Growing Up in Fear-Based Faith (and Finding a Kinder Way to the Divine)

What happens when the rules that shaped your childhood stop fitting the person you’ve become? I open up about growing up in a fear-based Christian environment, the moment a simple religion textbook cracked my world open, and the long, uneven road from rigid certainty to a kinder, more spacious spirituality. This is a story about unlearning, healing, and finding a way to the divine that feels honest.

We walk through the realities of a tightly controlled church life—how community can nourish but also narrow—then move into that first encounter with Buddhism, Shintoism, Islam, and Judaism that challenged my either-or thinking. I share the season when doubt sounded louder than faith, and how a rock bottom with my eating disorder became the unlikely doorway to a slow spiritual awakening. As I rebuilt my health, I discovered how mind, body, and soul are woven together, and how caring for one calls the others forward.

From there, we explore what a non-religious but deeply spiritual life looks like for me now: learning across traditions, noticing the shared values that show up everywhere, and using curiosity and compassion as daily guides. I talk about seeking closeness to God, Source, the Universe—whatever name you prefer—without the fear that once defined my beliefs, and I offer practical encouragement for anyone rethinking their path. Your truth is allowed to evolve. Your timeline is your own. If a practice makes you more loving and more present, it belongs.

If this conversation resonates, share it with a friend who’s navigating their own questions, subscribe for more thoughtful explorations, and leave a review to help others find the show. What belief of yours has changed for the better?

Podcast mentioned in this episode:

