How Breaking Up With Religion Healed My Relationship With Myself And God

What if the very thing you were taught would bring you closer to God… actually kept you disconnected from yourself?

This episode of The Femme Cast is raw, unfiltered, and completely off-script. We’re talking about the quiet rebellion so many women feel—but are afraid to admit: outgrowing organized religion, questioning what you were taught, and reclaiming your relationship with the divine on your own terms.

Not from rebellion… but from truth.

Because for me? Breaking up with religion didn’t distance me from God—it brought me home.

We go deep into the emotional alchemy of unraveling shame, releasing fear-based narratives, and healing the parts of you that were taught your intuition, your voice, your power… were wrong.

We’ll explore:

🎤 Why “the kingdom of God is within you” changes everything
🎤 How religion can create disconnection, over-performance, and fear of being seen
🎤 Reclaiming intuition, healing gifts, and self-trust without guilt
🎤 Rewriting the stories of Jesus + Mary Magdalene as mirrors—not idols
🎤 The truth about power, control, and who benefits from your disempowerment
🎤 How to build a direct, embodied relationship with the divine (no middleman required)

This isn’t about tearing anything down.
It’s about rising into your sovereignty.

If you’ve ever felt the tension between your ambition, your spirituality, and your desire to make an impact—this conversation will activate something in you.

Because the most unapologetic woman?
She doesn’t ask for permission to be powerful. She remembers she already is.

