also am one of the most vulnerable survivors you would ever want to meet. You have to read Brave to understand how very true that is.
I have worked hard to break out of the typecasting of myself as a survivor memoir author. Yes, I am that, but my story doesn’t define me as an author. That is where the ampersand comes in. I am an author, & an educator, & a survivor of both childhood & religious trauma, & a ministry leader, & a wife, & mother, & grandma.
In another conversation last week, I realized that my life as an author with so many “&”s means that I likely have followers who began following because of my Religious Trauma series and are probably triggered (dysregulated) by the Trauma in the Pews 2.0 posts. Other followers are here because I offer outside-of-the-box approaches to spirituality with those posts. Then, other followers began following me because of BRAVE and may or may not be interested in the religious posts.
Please know that I am all of the above descriptions to some degree. In fact, during the ten-year healing process, I have spent time with each of them. And I could have camped there and been satisfied. I did not even mention God until the very end of BRAVE except to describe the therapy session where I expressed that God had never protected me. I am still on this journey in many ways and do not prescribe any particular path to healing beyond it being trauma-based.
I have learned that it is possible to:
Be very angry with God & recognize that I am being pursued by God’s love at the same time.
Step away from church & develop a robust set of spiritual practices that align with and complement my healing from the impact of trauma.
Live a life full of healing & recognize that the impact of trauma will always be with me.
Write about healing that involves no spiritual aspect & write about how my spiritual journey has been part of my healing.
Write about religious trauma & trauma-sensitive spiritual practices on the same Substack.
I said this would be a Sunday post that wasn’t about religion, but my plan required an introduction. Why would I choose to do non-religious posts on Sunday? Because healing was hard, especially healing from the scope of my religious trauma, and I needed a space to breathe on Sundays.
So, know that if you need to breathe on Sunday, I will be here for you with content meant for breathing deeply—most often with the help of nature.
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I am so excited about this series... I have often said that there are two sides to everything. And that there is no such thing as black and white. If I have any effect from religion done wrong, it is the teaching that things are black and white, that behaviors are a sign of whether you are "good" or accepted by God, that saying a prayer will "take it all away". Thank you Janyne!! I need room to breathe too.
This is where I am tonight—needing to breathe. Thank you.