Your Therapist Needs Therapy
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Your Therapist Needs Therapy
Your Therapist Needs Therapy 38 - Divorcing Religion with Janice Selbie
Jeremy gets the chance to sit down with religious recovery consultant Janice Selbie this week. Janice is a Registered Professional Counselor and is the founder of the Conference on Religious Trauma (CORT), the host of the Divorcing Religion podcast, and runs the Shameless Sexuality workshop series. Janice and Jeremy talk about how leaving fundamentalism can be so hard, why building community after leaving a church is so important, and some of the cultural shifts around the rise of “the nones” and the need for religious recovery spaces.
You can learn more about Janice and her practice at her counseling website, and check out her religious recovery work at divorcing-religion.com which also features a ton of great resources. The Divorcing Religion podcast is available on all major platforms, and you can watch episodes and previous CORT presentations on her YouTube page.
Jeremy has his practice info at wellnesswithjer.com, and you can find him on Instagram and YouTube under the wellnesswithjer moniker. Also, if you want to support the podcast, you can now get some swag! Shirts, mugs, fanny packs, get something nice for yourself or for your friendly neighborhood therapist!
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Podcasts about therapy do not replace actual therapy, and listening to a podcast about therapy does not signify a therapeutic relationship.
If you or someone you know is in crisis please call or text the nationwide crisis line at 988, or text HELLO to 741741. The Trevor Project has a crisis line for LGBTQ+ young people that can be reached by texting 678678.
Your Therapist Needs Therapy - Janice Selbie (2024-01-10 11:05 GMT-6) - Transcript
Attendees
Janice Selbie, Jeremy Schumacher
Transcript
This editable transcript was computer generated and might contain errors. People can also change the text after it was created.
Jeremy Schumacher: Hello and welcome to another edition of your therapist needs therapy podcast for two mental health professionals talk about their mental health Journeys and how they navigate mental Wellness while working in the mental health field. I have a guest. I'm super excited for today. I have registered professional counselor. That's a Canadian reference for those of you who are maybe my American listeners that's Counseling in So a foreigner, but somebody who's a big deal in the religious trauma community. So I'm very excited to have selbie joining me today Janice. Thanks for taking the time to join me.
Janice Selbie: I'm so happy you asked me. Thank you.
Jeremy Schumacher: yeah, you have a wonderful story of fascinating maybe not wonderful a fascinating story, which we'll get into but I have a laundry list of founder of the conference on religious trauma host of the divorcing religion podcast again, I think just we've had similar people on our podcast you had a bunch of speakers at work 2023 who have been in my podcast. So again just kind of I think building this religious trauma Community. That's really wonderful for those of us who remember deconverting and not knowing or knowing about some of this community really building it up.
Janice Selbie: That's Yes, and then a couple years ago. I also did another conference which I may do again and it was called Shameless sexuality life after Purity culture. And I love that. That was one of my favorite conferences to do. It was just really fun and exciting and interesting.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, yeah, so we'll get into all of that. But I always like to start with what was your journey into working in the mental health field.
Janice Selbie: I think a great many of us it started at home with that, things being not quite right. So I became registered professional counselor and I have another sibling who became a nurse on the mental health ward the psychiatric ward of our hospital. So having a dad who is a narcissist with cluster B traits and then also a Fundamentalist. Very difficult didn't make growing up easy or a lot of fun and meant living with a lot of fear. of course, so then I was really
Janice Selbie: Always very busy trying to follow rules and find new rules to follow and that really informed my Christianity and kind of what drove me down the rabbit hole a fundamentalism when I discovered the whole demon Mennonites in Canada, and they're closed Mennonite. sect Excuse me. I got cat hair here here.
Jeremy Schumacher: he
Janice Selbie: Yes, so that's kind of what got me. Started and then I was a devout Christian for most of my life. I didn't even really start to question until I was around 40. and then
Janice Selbie: it was like that. I tell people it was like holding a beach ball underwater and all the pressures building and building and finally take your hands off and the ball shoots up water sprays everywhere and it was messy my deconversion experience was messy and painful and terrifying and I still had kids at home and I was still married to a Believer who had also been a pastor and
Janice Selbie: so it was really an intense Journey.
Jeremy Schumacher: yeah, what was Growing up in this fundamentalist household. What was kind of like the messaging you got around mental health growing up and kind of your decision to pursue a career in the mental health field. What was that Journey
Janice Selbie: So I learned early on and I think this whenever people blurt out to me, I'm an empath like they wear that title or whatever and I think It's possible you grew up in an unsafe home environment and you had to learn very early on how to read the emotions of other people in order to be safe.
Jeremy Schumacher: mmm
Janice Selbie: And that's where I fall into things and I had one brother that was decidedly a black sheep one brother that was decidedly a comic, trying to always and…
Jeremy Schumacher: Sure.
Janice Selbie: and then there was me and I was the youngest A child. So yeah I learned how to hide and how to blend in how to be exceedingly diplomatic.
