The God Barriers

Coach, author and speaker Janice Selbie shares her experience of divorcing her religion and the family estrangement that soon followed. 

• https://www.divorcing-religion.com/
• https://www.shamelesssexuality.org/
• https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGhyTXTIM9kdTJ1jW-Ckb5g  

People can write to Janice at Janice@divorcing-religion.com 

Her book entitled Divorcing Religion: A Memoir and Survival Handbook https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DP78TZZF

BIO 

Janice Selbie grew up in a Pentecostal family. While at Bible college, she took a deep dive down the fundamentalist rabbit hole and aligned herself with Holdeman Mennonites. She started wearing a head-covering and disavowed jewelry, makeup, and all things secular. 

Around age 40, Janice divorced both her husband and her religion. She went back to school to become a Registered Professional Counsellor and now has a thriving practice as a religious trauma recovery coach.

She is the founder and host of CORT: The Conference on Religious Trauma, and the Shameless Sexuality: Life After Purity Culture conference (happening in Seattle May of 2025). 

In her spare time, Janice hosts the Divorcing Religion Podcast and serves as president of her local atheists, skeptics, and humanists association in BC, Canada.

Stay tuned to the episode for upcoming event information!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:15

So I'm really excited. So let's get into it. Janice, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and what made you kind of pop up on here on this show?

SPEAKER_00: 0:23

Yeah, thank you so much for having me on your show. This is just a delight to get to spend some more time with you. And uh I'm a registered professional counselor and a religious trauma recovery coach in British Columbia. And of course, I see people all around the world who are recovering from religious trauma. And I grew up in a very religious Pentecostal family. And then I married someone that my pastor set me up with. And uh and then we ended up moving to uh a small town on the prairies for him to attend a Bible college. And while we were there, that's when I really did a deep dive into fundamentalism because I saw these ladies coming into the grocery store in our small town, and they were always dressed ever so modestly in these long, you know, skirts and and and always had their hair covered, no makeup or anything. And so I thought, what's going on there? I didn't I didn't recognize them. And my husband at the time said, Oh, well, you know, they are actually a type of Mennonite uh called Holdeman Mennonites. We have those folks in Canada, and he said that it's actually in the New Testament what they're doing, how how carefully they're dressing modestly and covering their hair. And that was shocking to me because um I thought I knew the Bible pretty well, and I didn't think there was a mandate still for women to cover their heads. So I read the Bible and the concordance and all the Bible books that explain the Bible, and I decided, oh, these people, they must be really holy. They are following even more rules, and I love rules because uh when I was growing up, I had a really volatile religious uh father who was also a narcissist, and he could be um scary at times, and so rules were really important to recognize and to follow. So then I was like, Yay, more rules. Yeah, so I got out my glue gun, and that's right. I got out my glue gun and I made my first head covering and I got rid of all my pants and my shorts and my jewelry, and even stopped wearing my wedding ring at the time and decided, you know, I was gonna move forward in this new holy way. And so I did for a number of um years, and uh then one day it all just stopped working for me.

SPEAKER_01: 2:50

The bow broke, yeah, right? That's kind of what the show is about. Something's about to break and get too heavy and fall. So tell me about that. Like, so you went from going into Bible college as like what a normally dressed person, and then how long did it take for you to to recognize these women and adopt what they were doing? How long did it take for that to kind of happen?

SPEAKER_00: 3:14

Well, we were probably on the campus already for two, maybe two years or something at that point. I was the president of the student-wides fellowship, all this kind of stuff. So I was relatively normal uh in that setting. Right. Um, but uh then once I once I learned this new exciting truth about more rules to follow, you know, within 24 hours, I was like, BAM, that's it. Because, you know, I can't be prone to extremes. Uh, and certainly um that was a case where that happened. And I felt that I was being entirely obedient um to scripture. Um, and I did ask my husband's permission at the time. And he's such a we're not married anymore, but he's a really pretty laid back, laid back kind of chill fellow. And uh he certainly never put any um pressure on me that he wanted me to to do that. But he did say he was fine if I felt personally like I needed to do that. Then he gave me his uh permission. And and I had hoped that wearing a head covering would remind me uh to submit because I have some trouble with submitting. We do, don't we? Some others might recognize that. Um, and so I really had uh you know the best of intentions and uh and I wore a head covering for a number of years, and I also um you know started homeschooling the children at that time, just really going becoming more uh isolated and insulated in my views. Um and then uh eventually he asked me to stop wearing the head covering because he was pastoring and felt like it was creating a division in the church or just putting a barrier there between me and the other ladies who didn't. Although I never told other people that they needed to do it. I took it as my personal uh conviction. Um, but so then we had a year that was very difficult with lots of terrible things that went wrong. Uh, and then the last thing being our youngest daughter uh received a life-threatening diagnosis that would be chronic. And that was just it for me. That was the bow broke right there because I was like, I don't know anyone who's tried so hard to live according to the Bible, uh, as I had been doing. And then it just seemed like a constant barrage of everything going wrong. Um, and so that was it for me. And I gave myself permission to start looking in other belief systems and religions.