Transcript

Why I Left Organized Religion

God Within Vs Institution

Early Discomfort With Church Ritual

Dress Codes, Purity, And Shame

The Verse That Changed Everything

Prayer, Intention, And Meditation

Journaling And Intuition Awaken

Gifts, Guilt, And Demonization

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Hey guys, what is up? Welcome back to the show. We are going completely rogue and off the cuff today. I had another episode planned to record. I've decided after recording the last episode, and something kind of came up. I'm just gonna kind of put that episode on hold for a second because I wanted to really talk to you about something that's really important, that's been really important to me and my spiritual development and my journey, both in the work that I do and just as a just as a human in general. And it's definitely something that I think is important in the moment that we're in right now, the moment that we find ourselves in right now. And that is how breaking up with religion for me was probably one of the most profound things I ever did for myself, and how it actually helped me to heal my relationship with myself, with my life, and with God. Because in breaking up with religion, I was really able to connect with a God within me, which, you know, depending on your background and and what religion you belong to, I think there's varying degrees, but I think it's safe to say that all religions, regardless of what you believe in or where you come from, aim to come between you and God in that relationship. Right? They they try, and this is just my listen, you can click off if this is not for you, okay? If this is not for you and this is not, nope, not available for this, not ready for this, whatever, click off. But if there's a part of you that's been feeling like something that you've been told is wrong, that something that you've been told has been a lie, that the people that you've put your trust and your faith into, you're starting to realize now, did I do the right thing by putting my trust and faith into those people or those texts or those religions? Then this is for you. Okay. Because I can tell you right now, and this again, this from what I've seen, all religions, doesn't matter what you call it, where it's from, what book they read, what text they refer to, old version, new version, doesn't matter. Okay. At the end of the day, all religion does is try and insert itself between you and God, creator, source, universe, whatever you want, whatever name you want to give it. It tries to insert itself between you and the creator and be the middleman and make you feel like you need it in order to connect to God. And that is, I think, the biggest lie that we've ever been told because God is within, I believe. I believe God is within. And when we can connect with and heal the relationship with ourselves, we also connect with and heal the relationship with our creator because the creator is within. And everything that we've been given, everything that we were experiencing in this life, everything that we're moving through, everything that we feel, everything that comes through us, it's all coming from divine source. This was not something I was able to lean into as long as I was still keeping an energetic cord with the religion that I was brought into in this life. And that was a really hard thing for me to say out loud. And it took me a long time to say that out loud because there's a lot of guilt and shame wrapped up in that. Or at least there was. So for me, for those of you who don't know, my background is Greek Orthodox. And I can remember, you know, going to church growing up and having this extreme love for God. And I can remember, you know, going to church and feeling all this love for God and you know, if you're practicing Christian, you know, for Jesus, for for the Virgin Mary. I I even remember having so much love for Mary Magdalene, even though in my religion she was prostitute, right? Or so they say. That I'm learning is not at all the case. But anyway, that's what my religion taught us, right? Mother Mary was a virgin who gave birth to baby Jesus. He grew up and, you know, found his disciples at 33, met this prostitute who was being stoned, Mary Magdalene, and forgave her for her sins. And so she repented her sins and followed in Jesus' ways and helped spread his word. I I don't believe, and here's the thing, I don't believe any about what I've learned to be what I what I believe, how do I put this? I believe that there a lot of the stories in the Bible are based on true, like are based on true like events, right? But I believe the stories have been altered. I believe some have been left out. I believe other things have been added in. So I don't believe that the text that we read today and the stories that we're told today in church are the real thing. I believe that they've been twisted and translated a billion times through, you know, this political slash patriarchal lens as a way to become just another another form of control manipulation giving our our power, our sovereignty over to another institution, another patriarchal institution to have control and authority over us. And so, you know, growing up, I can remember having so much love for God, so much love for every, you know, ever all the names that we hear of, you know, in the Bible and the stories and everything. But I can remember having a discomfort with the church. I can remember having a discomfort with the church. I can remember having an extreme discomfort with all of the ornaments, the the the ritual, the just the ornateness of everything. I I had an issue with. I had an issue with the attitude people brought into church, and the and it was it it just it just left a really bad taste in my mouth. And I can remember like oftentimes questioning, you know, if it's a church and they want to do good in the world, why do they need so much ornaments around? Why do they need so many rituals? Why do they, why does everything need to be such such ornate sort of presentation? You know, why can't they do things more simply? Why do we even need a church, right? Why do we need all this, these, these beautiful cathedrals with the stained glass windows and and all the the gold and the brass and the jewels? And it's like this, this, this, this isn't right. Like this is not what this was supposed to be. And I can remember feeling that very strongly. And I can remember, you know, even asking my parents, like, if this is a church and I'm there's teaching on God, like, why are they speaking in a language that I don't understand? Like, why can't they just speak to people? And and and this was for my church, right? Why can't they just speak to people the way people speak so people can understand them? Isn't that more important to get more people to understand? And