Janice Selbie: how to Fawn to stay safe how to freeze and how to stuff my feelings or eat my feelings all those things that go along with Essentially having a parent…
Jeremy Schumacher: right
00:05:00
Janice Selbie: two parents who were addicted to religion? So I don't know if you've heard me use the term acorn I look at the adult children of Alcoholics. and we as acorns adult children of religious nuts share a laundry list often with COA folks and…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Janice Selbie: that was very
Janice Selbie: Eye-opening for me it explained a lot. So that's something that I kind of keep tucked into the back of my mind and I'm now estranged from my fundamentalist father that only happened a few years ago, and it was a massive relief and it's not a relief for everyone and it's not the right move for everyone well to make but For me it was after which I thought I wish I would have done that years earlier, but it doesn't mean I don't think about them. And so yeah, there are still Nothing, you don't get away Scott free in any sense. There are always things that kind of hang on there's residual for sure.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Janice Selbie: And so then after I am
Janice Selbie: when I divorce religion divorced my husband I had been working at our local hospital. I did medical transcription for years and years, but I was always super intrigued by psychology and I love doing this aiatry reports and I thought I know there is a college of professional Counseling in my city. I'm going to see what that's like, so that was my starting point. So I completed that and then did 600 supervised hours through my professional counseling Association. and even when I finished all that
Janice Selbie: So that's when I started looking at just the trauma of growing up in a family of origin with an extremely volatile narcissistic parent. I wasn't even touching on the religious and things at that point and…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Janice Selbie: then eventually when I realized yeah, I don't actually believe any of this and started researching and thought I have a lot in common with people who have come out of Cults as I would read what they were having to say and I would tell myself. that's ridiculous. that wasn't my situation and the more I read the more I went. this is serious, but I didn't know anyone else who had been as devout.
Janice Selbie: As I was I was so devout. I utterly believed and I wore ahead covering and I didn't watch TV for years and I only listened to Christian music, all those things and So for me to have done such a complete. Turnaround on all that I didn't know anyone else who had and then had gone on to live a happy healthy life. And so finally online one day. I found Dr. Marlene winnell, and Her book leaving the fold was such a help for me and I phoned her up because I was so.
Janice Selbie: Excited and couldn't believe that someone had written about this and that book is years old now. It's like 30 years old,…
Jeremy Schumacher: yeah, 19 1994 I think. Yeah.
Janice Selbie: whatever it is. Yes, and I phoned her and she said you're on the west coast and I'm running some retreats in San Francisco. Come see what it's like and I was terrified that it was a call to know. It's so scared as I got on the
Janice Selbie: of course that didn't happen and I felt so just embraced and seen and validated and there were people at her Retreat who come from all different backgrounds where people who left Mormonism jobs witness Catholicism evangelicalism. Every kind of group you can imagine so our situations were somewhat different but our pain. Was similar and we were on a similar journey and being able to freely give voice to some of those things where there was. No other place really that I thought I could do. It was tremendously helpful. So I love Marlene. And in fact, I met my future husband through Marlene. so there's a little plug for her journey free is her website.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Janice Selbie: Yeah, and
Jeremy Schumacher: And leaving the fold it is still a classic. It's on my bookshelf in my office right now because it is from 1994 but fundamentalism hasn't changed a ton there their playbook works.
00:10:00
Janice Selbie: That's so true.
Jeremy Schumacher: So they keep doing it. And so it's incredibly relevant still today.
Janice Selbie: Yes, yes, and then I came back from her Retreat and I was reflecting a lot on my own experience and I thought I'm going to put together a workshop. and so I did and I called it the divorcing religion Workshop because I was going through divorce after 20 year marriage, roughly the same time that I was divorcing my religion and there was so much there that was relatable that felt similar such an incredible loss and people
Janice Selbie: Can't understand that loss really unless they've gone through it. So because we've got the disenfranchised grief going on the ambiguous lost. There's no body to bury. It's not grief. That's socially sanctioned because I mean if you phone your boss and say, my God, my dog died. They're good take the day it's so significant, but if you say I just lost my religious Faith which of course means my identity my community my worldview.
Jeremy Schumacher: right
Janice Selbie: Everything is dissolving around me. I will see you tomorrow at 9 o'clock. You'll be okay,…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Janice Selbie: but it sent me into a time of existential thanks and crisis. I remember phoning up one of my brothers the one who's the nurse and he is in about atheist and
Janice Selbie: I remember phoning him up and he was so pleased to watch my deconversion, but he didn't want to intrude at all. Wanted to let me be my journey, but I texted him one night or phoned him or something. And I said I just realized If hell is maybe heavens. not real either and for me that was a very big thing and I realized you'll have listeners on every aspect of the belief Spectrum. So this is just my journey in the conclusions. I came to and my brother was so kind and he told me that he remembered going through that and he recommended A video by this German video producers I think called kurtzkazakh which means in a nutshell and the video was called optimistic nihilism.
Janice Selbie: And he said watch the video watch it straight through to the end and then let's talk some more about it. It was super helpful for me, but Still that aspect of my deconstruction. Was painful, and I missed praying every day talking to Jesus every day. I missed having a cosmic big brother I missed the amidst certainty security and Order and acceptance are our main things as humans that we really crave and I think it gave me compassion now as so many people have gone down conspiracy rabbit holes and been sucked into those mindsets because we do all crave certainty and…
Jeremy Schumacher: right
Janice Selbie: security and Order and acceptance and for some of those folks. It's the first time they have ever felt accepted if they're
Janice Selbie: on the fringes I mean If they have never really received acceptance by people at school, they have always been kind of Outsiders. It feels overwhelming to be accepted and then to be told that you have the secret sauce. mm. You alone know,…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Janice Selbie: what's going on. That's pretty heady stuff and So I get it because I also thought that way at one point.
Jeremy Schumacher: It's fascinating when you know what you're looking for how. it jumps out at you, seeing a lot of these mind control tactics, and I know you think highly of Stevenson's work around help mind control and I refer to the bite model all the time of this is the Republican playbook in American politics Create an enemy make fear of the enemy promise the Savior it's so much of it is religion 101.