SPEAKER_01: 5:47

So, what was going through your head when you know you you had said I I did all this work, I did, I changed all these things about myself to follow God more than I was following him. And now this, now my kid is sick. Like, yeah. So you said the bow broke. So what was kind of going in your head? You're like, yeah, have done this all for nothing. Is God punishing me or is he just not there? Like, what was what were you thinking?

SPEAKER_00: 6:16

Yeah, excellent, excellent question, because certainly that was uh the the whole concept of am I being punished, you know, those sorts of things were going through my head. And then there were other some other Christian people who I'm sure were well-meaning, um, who also were, you know, you need to pray more, you need to fast more, whatever kind of stuff. Uh and just the idea that um, yeah, it was potentially something I had done. And then what really snapped it for me was I overheard my daughter, and she was just 10 at the time, I overheard her praying and asking God what you know, would he show her what sin she had done so she wouldn't uh she wouldn't be sick anymore. Like it was, oh, it was heart uh breaking, but I wasn't um I wasn't ready to uh kind of throw away God already. What I basically thought was God may be out there, he may be somewhere, but he's not here where I thought he was. And so then I I did a deep dive into um the new age movement and had lots of fun studying things that were formerly forbidden, you know, going to psychics and astrology and looking, learning about reincarnation, all this stuff. It was really exciting. And then I felt I had a new community there because I didn't have my Christian community. But then after a few years um in that community, I there were cracks in the facade there as well. Um, and it got me to a point where I thought, you know what? I I'm actually quite fine living my life. I have a code of ethics, I don't need to worry about any God or anything else out there to punish me. I'm just gonna live my life. And that was really when I was stepping into my own um freedom.

SPEAKER_01: 8:08

I like that. You ours, believe it or not, our journeys are a little similar. I felt like before I left my religion that I also became a little bit more extreme in some ways. I felt like that was the correct path. Um, and then yeah, like you said, when I did that, it really didn't improve things and it didn't reassure me in my faith anymore. I actually felt like I was doing it for nothing and there's no point to this. And as I studied more, studied other religions, uh, you know, exposed myself to things that were real and true, um, it became easier for me to see those contradictions that I had adopted throughout my life because I was raised in it. Um so when you realized that this wasn't the way that you wanted to live, was it kind of like an overnight thing or was it kind of progressive that you just kind of gradually found your footing as an individual without the um the God barriers, I guess I would call it.

SPEAKER_00: 9:12

Yeah, definitely. Um, it was a progression. I did not like just wake up and say, well, that's it, it's all wrong. Because it was even I had to give myself permission to start exploring uh other ideologies because I had been born and raised and um, you know, indoctrinated from childhood as well into my own religious beliefs. And at the time we were living across the street from a used bookstore. And so one day my husband and the kids were at school, and I thought, I'm gonna go over to that bookstore. And this was in the 90s, and so there was a room at the back of the store, and it had a long dark velvet curtain to the floor, and over top of it it said occult and alternative religions. And I was like, I'm going in there, I'm going in there because I psyched myself up and I went and I took a big breath and I opened the curtain and then lightning did not strike me. And so I went inside and I quickly closed the curtain because I didn't want anyone to see me. And I'm scanning the bookshelves to look for anything that seemed like some kind of textbook, you know, not nothing, nothing that would immediately send me to hell. And so I grabbed a book and I went to the cashier and I actually asked her to put it in a brown paper bag because I didn't want people seeing that I had this. And then I took it and I ran back across the street to our home and I hid it in the safest place, my underwear drawer. God himself would not even look in my underwear drawer. Uh, and then it took uh, you know, over a number of weeks um that I read through that book in private. I didn't talk to my husband at the time about what was going on. He by that time wasn't really interested in coming to church and the kids I was having to drag to church. And so the last time I went to church, I went by myself and I just wept through the service because the the hymns and the choruses, they just turned to sawdust in my mouth because I felt very abandoned by God and by my church family. Um, but so it was a progression of uh walking out, taking small steps on my own um to figure out my own beliefs.