When Curiosity Becomes a Spiritual Path

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Transcript

Travel Plans Deferred

Why Share My Spiritual Path

Growing Up In Fear-Based Christianity

Shelter, Social Circle, And Control

First Exposure To World Religions

Questioning Absolutes And Opening Up

Doubt, Rock Bottom, And Awakening

Mind Body Soul Interconnection

From Religion To Spirituality

Curiosity And Compassion As Compass

Encouragement For Evolving Beliefs

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hello my loves, welcome to this week's episode of Journey to the Soul. If it's your first time tuning in with us, hello, welcome. I'm so happy that you chose to tune into this episode today and to tune into the conversations that we are gonna be having. I love to see where all of you guys are listening from. It just inspires me more to keep doing this. I am so happy that you are here, and I'm really looking forward to diving into today's conversation with you guys. If you listened to my last episode, I'm pretty sure it was my last episode, then you would have heard that my husband and I were gonna be traveling for a couple of weeks, and we're actually supposed to be in Italy right now, but that trip got cut short, and that's a story for another day. I'm gonna probably record that in the next few days because that really is something that I do want to share with you guys. It's a learning experience, a growing experience, and that's a lot of what I share on here. But today's episode, I actually wanted to talk about how I got to where I am in my spiritual journey and kind of like my current belief systems and what shaped them. And the reason that I wanted to share this was because I feel like we all have our own unique way of how we were brought up to believe regarding certain things, whether that was a religion that we were exposed to or other things that we were exposed to. But I feel like my relationship with religion, with spirituality, has evolved so much. And a lot of the people that I have conversations with, it's always something that they're quite interested in. So I feel like it could be helpful because I come from a background where religion was something that was very prevalent in my life. And if you've been with the podcast for some time and listened to some episodes, then you probably know that I am much more spiritual. Not that I have anything against religion at all. I feel like there's so much respect and just understanding that we should have towards people all over the world, regardless of what it is they choose to believe in and what makes them those things that make them feel closer to God or another greater power. And this space, first and foremost, like I taught have talked about before as well, is a safe space. It's never gonna be a space of judgment or anything like that. This is all coming from a place of compassion and wanting to have a deeper understanding, whether of ourselves or those around us. So I wanted to share that story with you guys of how I got to where I am in my spiritual journey because it has been many, many, many years in the making. I was brought up, I was born into a very Christian family. It's a very specific kind of Christianity. It's gonna sound a little crazy, but it was very conservative, very extreme, very fear-based. And this is what I grew up in. My mom was actually Catholic before she had me. And when she had me, I was the fifth daughter that she had. Before that, all of my sisters were brought up with some Catholic beliefs, so she converted right before she birthed me. But this form of Christianity that I was brought up into was very fear-based, and it was an extreme version of other kinds of Christianity that exist because there's so many branches and denominations of Christianity, some slightly stricter than others, some of them have different belief systems than others. So I was brought up from a form that was almost like a cult, it was very closed-minded to the world, and everything was their way or no way, and the church that we were brought up to be in, it was everything. The church was everything in our life, the people that I socialized with, it was really just at church. We spent so much time at church doing all of these things, but everything was definitely done out of a place of fear, you know, that there is God and there is the devil, that there is good and there is evil, that if you don't do all of these things, therefore you are not gonna go to heaven, or if you do any of these things, they're considered evil. So I felt like I spent so much of my life just falling short and never really being able to fully be what was expected of me, and I spent so much of my life not cutting my hair, or not wearing pants because that was technically not allowed, or not listening to certain music that wasn't Christian, or wearing makeup or jewelry. So there was just certain things that I just wasn't allowed to do because that was deemed unholy essentially. It was taking me off of my path, essentially. So the church was our life, like my mom, my sisters' lives, that's how we grew up to be. And my sisters eventually left the church, and for a good while until I decided to leave the church that I was brought up into, it was just me and my mom for many years. And I started having other thoughts about what really was truth. And in middle school, I was homeschooled two out of the three years, and it was when I was homeschooled that I took a religions course in it, it was like an extracurricular that I could do, and it was something that I was interested in because I had never really been exposed to other ways of thinking when it came to religion. My entire life I had just been brought up to look at the world in this very biased way, this very closed off way of seeing the world, of where it's us against them. So it was never something that I was brought up to see. One, because, like I mentioned, I mean, this church was everything. It was my social circle, it was how I made friends, it was our family, it was everything. And we're all the same essentially in this church. No one believed anything different, and so I was for most of my childhood and most of my like young adolescence, I was brought up with people that had the same beliefs, so I was never exposed to anything different. And the first time that that really happened was when I decided to take this religions class because no one had told me, hey, there's all of these other religions that exist in the world, or there's people that practice all of these other things. I knew that there was other denominations of Christianity, because in my church we shunned some of them, you know, because they didn't believe the way we believed, or they they didn't do things the way that we did