I can remember having an issue with that. I can also remember having an issue with if you ever went to very like like old school orthodox, like old calendar Orthodox churches, they would make the women sit on one side of the the thing and men sit on the other. I'm like, why separate us? Aren't we all equal under the under the under God? I can remember, you know, not being allowed to wear pants to church. And I can remember actually one time when I was little, you know, I I had actually worn pants that were, they weren't even, they were pants, but they were made to look like a big flowy skirt. They weren't it was a thing in the 90s, right? With like these big, like the massive palazzo pants that actually look like a skirt. I was young, it was cold, I hadn't shaved my legs, it was insecure. I'm like, I just want to, I just want to have my legs covered today. Totally got called out by the church ladies, right? Don't come back here looking like that, this and that, blah, blah, blah. Was totally shamed for it. And I'm like, what does God care if I wear pants or skirt? What is he even like, why do I even have to like, okay, fine, you know, okay, I can understand. Actually, no, I can't understand having to look like the part for going to church. You know, we were always told to dress up and wear skirts and this and that. And it's like, but God loves us the way we are. It doesn't matter what we're wearing. Like, this all seems fucking wrong to me. I can also remember being told that I couldn't take communion when I was, you know, when I got my period, when I was, you know, in my early, you know, I was 11 or 12, I think, when I got my period. And suddenly my mom told me, Oh, you can't go for communion. I'm like, why can't I go for communion? She's like, because you're menstruating. I'm like, well, I don't understand. Why can't I take communion while I'm menstruating? Well, it's unclean. I'm unclean. It's the whole now. I know, like, menstruating is the mo is the holiest experience a woman can have. And now she's being told that she's unclean and can't take communion. Like, that is fucked. That is some fucked up shit. And so, you know, I went through, and there were so many other things, like things that were said, and and and you know, a lot of the verses in the Bible that that kind of teach us to be, you know, to give over our sovereignty to the to the church and and and and and to other authority. And it's like, this doesn't seem right to me. And there is a verse in the Bible that says, the kingdom of God is within you. And that verse alone negates everything that religion teaches us about having to go to church or to a temple or wherever to find God, right? If God is within me, why do I need this church? Why do I need this institution? Why do I need this community? Why do I, if God is truly within me, then isn't really then me, isn't prayer and church and meditation how I find God within myself? And so that's what I kind of started to lean into. So I started to I started to lean into prayer as my conversations with God and intentions as my ask and meditation as how I listened to God. And that transformed my life. And as I started to do that more and more, I started to pull away from religion and I started to really get to know myself and to get to know the God within me and to understand what that relationship looked like, what it felt like, and how it was trying to guide me. And I think, and it's funny because if you've ever read the book Conversations with God, I think is what it's called, the one that was written by Neil Donald Walsh, right? Where he's like having these conversations with God where he stumbled basically across by accident by journaling. And that's actually what happened with me is I started to journal and I started to learn about free writing. And then somewhere in that process, I started writing questions, and then I would get the answers to those questions. And then I realized I was speaking to this divine authority that was within me. And it was because of this free writing that I was doing and opening up to my intuitive gifts. And through that, I started to become more intuitive. I started to tap into my healing gifts. And then that brought up more guilt and shame because, you know, according to my religion, there's no such thing as intuition. There's no such thing as healing. Only Jesus could do those things. Nobody else could do those things. And if you could do those things, that usually means that you're that you're some sort of demonic force, right? Because only only dark forces and dark energies and and and entities can do those types of things. And it's like, well, does that mean that I'm a bad person? Did God make me to be bad then? Because I remember having spiritual gifts even as a young girl, where I would see things and I would hear things and it would be uncomfortable for me. And I didn't know how to process it and I didn't know how to articulate it, and I didn't know who to talk to about it. And my religion told me that it was bad, and you're not supposed to get, you know, mixed up in these things. And it's like, well, well, then why is this happening to me? Like, is God punishing me? Am I a bad person? Like, why would he choose this for me? If God made me, why would he choose this for me? And so in moving away from the church and getting to know myself more through my intuitive work, through my journaling, through my meditation, getting to express myself fully and completely and honestly, and have this honest conversation, it's vulnerable conversation with God and being able to, or divine source or whatever name you want to give it, and be able to hear a response back. Why would I need the church? I had everything that I needed right in front of me. And so now, you know, it's like I took my authority back, I took my sovereignty back from something that had kept me in a very disempowered state for a very long time. In doing so, you know, I started to see God very differently. He was no longer this white-haired, white-bearded dude hanging out in the clouds. Now, to me, God was this divine intelligent force that was weaved into every particle in this universe, and myself included. And now I believe that we're all, we're all God. We're all part of this woven, energetic expression of this divine being, this divine intelligence. And each one of us is a part of that and plays an important part of that. And whatever the gifts that we've been given, the messages that we're here to share, the, the, the gifts, the healing, the stories, the whatever, it's all coming from this divine intelligence, right? And that's where I think we need to kind of trust in that divine intelligence to move through us, to be shared through us, and to support us as we do this work. And that's basically been the whole evolution, but it