SPEAKER_01: 11:37

So, what happened when you walked away from all of this?

SPEAKER_00: 11:42

Yeah, what happened next? I I would say it in some ways very little. Like I was shocked. I thought because I had been so involved in my church community for so many years, I thought we would I would be getting phone calls and you know this sort of thing. And nope, nope, no, it was crickets. It was like one or two people, one person uh called and and said, Well, you are taking your kids to hell. Um, but nobody else did. And then I I plainly remember one time uh breathing a great sigh of relief when I determined, you know what? I think hell is made up. I don't actually think hell is a real place. And then I always felt so good about that. And I went to sleep and I woke up in the middle of the night and sat up, and I'm like, oh my God, if hell is not real, then maybe heaven is not real. And that was then I'm like gasping and breathing into a paper, having a fit thinking this. Yes, exactly. Yeah, it was it was really scary. And so I called my big brother. So I have two older brothers, and they are not religious at all. Um, and I called the one that I'm quite close to and I explained my concerns. And he said, I've I've been there, I know what you're going through. He said, Here's a video I'm gonna recommend that you watch on YouTube. And I watched it and I felt so much better after um watching it, and I'll share that if you want, but it was really helpful for me.

SPEAKER_01: 13:17

So, in terms of your family, you said that two of your brothers don't really practice anymore. Did you did any of your family relationships suffer when you left the church?

SPEAKER_00: 13:29

Yeah, so all my siblings had uh walked away from religion. Um, my mom would still consider herself, oh, what does she say? Oh, a woman of faith. I got my air quotes quote, a woman of faith there. But my my dad has always been uh very fundamentalist and um quite a narcissist as well, just not a great combination. Uh, and so I knew that there would be issues when I finally told him um that I didn't believe. But I felt like I had to tell him because at that time we were still tied in fairly closely to my parents. You know, the kids were like 10 and 12 or whatever it was. And so we would do some family meals and stuff like that. And so I finally told my dad, and sure enough, he started to cry and you know, make a big scene and all this stuff. And I was like, Well, you know, this is you're just gonna have to deal with it because it's me, you can't make me believe. I said, I can't, I wish I could make myself believe again, but I can't. Yeah, you know, it's just once what's what's that quote about uh oh, once the mind has been stretched from its uh original dimensions, it can never return, you never go back there. Um, and so then I had said to my dad, So I don't want you mentioning God, you know, if you come over to our house, we're not gonna be praying. And I don't want you to pray in my house. You can pray at your house, but too much. And he just had uh too much trouble um with my um requests, right? My boundaries. He didn't like that because narcissists don't like boundaries at all. Uh and then so then eventually uh what ended up being um what ended up happening was going no contact with him. And that was about uh maybe five years ago, four or five years ago. And uh I'm not the only sibling who has gone that route. Um and it ended up being just a massive relief not having to constantly have interactions with a narcissistic parent who is also uh a fundamentalist. So now my mom, I'm pretty close to, um, and my parents are in their 80s, of course. Uh, and mom is uh she's very happy for me that I'm living a life that I love and doing work that's meaningful to me. She doesn't quite grasp it. She says, Oh, well, you must work with maybe you work with people who grew up in Jehovah's Witness families or Mormon families or whatever, because she thinks, you know, those are every it's a cult. If it's not what you believe, it's a cult. Um, and uh, and then so you know, I do work with some of those folks. And I said, Yeah, I do work with some of those um folks. And she says, Well, my Jesus would never, no one would be traumatized. I'm like, Oh my god, have you looked at your children? But okay, we just don't have to go there. Okay, there are lots of other things we could we can talk about and still have a lovely close relationship. And so we do. And and uh my father's in care, so my parents don't live together, so it's not a big deal um that way when we when we visit each other. Um, but so there were, you know, there were losses, and then um my marriage eventually also um I wasn't able to hold on to that, but I will say I'm tremendous friends with my uh ex-husband today, and uh our daughters uh have grown up and left the faith as well.