things. So I knew about the many different forms of Christianity and how that could look like because I was made aware of the differences, but when it came to anything else, things like Buddhism or Islam or Judaism, you know, those things I was very sheltered from. It was not something that I was exposed to. Were there people in my school that practiced these religions? Yes, probably, but like I mentioned, most of my socializing, even while I was in public schools and middle in elementary school were with my church. Another reason for that is because I moved a lot when I was in elementary school. I went to very many, many, many elementary and middle schools. So I never had the opportunity to develop very deep relationships with people to begin with. I probably went to eight or nine different elementary schools and middle schools, and I was also homeschooled in and out of being homeschooled throughout middle school and high school. So the church and the community within the church was my constant throughout my life. So that's also the reason why I was quite sheltered when it came to being exposed to certain things. And yeah, I mean, there were certain things that we just weren't allowed to do. I wasn't allowed to go to school on Halloween or Christmas because that was deemed like unholy, evil, all of these other things. So it was a very strong and specific way of viewing the world. And again, that started changing when I decided to take this religions class, and I remember reading the book for the first time. I actually still have the book, and it's probably been over 10 years, probably 11 or 12 since I first read the book, and I've thought about actually going back to it and just reviewing it, but it went into some depth into all of these religions in the world, some of them that I kind of knew about, others that I had never really heard about. And there was just certain ones that struck out as me because they were such a different way of practicing a religion that I had not been exposed to, but they just seemed innately good, their way of being, because it was more a philosophy of how you move through the world and rules and values that govern that versus there is this god, and these are the laws that govern, you know, your religion or your your religious aspect. You know, there was always a god, but also many rules that encompassed whether or not you were someone that practices religion, so there was just certain ones that struck out as me as like, how can they be wrong? What is wrong with this? Because nothing struck me as extreme when I read them, you know, it was Buddhism and Shintoism, and I forgot what else it was, but it's like these philosophies, these spiritual practices, it's just something that's quite universal because it's a way of how you move through your life. And you can argue the same thing for religion, but for me, at that moment in time, at that age, it was a stark difference to how I was brought up to believe, to what I was told was the correct way to have a spiritual practice or you know, a relationship with God. So it really expanded my mind, it opened my mind, it broke my truth essentially of what I thought my truth was at that time when it came to these things, and I began to question everything that I have been ever taught to believe in my entire life. I was probably about 14 or so when this happened, when I was exposed to this, and that was my first exposure. It was a first step for me, it was a huge step, but the real evolution took many years, like I shared, and throughout all of those years, there were moments when I thought maybe I didn't believe in anything because I was struggling to find what was true for me. Like, what do I believe in, you know? And there were many challenging things that happened in my life that you know made me want to let go of the belief that there was something greater than me. And there was eventually another evolution where I knew that that just wasn't true for me, even though a part of me almost wanted to believe it, that I knew in my heart, in my soul, in my being, that that could not be true. Because up until that point, I knew that there was no way I could have lived the life that I have lived, and there could not have been a greater power watching over me. Even though I was uncertain about whether or not it was the God that I was brought up to believe in, I was open to it being something different or something that I couldn't understand or explain, but I knew in all of my being that there was something, even if I didn't understand it. And that was also like a chapter in this story where I spent much time in is okay, I know that this is my truth, I know that there's something greater, but is it God? Does it involve the Bible, Jesus, you know, all of these other things that I was brought up to believe in? Are those still part of this belief that I have? And I went through kind of the next iteration of this path, essentially. And I went through a spiritual awakening, and it was it happened gradually, but it happened shortly after I hit my rock bottom with my eating disorder, probably five years ago now. And I've talked about this in other podcast episodes, but we really are mind, body, soul, and when you begin to work on one of these aspects, whether it's the physical, eventually the mind, emotional body, and your spiritual body will become affected by everything that you do. So although my rock bottom prompt me to work on my physical being, it pushed me, you know, directly and directly, however you want to look at it, to also work on my mental being, my emotional being. And I spent many years working on those things. And naturally I started working on my spiritual being, and I started connecting all of the dots or started seeing for the first time a deeper clarity of how it is all interconnected: mind, body, soul, how all of these aspects of ourselves help us connect to something greater than we are. So eventually, because of where I was mentally, and also at that moment in time, again, it's like I first kind of read this book when I was about 14 years old. I probably had my spiritual awakening about five years ago. So that would have been probably in my early 20s. So you could see that there was a good chunk of time that went through those two phases. And then from my spiritual awakening now, of course, that's like another five years essentially. When I went through my spiritual awakening, I had spent many years of my life already trying to gather what my new beliefs were. I was still learning a lot about other religions, other philosophies, exposing myself to different things. I was also, you know, working on myself, healing myself, doing therapy, healing my relationship with myself, but also working on any notions that I had about