Janice Selbie: same
Jeremy Schumacher: And yeah, I think when you've gone through it, it does open up some different Pathways in your brain to hold space for those people differently than be like Why would anyone believe this or why would anyone support this?
Janice Selbie: And I have to say the farther out I get from the beliefs that I had. The more I shake my head and I'm like t I believe that and yet I did believe it. I believed it to the extent that I was willing to die for it.
00:15:00
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Janice Selbie: I believed it to the extent that I tried to prepare my children for martyrdom in that eventuality because I grew up in the satanic Panic. I'm so lots of cringy behavior.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Janice Selbie: I definitely had apologies and immense to make to my children not only for Raising them in such a confining fundamentalist way in the first place and filling them with fear. But for then giving them a front row seat to my deconstruction Gong Show, which had to be terrifying and very freaky. your mom go from
Janice Selbie: Being this head covering and I'll saintly whatever to my God. Now we got tattoos. We got dreadlocks now, we're doing this to be Shocking and feel like the rug was pulled out. from under them and so thankfully now this is I don't know. 14 years later. It's going on 14 years something like that. So my kids are now in there well into their twenties. And we have very good relationships very open communication and same with their dad. I mean, we're not married anymore, but just a wonderful friendship he wouldn't consider himself a Believer anymore, but we just had him over for of course, it's Christmas dinner. we're gonna have him over because he's part of the family. So that's pretty nice considering.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Janice Selbie: I do have a new husband, so
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, and I love that analogy of the divorcing religion because it is a lot like The constructing marriage and then they're reconstruction that happens, especially if you have kids there's parenting there's all this reestablishing different boundaries and you can build something healthy out of it. That's not what always happens but there are these opportunities and I love that analogy my backgrounds marriage and family therapy. So my introduction to psychology is always kind of having that systemic View and yeah, it's identity stuff being a spouse and then being single is a shift being a Christian and then being agnostic or atheist or Pagan or wherever you land like all these things are there's so much overlap where I love that analogy that you've kind of landed on for this is what it is like to deconstruct.
Janice Selbie: it really is and it's not as simple as well here. You do a b and c because it's different for each person. because we kind of filter experiences and interpret them through the lens of our personality. And this is the same when we are in mourning when we have grief and loss we are expressing that again and keeping with our personality and keeping what we saw modeled for us where we safe at home to express these concerns to express ourselves. I don't know about your home. But in my home my dad could yell and scream and punch his fists through the wall.
Janice Selbie: We could either be happy or we could quietly cry but we could never be angry. We could never express a difference of opinion that would not be celebrated curiosity was quickly Stamped Out and replaced with obedience the first time every time that was what was expected in our home and I went even more gong ho on my poor kids unfortunately, so yeah, there's a lot To look at you kind of have to get some distance from it and…
Jeremy Schumacher:
Janice Selbie: be able to look at it and take it apart. See where things went off the rails and then again, like you said that the bite model has been profoundly helpful for a lot of people.
Janice Selbie: I mean, I'm sure it's not perfect but it's a great kind of here's something to look at right away. If you're thinking of getting involved in a new group or…
Jeremy Schumacher: right
Janice Selbie: if you're in a relationship that has so you're going on. I'm not sure about this because as we know I heard this from Dr. Rachel Bernstein, I love her indoctrination podcast and one time she said when we're wearing Rose Colored Glasses a red flag a flag just looks like a normal flag and…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. yeah,…
Janice Selbie: that's the problem.
Jeremy Schumacher: and when you grow up and when you raise then you are taught to Either ignore or proceed with some of those flags. It's like this is a test of your faith or there's all the spiritual bypassing that creates an environment where Ignoring your feelings is good because your body is sinful So I do this work professionally and yet when I'm recording or saying some of the stuff out loud, I'm just like yeah, it feels so gross when you call it out that way.
00:20:00
Janice Selbie: but it is yeah,…
Jeremy Schumacher: It is yeah.
Janice Selbie: and I'm always some interested when people reach out to me and they are still religious because that is Not particularly the realm that I'm in I typically am working with people who have left religion. In some way they either, stumble out of the church were thrown out of the church, whatever happened. They recognize that's not the place for them anymore, but I do still sometimes hear from folks who are still members of their church, but they're going I think some things are not right here. And so
Janice Selbie: Sometimes, I'm pretty Frank with them and sometimes they want to work with me and sometimes I am able to refer them on to people like Dr. Laura Anderson or others who? Maybe still have more inroads into communities that are Faith communities and…
Jeremy Schumacher: right Yeah.
Janice Selbie: I'm not inside those groups at all. but I think there are counselors and therapist needs.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Jeremy Schumacher: And it's one of those things that I see a lot The growth of podcasts the books that are getting published the conferences things like that are all growing and one of the things from that I hear from professionals. All the time is I didn't know this community existed when I was in the church.
Jeremy Schumacher: of them Not only did I not know they existed but I have been taught to avoid them.
Janice Selbie: Yeah, yeah.
Jeremy Schumacher: and that people who weren't raised in it, I think missed that point that You can look at it in an agnostic family and say this stuff's always been available. But for those of us who were raised fundamentalists, it absolutely was not the library. I had in my church or in my school, which was connected to the church was not the public library.