SPEAKER_01: 16:55

So it it worked out, yeah, that's good. Yeah, that's the hard thing about estrangement is that it's kind of bittersweet. Uh for some people it can be bittersweet, for some people it is just bitter. Uh so for some people it is really sweet, and for the majority of us, it's bittersweet. I remember, you know, considering my parents a lot when I walked away from the faith because, you know, like when you said you told your father and he cried and you know, he was really sad because our parents, they actually believe that we will go to hell, and that is very scary for them. They did all this work to dedicate us in the church and to bring us to church and to raise us right and all for what for nothing. I and then they might have self-guilt about well, what did I do wrong as a parent? And so I I can I I am very aware of what it's like for a parent to have to do that and have to see their kid grow up in not a way that they raised them to be, and to worry about um about their soul, about their you know, their existence in the future or heaven. Um, and so when you tell me that your mom, even though she doesn't quite understand everything, that she's happy for you, that makes me feel good. That gives me hope that maybe, maybe some of my family members might be happy for you. Oh, yeah. Knowing that like I'm doing something that I really love and I am happy and I am like, you know, settled in Bellingham and I love it here. And it's just great.

SPEAKER_00: 18:25

Oh, yeah. And and mom told me um eventually later that she she had concerns when I started wearing a head covering. She didn't she didn't like that because she to her that was going in a too legalistic fundamentalist of a direction. She's always been way more, way more laid back of the two um parents. Um so one was super uptight and one was much more um chill. So my mom's just kind of like, yeah, Jesus is great. He loves everyone, so I love everyone. You know, that's the kind of person that she is, and so then it makes it much easier. Um, and you know, even as she's in her 80s, and you know, I hope that she has another 20 years, but we'll just have to wait and see. Um, but if there comes a time when it would be comforting for her if she's lying on a hospital bed somewhere, and it would be comforting if I sang hymns to her. I will sing those hymns to her, I will do whatever helps make her comfortable as her time um draws to a close. I don't have a problem with that at all. It doesn't mean I believe it, but it does mean that I love my mom a great deal and I want to comfort her. I don't want her uh entering into a time of existential crisis like I went through, not when she's this close to the end.

SPEAKER_01: 19:43

Right, right. Yeah. Everybody just kind of wants peace. Yeah, you know, and some of these religions give people peace, and it does the opposite for others. It's just that's a reality. And if we can figure out how to get along despite the fact that we have completely different views or you know if we can respect those boundaries then we can still build families and we can still build those connections and help each other and take care of each other and love each other. There's no reason why we can't do that. You know, there shouldn't be you know so I I'm really happy that you shared that with me. That makes me feel good. Good it does it does. There's a lot of we get a lot of stories on the show where people are just indefinitely estranged from their loved ones and that's how it's going to be. But it also makes me feel good to know that people have they've come to that place where they can set those boundaries and protect themselves even if it's hard. And it also makes me feel good knowing that people are still trying to you know stay in those relationships and make them work um despite uh everything else that makes me feel good.

SPEAKER_00: 20:56

Right. Yeah we can't judge how other people do things they're doing things in a way that seems right to them to do them. Right.

SPEAKER_01: 21:04

Exactly you are listening to When the Bow Breaks podcast to support the show visit buymeacoffee.com slash WTB pod. You can buy us a cup of coffee or two or ten. Ten cups of coffee sponsors an entire WTB episode. So if you'd like to support the show visit buymeacoffee.com slash WTB pod. Back to the show I wanted to kind of switch gears just a little bit because I remember you talking to me about we talked a little bit about purity culture. And you have something kind of exciting that is set to happen like next spring, you said why don't you tell me a little bit more about that because I'm really and it will be happening in your neck of the woods.