religion or different things that I was brought up to believe in. So I was in a place, at a space where I was so open to being shown a different path that I didn't understand. And it was at a greater, it was like a greater understanding and in a greater place than when I was 14 and I first read this book because now I had an even deeper understanding of it. So the spiritual awakening was something that kind of unfolded over a handful of years slowly, and I discussed in I think it was the last episode, it was when curiosity becomes a spiritual path, and I was talking about Kabbalah. I discussed a little bit about where I am now in those five years since I've had my spiritual awakening. I feel like I've only gained more and more clarity and certainty over what I believe is true for me. And I'm so grateful to have gone through the process and the evolution that I did over the last 10 years because I feel more connected to the higher power, God, whatever you want to call it, than I ever did throughout my entire life as a child or as a teenager. It's like what I believe to be true now, it's so strong in me, and I'm very spiritual, but I'm not religious. I don't identify with a religion. I, you know, believe in a greater power, God, the universe, the creator, whatever you want to call it. And I look at so many religions around the world and I see synchronicities, you know, similarities within all of them. And I feel like it's about what helps you connect to something deeper than yourself. If that is a religious practice that you were brought up to believe in, if that is Christianity, or if it is Islam or Judaism, whatever it is, if that makes you feel connected to God or the Creator, and that feels good and wholesome to you, then that's wonderful. Right now, as I am in my life, I am still learning. I am still open and receptive to learning about other spiritual philosophies. I'm constantly learning about them. It's something that I come back to constantly. Religions, you know, cultures, different things, how they're different, but also how they're the same. Because fundamentally, I feel like that's the most important thing. And I live so much in the spiritual realm because I know that my calling in this life is in this realm, which is why I am here talking to you about all of these things and making it something that's easy and digestible and feels, you know, wholesome. So I spend a lot of my time in this realm, and it makes sense to me that I would have a deep desire and a deep craving to continue to gain a deeper understanding of all of these things because I am open to my beliefs now changing. That is something that I hold on to because I only know what I know now, and I am happy and open for it to change and evolve as I grow and learn because that's inevitable, right? So maybe for me that will be that more clarity comes about regarding certain things. Maybe it is that I go to a certain kind of religion. I don't know. Right now, this is where I am, and I am very happy in this place, and this is simply my truth now, and I think that something that should guide all of us when it comes to this is to just be compassionate and curious. Curiosity can help you so much when it comes to this, because it comes more from an open heart versus us kind of creating lines in the sand with other people, which is something that I talked about in the episode about Kabbalah and how I'm learning Kabbalah right now. But being compassionate and curious and letting that be your compass. And ultimately, I wanted to share this because I know that there are other people who are going through this or who have gone through this, or who are starting to question certain things that maybe they were brought up to believe in. And regardless of where you are on that path, if you're in the beginning, in the middle, you don't even know where you might be, or if you're towards the end, I want you to know that it's okay not to know. It's okay for you to go through an evolution with this. And your path, your spiritual truth, your path to you know finding your spiritual truth is gonna look different to everyone around you. It's gonna be uniquely your own. So even though mine look like this, like studying different religions and learning about all of these things and whatever the heck it might be, and even though this may be my truth now, yours is gonna be so uniquely yours. And you just have to be kind to yourself, gentle with yourself, and hold yourself with compassion again, because you are human, you are ever evolving. Just like we outgrow certain, you know, beliefs, certain environments, certain way of beings, this is no different. It's okay for your spiritual truth to evolve over time, like any other aspect of life. If you're not growing or evolving in that realm, then that means that you're not growing or evolving in that realm. It's okay for it not to look like it did, or for you not to be in the same spaces you were five or ten years ago, or you know, a couple of months ago. But you just need to be gentle with yourself. You don't need to know what it's gonna look like, you just need to allow yourself to be guided by whatever you feel inclined to go towards, you know, and let yourself just go the way. And this is something that takes time because there's so much depth in this. So just allow yourself to continue walking that path a little bit at a time, and there's loads of people that are doing it too, and you're not alone. And I hope me sharing this with you today can help you see that, you know, even today as I sit here, and although I am leaps and bounds to other beliefs that I had at other moments of my life of questioning or not whether or not there was something greater than me, and knowing now, sitting here, you know, without a shadow of a doubt that that is true, there's still so much that I don't know, but I just want you to hold on to that that you're not gonna know everything, and that you just enjoy the journey of learning about all of these things and you know creating a new truth for yourself. So I hope you all found this helpful in some way. I really wanted to share because me doing this work and working in this realm, because this is a realm that for me, you know, I am a spiritual life coach, I'm a teacher, a guide, a healer. This is a realm that I live in, and I just want you guys to know how I got here, you know, and why I where so much of what I speak comes from, and so much of it comes from my experience, of course. And this is one of those things that has for sure colored so much of my experience when it comes to religion and spirituality, and it's incredible to see how far I've come, and I know it's gonna be the same for you guys. So I am sending you all a big hug and so much love and light until we talk next time.