Janice Selbie: That's so true. And we were taught so if we're introduced to these Concepts as children and it's our parents or caregivers some adult authority figure says to us they deliver this to us. This is the truth and it's a fearful truth and you must not diverge from this truth or you'll end up in hell and we're just little kids. We don't have any ability to discern whether it's true or not. We just know this person's responsible for my safety. I better believe them. We gobble up whatever they're feeding us and it's like we put all these psychological traps around it. So we don't pull on that one threat that's hanging down and then eventually…
Jeremy Schumacher: but
Janice Selbie: because of tragedy or because of whatever's going on we start talking and sure enough the whole thing begins to and that's the most terrifying part that because we start to realize what
Janice Selbie: Could be the cost all that we stand to lose. If we are no longer members of the club.
Jeremy Schumacher: And the club has been quite a lot of people reinforced over and over and over again that people who leave the club or are excommuted or kicked out struggle and when you have no personal reference for people who weren't religious or the same religion as you like you don't know what that story outside of the churches.
Janice Selbie: Right and I mentioned earlier about people, we have our temperaments and our personalities. And so some people I think can walk through their deconstruction and they don't actually have the gong show kind of story that mine is I happen to be quite an extreme person.
Jeremy Schumacher: right
Janice Selbie: I have to work very hard to find the middle. So I was extreme in my faith and then when I left and left my marriage and I found someone else and I moved in that with him. This person was unencumbered by things that had encumbered me and had lots of money and they were someone amused by the changes I was going through and this person that go to town knock yourself out I've got
Janice Selbie: The money to let you enjoy anything you want. So I thought I'm gonna deny myself nothing. And so that's really I think when my kids' eyes got pipelights because I denied myself but nothing and so that wasn't the best way actually to go about it and I'm thankful that I made it through a safe and then in one piece because that was very much for me like the adolescence and never had and the states were much higher…
Jeremy Schumacher: right
00:25:00
Janice Selbie: because I was an adult I had more to lose.
Janice Selbie: So I went through that again experienced it through my personality and my temperament and now I've come back to more of what I see as more of a middle ground, even though my middle is pretty left for some people but I feel like my feet are firmly on the ground again after years of just being in free fall or feeling like I was trying to walk and quick sound or whatever. So yeah. Now I'm gonna be 54 soon and I got to say okay my 50s so far looking pretty good pretty level.
Jeremy Schumacher: allowed I think It's healing for some people I think. It's good the curb some of it because it can get unhealthy unchecked but a lot of that has to do with I think what you're talking about. Everybody's variables are a little bit different when you're deconverting what brand of religion you grew up in is again, I think fundamentalism scales and so a lot of that stuff changes for me was every time I doubted my response was to try and believe harder. and so I was in the church for so much longer than I needed to be…
Janice Selbie: yeah.
Jeremy Schumacher: because I kept trying to make sense like I'm the problem. Let me fix it through Reading More Theses and…
Janice Selbie:
Jeremy Schumacher: it's like a weird high school kid reading pastoral theses. And all these things to try and make it fit and finally. Having kids myself I'm not gonna teach my kid Noah's Ark I don't like having that recognition I don't believe in it, and I've been a therapist.
Janice Selbie: right
Jeremy Schumacher: But again, it was through my late teens through my early 20s going to college when people deconstruct their leave the church a lot. my response was like I'm gonna believe harder I was 25 and I'm my church Council different scenario, but similar kind of what you were doing was like right you just kept going deeper and…
Janice Selbie: Yeah,…
Jeremy Schumacher: deeper into it.
Janice Selbie: and when I was married and in a fundamentalist marriage, it was similar to what you're saying. I saw these cracks, appearing but every time I was like it can't be him. He's my god-given head might pardon me my Spiritual Authority. I'm talking about my first husband here because that's what I was raised to believe and the model I saw also was and my dad being narcissistic and unhealthy well and he had a wife who was delightful and codependent and so that was the model that I had so I didn't marry someone who was narcissistic but I did marry someone who was emotionally unavailable and then me being nothing but emotion, it felt like and, not just wasn't
Janice Selbie: It seemed in some ways to be following the script that I was raised with and like you I said the problem has to be me. I'm going to double down. That's why I started wearing a head covering because I thought I talk too much or I talk back too much or I'm not submissive enough. So my whole marriage was me s trying to pull back make myself smaller and smaller. And it wasn't helping it didn't make things better. We weren't good partners for each other. We married only because we were both Christians because I was good grief. I was 23. I was worried. I was going to be an old mate so
Jeremy Schumacher: Let's check.
Janice Selbie: So that's why we married and then when we divorced it was sad, but it was such a relief because I was no longer trying to constantly change him and make him someone he wasn't and he was no longer living with constantly feeling that he wasn't good enough. It was so divorce is not a failure. It's a transition. And that's I think the healthiest way to look at it.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Janice Selbie: And I mean we only have however many years that we have on this planet so you can choose to live it as a martyr or…
Jeremy Schumacher: right
Janice Selbie: spend that time living someone else's dream for you what they think your life should be or
Janice Selbie: You can decide what this is my life. I'm gonna find out what's important to me.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Janice Selbie: Someone else says is important because the church and the pastor and the parents and the spouse often telling us what's important, but I'm actually gonna figure out for myself what my values are love the values clarification stuff and then I'm gonna order my life accordingly.
00:30:00
Jeremy Schumacher: yeah, and the church works so hard to Keep us away from that, it is not trusting your body. I know Mars Chapman who spoke at court this past year. He's just on my podcast recently and talked about how you just wanted to dance. You just wanted to listen to music and that was this thing that the church tried to protect from and so Purity culture and ideas of headship within the family and all that stuff is designed to be You're not supposed to feel good. So when you don't you're doing it. That's correct. And then you get out of it. You're like, right. That just wasn't healthy for me if I'm genuine and authentic. It feels much better.