SPEAKER_00: 21:55

This will be uh in Seattle next year May 23rd to 25th I'm hosting for the first time in person uh because everything's been online previously the Shameless Sexuality Life After Purity Culture conference uh and I'm gonna be holding that uh in Seattle at uh a hotel right near Pike's Place which I love um such a beautiful city Seattle is and so I'm gonna have people coming and speaking at that event including my friend Dr. Daryl Ray who's the founder of uh recovering from religion our first time to meet in person we've spoken many times online and he's spoken at uh also at the conference on religious trauma which I also host um he's spoken there several times but this will be the first in-person um event that I'm doing so I'm excited about that and if people want to buy tickets because they're on early bird uh sale right now they can go to shamelesssexuality.org that's like org as in orgasm shamelesssexuality.org to buy their tickets I love that remember that dot org like orgasm got it as a as a coach can you tell me a little bit about like what would you tell someone else who's kind of going through this estrangement thing um along with religion is there any advice that you would give our listeners who are kind of actively going through that struggle um so do you mean estrangement from family members or estrangement from the religion?

SPEAKER_01: 23:33

I guess maybe a little bit of both because I feel like when you leave a religion I feel like it's only natural that there's other people that you just end up not speaking with. I feel like that just kind of happens even if you're not intending for that to happen.

SPEAKER_00: 23:46

So I guess a little bit of both I guess right yeah so um I always let people know that they are not alone they're not the first and they won't be the last uh person to decide that religion is not for them uh and that um if we are telling when we're telling family members that we no longer believe we want to be careful purposeful thoughtful about how we do it because there are always it's it's bad news to the religious family members no matter how you do it but there are ways that we can present the news uh that maybe don't make it quite as um as terrifying or we need to give people space when we're giving them bad news, right? And where would you like to receive bad news? Probably not in a restaurant lots of people think they'll just do it in a public place so there won't be a big emotional display but no let's be thoughtful how would you uh like to receive really difficult news and be prepared to give people time and space and to let them know you love them no matter what uh and um that if they if they have questions or they want to have a conversation um they can talk to you about it but you you won't be going back to church you know you're not going back that way you're just as a courtesy because you love them letting them know that you don't hold those beliefs anymore and of course then we make the shift from shared beliefs to shared values and this is what I tell people when they're still interacting with loved ones maybe even a spouse um or parents who still hold those beliefs but but we don't hold them anymore. So then we just talk about um we we move more to the shared values idea I'm still a compassionate person I'm still a merciful person I'm I'm still someone who really uh enjoys um having some fun and good times with other people just connecting with them on a real hard level those things haven't changed about me the only thing that's changed is I don't believe that there is a God waiting to smite me um right out there.

SPEAKER_01: 25:56

So yeah I remember when I left some people were like wow you aren't really the person that you used to be and I had to explain to them the person who I used to be wasn't really me. I had a book full of standards I had to live up to and I worked really hard to try and live up to them. And I just couldn't continue living that way because I knew that it just wasn't for me. And not only it wasn't for me, it was harming me and my family and I just I couldn't do it anymore. That was the reasons why I left and you know it doesn't mean that I hate you know other people or anything like that. I didn't do that to hurt my family. I didn't do that to hurt the church. I talk about these things because it helps heal me and it helps other people. So that's why I do this you know oh I love it.

SPEAKER_00: 26:41

I'm so glad that you do you're providing a great service and I think people will recognize the tug of war if we're talking about this battle between acceptance and um uh being our true selves you know we go along with that we we kind of try and toe the line so we don't make waves until our need for authenticity really overwhelms that at that point we're like you know what I just I love you so much. It's important for me to be myself. I want to be myself with you and this is who I really am and I invite you to be who you really are too.

SPEAKER_01: 27:15

You have anything else you want to let our guests know about you or your services or a way to get it connected with you?

SPEAKER_00: 27:21

Sure, yes. Uh so my book will be coming out I believe in September and it'll be called Divorcing Religion a memoir and survival handbook because I have in there um the workshop that I developed for people who are divorcing religion. So that'll be coming out in September and my website is divorcingreligion.com people can reach out to me there and they'll find me on uh threads as well and Instagram I think as Divorcing Religion.

SPEAKER_01: 27:51

Awesome. Well thank you Janice if you'd like to say hello or if you'd like to be a guest or if you have a story to submit please send us an email at wtvb podcast at gmail.com