wasn't until I decided to break up with religion and or at least question it, you know, at least question it and say, maybe this isn't everything. You know? Being a Christian woman, like maybe this isn't everything. Because I know for a fact the Bible's been written a thousand times over. There's, I don't even know how many versions, I couldn't even count. One of them was written by King James, the last person who should be writing any sort of religious text. Like, I'm sorry. You know, and it's like it's you languages have changed, misinterpreted time over, time, over time, again and again and again. People putting their own perspectives in there, their own, what's it called? Their own agendas, right? Of what they want to see and how it can make them, it could they could write things to serve their own ego, their own purpose that may not be the most authentic expression of what was originally intended in the original stories and the original messages and the original text. So much of it was left out. Mary Magdalene was completely left out. And and now I'm starting to realize that maybe the way everything was told to us was actually all part of this greater story to keep us in a disempowered state. Because what better way to keep us in a disempowered state than to tell us that, you know, Jesus was this untouchable human who had these supernatural capabilities because he was the Son of God. And and they basically made him this being that we needed to now what's uh the serve as opposed to see ourselves in. Because I th I believe what I believe to be true is that that Jesus came here to say, hey, we're all God's children. We are all God's children, and everything I can do, you can do too. And he came to be the example of what we're all capable of. He came to be, I believe, he came to be the example of what we are all capable of. I also believe that Mary Magdalene was far greater than just the prostitute that that he chose to give forgiveness to. And I believe that she was also a very powerful teacher who stood side by side with Jesus. If you've ever if you've ever read the the the lost gospels of Mary Magdalene, you would understand. And I believe that that you know Jesus was this beautiful healer and teacher and guide, and I believe she was too. And I I believe that they try to show all of us what we are capable of when we when we recognize that God is within us. And I believe that the church did everything in its power to keep us from realizing that because how on earth would they ever control us if we accepted this truth? They couldn't. They could no longer control us, they could no longer intimidate us, they could no longer divide us, they can no longer have authority over us if we knew the truth, which was that we're all equal. Doesn't matter our gender, doesn't matter our skin color, doesn't matter anything. We're all equal and we're all beautiful and we're all under, we're all part of God. God is within each and every one of us. And when we recognize that power within ourselves, we become uncontrollable, and that's their worst fear. And I believe a lot of what is happening right now is for us, is getting us to see that the institutions that we've put so much of our faith into are not serving us. They've done nothing but try and take control of us, they've done nothing but try and have authority over us so that that they can be at the top of the spiritual food chain per se. For lack of a better word. And I I think that we're at a place in civil in in human history where we're now starting to see the flaws in that. We're starting to see that maybe this is not the way Source intended. Maybe this isn't what God intended, maybe none of this is okay. Maybe there is something more powerful beneath the surface that they've been trying to keep us from because how on earth would they be able to control us if we knew the truth? And in that realization, I broke further and further away from the church and closer and closer to myself and to God within. And I realized that at one point I just realized that everything that we've been taught is a lie. And I think that the best thing that we can do for ourselves and for each other as a humanity is to start to take that power back and start to really look at what we've been taught, why we've been taught it, who's been benefiting, right? Who benefits from us believing that church is is the thing, right? Who who benefits most from us believing that church is our link or our connection to God? Not me, not you. It's the church. They they they get control over death, they get sovereignty over us, they get our money, they get our worship, they get our respect, they get our our our our dedication, our our support. Think about that. But if God is within, if God is within, the way, and I'm I'm actually I'm let's see if I can find it here. Hang on a sec, guys. Because I had it up. Luke 17, 21. Neither shall they say, Lo here or low there, for behold, the kingdom of God is within you. Luke 17, 21. The kingdom of God is within. Why do we need the church? We don't. That's just what they wanted us to believe. That's what they needed us to believe in order to stay in power. And so the more we can come to come to the realization that maybe religion and church is not serving us in the way that we thought. And if we can come back to the God within and learn to communicate with that through prayer, prayer, through intention, through journaling, through reflection, through meditation, if we can learn to communicate with that and learn to want to understand and get to know that, that is when I believe we get to know the true God. Because God is expressed differently through each and every one of us. There is no one single expression of God. I believe God has a million faces and it's in, it's in each and every one of us, and how it is expressed through us. And that is divine intelligence. And that's that's what I truly believe. And that's how that whole journey unfolded. And in doing so, I healed my relationship with myself. I healed my relationship with God. I created a closer relationship with God. I do not need a middleman to connect with Source. And I'm able to trust in what I feel Source has given to me to share, to create, to be in the world. Just the way he has done with each and every one of us. And when we each step into that, we become the most powerful version of ourselves. And that is everything they don't want us to know. So that is my story today, you guys. So let me know what that means for you, how that shows up for you, how that resonates for you. And maybe what's available when you start to get to know and trust the God within you instead of the God you've been told to put your faith in all this time. If you love this episode, please leave a positive rating and review. And until next time, you guys, massive love.