Janice Selbie: yeah, I love Mars. It was so glad pardon me to have Mars on the conference. you might have heard me talk on my podcast about my view of Life as a huge buffet table and there are delectable dishes as far as the eye can see and each dish represents experiences and Kitchen fundamentals religion especially would have us starve to death at the buffet table of life.
Janice Selbie: But we don't actually have to live that way. We can try a bit of anything every dish on there, as long as we're not breaking the law as long as we're not hurting someone we can try things and we might like it so much we go back for seconds and thirds or we might discreetly spin it into our napkin and say that wasn't for me but we don't have to judge it we can say and now I'm gonna go on to the next thing so giving ourselves permission to be curious and…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Janice Selbie: that's really foreign to a lot of us raised in fundamentalist homes.
Jeremy Schumacher: that idea of something is right and something is wrong and you always have to Do your work to pick the right thing?
Jeremy Schumacher: You talk about having a parent who has mental illness. This is a thing that registers for me too, like a lot of fundamentalist religions or cults they're the same but
Janice Selbie: He
Jeremy Schumacher: have all these rules and regulations that people who have mental illness or are struggling with some sort of mental health issue are drawn to because it provides structure to their life. And so in my history too, I was late diagnosed ADHD, and there was an aspect of the black and white thinking that fundamentalism provided that brain I liked to have rules and regulations. I liked to highlight what other people were doing wrong. and learning about my diagnosis later in life, but also looking back at that helps me in some ways and really hindered me in a lot of ways, but I do think there's that draw of people who are looking for structure and support At first the black and white thinking seems helpful because it provides structure, but then it becomes very limiting very quickly.
Janice Selbie: Yeah, it's That same brother who's the nurse he has a phrase that he uses and I really like it. Something may be a good servant but a poor master and I think that's true. it's important to be able to see if something is truly dangerous for us. We don't want to go there but sometimes we're programmed to think it's dangerous and it's not actually that dangerous, but we were only raised with right and wrong binary thinking and it's hard to get used to and accept the Nuance because that comes with responsibility and again, A mentalism we were told what we could and couldn't do so we weren't flexing the responsibility muscles as much.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, and there's very little actual accountability within religious groups. God will judge it's all the spiritual bypassing we use to let leaders be abusive or move from church to church without any real life accountability.
Janice Selbie: yeah, and I mean we know that predators are drawn to places where they Can rise up be in positions of power? This is something that I end up talking with my clients with a fair amount if they bring up the word forgiveness and I tell them. For us forgiveness is the f word sometimes because it has been weaponized by abusers by those…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Janice Selbie: who have wanted to retain power over us. They can abuse us and insist that we forgive them and then they have the same opportunity over and over again, so I tell my clients instead
Janice Selbie: We are going to work on acceptance of reality. This thing actually happened. This was done to me. this is something that I did. So that's kind of that radical acceptance brings Clarity. Once we actually can hold on to that. That gives us a clearer view of what decisions that we have that we can make so and my case when I accepted came the reality that my father Not only was a narcissist but that he actually had crossed some significant boundaries with me. Then I no longer felt like I had to keep trying to forgive him then I got to say wait a minute. He's done this over and over and over do I actually want this person in my life to one want to keep giving them access to me my children my family. I thought no.
00:35:00
Janice Selbie: I'm done. And it was so liberating because if insisting someone forgive is like blaming the victim when they have a hard time forgiven. there's a reason they're having a hard time because the other person either isn't truly. Sorry repant. However, you want to say it. So we really need to take responsibility for who we are allowing access in our life.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, yeah and ignoring I think the oppressive and patriarchical structures that are attached to these things like forgiveness within an oppressive system doesn't make sense. that's backwards if we're not addressing that the oppressive system exists because then we can't treat people equally because there's not equality yet.
Janice Selbie: yeah, and oppression is something that I'm still just learning about I feel like I just am seeing the tip of the iceberg, as a privileged white woman in a Kristen and Christian type of society. I'm pulling away layers as fast as I can but I still don't see it all and so then I'm trying to learn more from people of color who?
Janice Selbie: Obviously have lived with significant depression and continue to their entire lives and reading things that they have to say and then turning the lens back on myself and saying my God what ways how have I participated in oppressing other people? It's very uncomfortable. I don't like it at all…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Janice Selbie: but it's so necessary and I have great hopes for because of your generation and the generations of my daughters. Think they're seeing things more clearly when I look at things around sexuality and gender and identity.
Janice Selbie: They don't care they don't care.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Janice Selbie: They're like, okay, that's great. You be No, what do we want to do today? they just don't have those same Hang-Ups and I love that and that's so terrifying for some older people, my age midlife and older or people who are still stuck in fundamentalism. They really don't like it that the status quo is being challenged and shaken up but that's the only way our planet's gonna survive I think is by some people getting Somewhat radical and…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Janice Selbie: really in our face and reminding us of the cost if we don't turn things around.
Jeremy Schumacher: I'm hopeful when I interact with the younger generation as well and I think things like this things like Court keep using that acronym the conference on religious trauma like having therap therapy. that's a concept that I love and I'm digging into in my practice because It's different being neurodivergent than being a minority ethnicity. But it is a minority group and there's so much that I relate to when I'm hearing and reading from these authors who are talking about let's decolonize therapy. that's what my brain spend trying to figure out. You don't have to reinvent the wheel someone else is already doing this work. So I do think a lot of that stuff is really wonderful and hopeful and working with religious trauma. Then we see the religious groups getting more and more extreme in response which tends to happen throughout history is
Jeremy Schumacher: Civil rights movement and then 20 years later you get Ronald Reagan in response. So There's this move and culture and religion and fundamentalism specifically want to protect the status quo.
Janice Selbie: Yes.
Jeremy Schumacher: And so there's this response of Extremism on their eyes or the people who are staying in the church are the more fundamentalist or extremist people where other people are leaving and getting out so it's interesting to see the cultural changes and…
00:40:00
Janice Selbie: yeah.
Jeremy Schumacher: also the pendulum try and swing back in the other direction.
Janice Selbie: and when I think of people who have gone from being fundamentalists to more Progressive and I hear them say But I don't want to leave I want to stay and bring change from the inside. I think of my experience on I love Twitter so much. I really enjoyed it and it's on there working hard and gaining my thousands or 10,000 something like that. followers and then It gets bought over by Lex Luthor. And he's saying every terrible thing to do.
Jeremy Schumacher: Numb them are likely there.
Janice Selbie: Yeah doing every terrible thing and I'm like Please. Stop saying anything because
Janice Selbie: Eventually gets to a point where I'm like, I don't even feel comfortable being in the space anymore.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Janice Selbie: And so then I'm like, my God. then I tried Mastodon I try threads and now the other day I just got on Blue Sky and it's just so tiring and I had a good thing. I had people who would pay attention when I said something and it was helpful for advertising as well when I had events coming up and these sorts of things. So, yeah, it's just been interesting. I feel like podcasts are super helpful. And actually I told you this will be just started. I had such an exciting guest on my podcast yesterday. I got to interview.
Janice Selbie: The icon the legend the author the Canadian Margaret Atwood, and she of course is very well known for the handmaid's tale. She's written tons of stuff but handmaid's tale then of course also got picked up and turned into a TV series which opened it up for a bunch of new generations. And when I watched that series on TV the handmaid's tale.
Jeremy Schumacher: Okay.
Janice Selbie: It was like sometimes I had to shut it off because it just reminded me so much of my own life that I willingly kept tightening kept pushing that beach ball farther and farther underwater.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Janice Selbie: No other people were doing it to me my ex-husband. He wasn't insisting that I get more and more fundamentalists. I was putting that pressure on myself. so I'm watching about the handmaids and…
Jeremy Schumacher: right
Janice Selbie: they have no voice and they have no choice and they're always going to cover their hair and wear these, robes and
Janice Selbie: So when I saw that. I thought I'd like to be able to talk to this lady and then my amazing husband says, I know her I said what? But he's 22 years old and me and he said yeah, I went bird watching with her and her husband. I used to Fly Toronto and stay with them and then we'd fly to Cuba because he's from the United States and I'm like, I'm glad you told me that's right her a letter immediately say,…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Janice Selbie: please come on my podcast you've made such a difference in my life. And also by the way, my husband remembers you and had fun bird watching with you. And I didn't expect actually to hear from her because she is very busy and…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Janice Selbie: sure enough I heard back and so yesterday I got to meet her on my podcast and talk with her. So I hope that
Janice Selbie: I hope it went It was hard to stay in my body because I was all so interesting because she wasn't raised religious. Her dad was a scientist but she's obviously extremely bright very well educated and a real student of History. some of these things repeat themselves.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah, I love podcasts because they are much more deep platform than anything else. I know you have a pretty successful YouTube channel that's been growing and has been a project to grow it because that takes active work to do some of these things and there's always that fear of we put in all this work and build this thing that you don't actually have control over and then Right some major corporation buys it out or YouTube's adding 90 second unskippable ads irritating or whatever, and so I also enjoyed the podcasting aspect of it's spread out. It's a little less platforms and people can find it. and yes, I've had that experience as a host where when I get therapist needs the
00:45:00
Jeremy Schumacher: Rapy let's do it. But that Fanboy moment of I can't believe I'm talking to this person.
Janice Selbie: Wow.
Janice Selbie: that's so cool. Who was the comic book author?
Jeremy Schumacher: Jason Aaron who is an Eisner Award winner. It's their only 16 of them because Alan Moore and Neil Diamond won it so many times but he wrote Thor for many years. So people who watched the MCU a lot of his work on Thor is the character that we've seen in the MCU and…
Janice Selbie: Wow.
Jeremy Schumacher: I'm a comic book nerd. So again, it's when you get that person who I can't believe I'm interviewing this person. It's so much different than when we're in our I don't know area of expertise.
Janice Selbie: that's very exciting and I do in some ways feel like we're in Uncharted Territory as far as continuing to try and shed light on religious trauma. So I mean Dr. Winnell and Dr. Ray Daryl Ray, they both been at about same amount of time Daryl, of course founded recovering from religion. And then of course Annie Laurie and Dan over at Freedom from religion foundation. So they've all been in it for decades. But otherwise I
Janice Selbie: I haven't been aware but over the last five years. Whoosh the floodgates are open.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Janice Selbie: So I've got my practice doing my podcasts. I am working on my book. I'm supposed to publish it this summer. So that's something else and then I told you I went to some of Marlene's drone else Retreats and sometimes while I was there there was a small film crew from Sweden who was filming a documentary. So, of course we have to sign releases and all this kind of stuff.
Janice Selbie: And it's when my husband and I met through those Retreats and when we got married, the film crew was finishing up this documentary and we said come on over and film our wedding and so they did and they stayed in our town and we got to spend more time with them and it's just the Cinematic Premiere is going to be in Stockholm in April and we're going out there for that and the documentary is called leaving Jesus and I certainly don't factor into it very much at all. My husband is more in it, but certainly we know the other people as well. So we're gonna have a nice reunion in Stockholm in April around this documentary.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Janice Selbie: So things are changing more and more people are learning about religious trauma syndrome and the recovery help that's available.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, which is great. We have all this research that says the nuns the no-n-e people who identify with no religion is way on the rise. We know Church attendance is way down. And so I think it is an interesting time. a lot of people are seeking out this help and…
Janice Selbie: then
Jeremy Schumacher: this support and the community because that's really hard when people leave religion they're scared of what's going to replace that community. And so all these different wonderful folks building online communities starting to build in person communities. that's the stuff that people are needing as they're leaving. different versions of whatever religion they were in
Janice Selbie: Right, and I really do encourage people. Not just to be building their online communities. That's kind of the first thing that we do because we're looking things up online. Where are these groups for other people like me because we can still also be really experiencing a lot of anger at that point and we know to some degree attracts if someone else is really angry and shouting about something and we feel really angry, we might get in there start shouting about it too and anger is a legitimate part of the grieving process and indicates boundary violations, but if we are angry
Janice Selbie: hopefully it's helping us to make a change rather than self, immolation or all consuming anger. We don't want to get stuck there. And so I also encourage people. what's going on in your town what things have you joined in your town? Have you done any meetup groups? Do you join us? No showing group or a bird watching group or have you been going out to the games cafe or anything just to try and meet people. because it used to be.
Janice Selbie: The church was our One Stop Shop. It met all of our needs. We had people there who were repeating our views back to us. We were singing together. There was childcare. We were looked after if we were wounded sick or whatever now it's on us we have to actively be building new communities. Our life now will look more like a patchwork quilt where we typically will have this group for this and this group for that but we have to do the work we have to get out there and that can be really hard for people who are introverted or it just can be hard sometimes to put ourselves out there. So do it gently, if you're gonna go somewhere give yourself permission to sit by the door in case you want to be to haste you treat or…
00:50:00
Jeremy Schumacher: right
Janice Selbie: when you're full that you can leave.
Janice Selbie: is your University or college hosting any interesting lectures that are going to be discussion groups just get your toes in the water. So you're integrating yourself into the larger world
Jeremy Schumacher: yeah, yeah, and that is So scary for people who are going through a grief or loss of their identity of I'm not sure who I am. So I'm gonna meet other people and also I think that fundamentalist thinking of I went to this and I didn't like it but I'm gonna keep going because I'm supposed to and it's like if you didn't like it don't go back that's fine. I love the optimistic niallism reference earlier…
Janice Selbie: he
Jeremy Schumacher: because I think people often panic and kind of go to annihilistic. if nothing means anything then nothing matters, it's like that's This is all arbitrary, but that's very freeing and empowering when you get to a space to be able to take advantage of it being free and empowering.
Janice Selbie: Yeah, and that's why I also like the values clarification work because I am very aware of the values that I used to have because they were the values my parents and my pastor told me that those are not the same values I have now I used to put obedience,…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Janice Selbie: right at the top of my list Holiness whatever they don't even make it on my list. Now autonomy is like number one. I'm gonna be my own person.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Janice Selbie: I'm gonna make my own choices and even to go back every few years and review and have things change because we change hopefully through the years we mature and grow and things that were once very important to us might not even make the cut. at this point so we have to give ourselves permission to grow and change and change our mind and try not to
Janice Selbie: it's like we can be holding so tight to something that actually it's holding us when our identity on our ideology fuse together like that and then we don't have the space that we need to be able to look at the ideology and say no something's wrong here. So we want to learn to hold things Loosely so that we can let them go when new information comes to light.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, yeah. How we doing for time? I didn't check but I record. Okay. Okay.
Janice Selbie: Is a couple minutes to 10?
Jeremy Schumacher: Then I'm gonna well cut this I'm gonna ask a couple more questions.
Janice Selbie: there
Jeremy Schumacher: So being a neighbor to the North in Canada. I'm down in America. Do you feel like there's a lot of similarities with kind of the culture War stuff and the religious right making a big political move. Do you feel like Canada's a little different in that and some of the decline in religion and rise and extremism that brings about or…
Janice Selbie: I think it might depend…
Jeremy Schumacher: you seen that's pretty similar on the Canadian side of things, too.
Janice Selbie: where you live. I'm in the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia, and I'm in quite a waspy city, but it's my hometown where I grew up and so It's still pretty churchy and so I see we just had one of our city councilors did some kind of opinion piece in the local newspaper the other day saying…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Janice Selbie: how people need to read their Bible. And so I happen to be the vice president of my local atheist Skeptics and humanists Association. So I'm like I don't appreciate that from my counselor. So then there were some letters written
Janice Selbie: about this so yeah, we got a lot of evangelicals here and I would say a lot of seniors who are very well-intentioned but who are not aware of the facts of everything especially if they're watching Fox News, and The television stations like Fox News are not allowed in Canada. We have different roles there, but people still have satellites or whatever, you can still get it.
Jeremy Schumacher: sure.
Janice Selbie: And so if that sort of nonsense is being preached at their churches, then it gets them riled up and if they have lots of time on their hands, there's lots of seniors do then they can really make quite a fuss about things.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
00:55:00
Janice Selbie: So yes, we do have some Trump supporters, but over here, they're more likely to be what we call Convoy supporters because there were a bunch of them…
Jeremy Schumacher: Sure.
Janice Selbie: who drove to our capital city Ottawa help.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Janice Selbie: They set up their hot tubs and their loudspeakers and they basically held Ottawa hostage as the RCMP went. I wonder what she do. So we do have extremists here and I still want to say that for the most part people are well-intentioned but I think they are misinformed and misinformation can be deadly so we do have those issues here, but we have more than just two political parties here. We have several political parties here.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Janice Selbie: So I think that that makes things a little more better spread out rather than just the intense polarization that we see in the states.
Jeremy Schumacher: yeah, and not to repeat myself but working on decolonizing therapy and some of those things like you see how much capitalism plays into the American political system as well and where Progress is very slow because both parties even if they have different policies and belief systems are beholden to capitalism which really limits a lot. I look over at those Norway Finland Sweden countries that are democratic socialists and…
Janice Selbie: Yeah. I know I know and…
Jeremy Schumacher: non-religious and I'm like, that looks nice.
Janice Selbie: especially right now with everything. You folks have going on. it's a lot your countries having a moment.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, and it's what you said to depends on where you live because I'm in the Midwest and I have most of my religious trauma podcast guests therapist.
Janice Selbie: interesting
Janice Selbie:
Jeremy Schumacher: As with the theme of the podcast what's self-care at this point in your life look like you've talked about kind of your journey out of fundamentalism and the work that you're doing professionally, but personally, do navigate? The work you do is heavy. There's a lot of it. How do you kind of navigate all that and make sure you're taking care of yourself?
Janice Selbie: In some ways I feel like I'm not qualified to talk about self-care because I have so many things on the go at any one time and we know that being overly busy can also be a response to trauma.
Jeremy Schumacher: Okay.
Janice Selbie: So I am aware of that. I do specifically sometimes tell my husband.
Janice Selbie: Okay, we watched the news tonight. And now I want to turn the TV off because he is from the United States. So we have a lot of political podcasts that are being played at our place and these sorts of things and I say I've had a heavy day. Would you read to me? I love his voice. He has such a good voice and then yeah, he'll just put one of the books off our Shelf and read to me for a couple hours and then I can lie there and I have jigsaw puzzles on my phone doing my jigsaw puzzles and I'm listening to his soothing calming voice and I'm not thinking about all the troubles that are overwhelming this world. And of course I do also have a therapist.
Janice Selbie: It's just too much and I need to be able to unburden and talk to somebody else. So we also go bird watching every day. He's a retired environmental scientist and ornithologists. So we have our binoculars both of us and we try and go out every day and do some bird watching together just being outdoors in the sunshine in the quiet. I don't have my phone, I don't have my computer those sorts of things that is really helpful. So those are things that I do for myself.
Janice Selbie: Yes.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Janice Selbie: That's right. Yes, and…
01:00:00
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, and…
Janice Selbie: also time with friends,…
Jeremy Schumacher: all lovely things I had Jared Anderson the crypto naturalist…
Janice Selbie: so even if I can't I don't have time to drive over to someone's house and…
Jeremy Schumacher: who writes about nature a lot and how it has affected his depression in a positive way and…
Janice Selbie: spend hours there but I might just text my friend and say can we hop on messenger and…
Jeremy Schumacher: he talked about it's okay to not know the difference between the types of trees like nature is good for you.
Janice Selbie: have a video chat for 20 minutes? And that is a wonderful use of Technology just to stay connected that way.
Jeremy Schumacher: It's okay to not know what bird that is. You can still enjoy its beauty and I talk about nature being grounding for us, especially those of us who may have religious trauma or cptsd or whatever and being in nature being grounded being in the moment not being on our phones or social media it's It's okay if you're not a certified or…
Janice Selbie: Yes.
Jeremy Schumacher: anthologist, who knows…
Janice Selbie: The YouTube channel is called conference on religious trauma and…
Jeremy Schumacher: what bird that is, you can be like, that pretty I like that.
Janice Selbie: my website is divorcing hyphen. Religion.com. And the podcast is called the divorcing religion podcast and people can actually reach out to me through my website…
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Janice Selbie: if they'd like to get a hold of me and I'm on Facebook under my name Janice selbie and under divorcing religion workshop.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, yeah for sure Janice.
Janice Selbie: And I really do appreciate every message that comes to me.
Jeremy Schumacher: This has been wonderful and…
Janice Selbie: I try and…
Jeremy Schumacher: I was so excited to get to connect with you.
Janice Selbie: answer back.
Jeremy Schumacher: I follow your podcasts and I'm familiar with court and all these things but if people want to learn more about you, Where do they find you?
Janice Selbie: .
Janice Selbie: That's right, and I'm just now starting to upload sessions not only from court, but from Shameless sexuality onto the YouTube channel, and that is just a fantastic free resource for people for therapist.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, that's awesome.
Janice Selbie: What a pleasure was so nice to spend time with you.
Jeremy Schumacher: And Shameless sexuality is the other conference he talks about Seeing…
Janice Selbie: Thank you for having me on.
Jeremy Schumacher: where that's going to land in the future, but a lot of those speakers are featured on our YouTube channel as well. So
Janice Selbie: Bye.
Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, yeah and all that I was links will be in the show notes here to make them easy to find so Janice. Thanks again for coming on today.
Jeremy Schumacher: And to all our wonderful listeners, thanks for tuning in again this week. We'll be back next week with another new episode. Take care everyone.