I like from my earliest memories didn't even feel safe in my own mind because of what we were taught about like God seeing everything and also like that we could send with our mind and that sin led to hell and it was just like such a trap like to even exist in in reality in my mind.

So I often like would think about stories and go into like fantasies of like pretending to be a character from a book because if I was focused on that if I was living out a different story that wasn't real that story didn't have hell in it.

Welcome to how my parents raised me I'm Dawn Chitty when we are born we arrive here as pure and perfect souls and the direction our life takes from that moment is deeply connected to what our parents bring to our lives and what our parents bring to our lives is deeply connected to what their parents brought to their lives.

And that's the cycle of families. I have always craved connection with real and raw stories to understand what makes you you what makes you the absolutely unique human that you are.

Stories are medicine for the soul they can connect us and they can change the world and so in this podcast I'm listening to beautiful souls sharing their story what happened to them how they got through and how they have healed and thrived despite everything to arrive right here in this moment.

Content warning if you are triggered by the themes of this podcast please seek a help line in your city.

Hey my beautiful friends welcome back please go over to howmyparents raised me.com for this week's blog post how does trauma lead to postpartum depression there's some great info in this post that will be beneficial to anybody on a healing journey the link is in the show notes when you are told from birth that God is watching you he knows everything he can even tell what you're thinking.

That is some kind of crazy level of control but that is what can happen to kids who grow up in a very religious family in this quick chat episode I'm asking Christina Carlson an incredible coach who loves holding space for women about what it was like growing up in a strict evangelical family the beliefs the rules the pressure how lost she felt living in a world where the expectations of living according to the rules.

This is the purpose of the church was suffocating we pick this story up as Christina is talking about how she felt like an outsider in her own family because she felt she could never live up to her high achieving siblings ultimately the root of it was that I didn't matter that's the that's like the underlying core belief that is the practice of my life to dismantle and shift.

It was just like this I don't matter I have to try really hard to try to matter and so I just I kind of made it mean that like that I wasn't as valuable as them because I wasn't like them and I wasn't inside of anything I always felt like I was on the outside of it not because I wasn't doing all of the right things but because I had that belief inside of me that I wasn't good enough.

And so it didn't actually matter how much I did I thought that it would matter how much I did but it didn't matter because it was it was just an internalized belief around that yeah absolutely and so your family were regular church goers did you feel safe within that church community.

I mean how does one define safety feel like safety is such an individual thing right there there was there were spaces like that I felt physically safe like could run around and do whatever I never felt like I shouldn't say never most of the time I didn't feel like I was in in physical danger at all but I like from my earliest memories didn't even feel safe in my own mind

because of what we were taught about like God seeing everything and also like that we could sin with our mind and that sin led to hell and it was just like such a trap like to even exist in in reality in my mind so I often like would think about stories and go into like fantasies of like pretending to be like a character from a book

because if I was focused on that if I was living out a different story that wasn't real that story didn't have hell in it that wasn't a part of it or this character wasn't like me so they couldn't you know fall into this or whatever and so I really never felt safe in my own emotional experience.

And that's not to say like I think you mentioned before we got on the podcast like every parent is doing their best and I really believe that of my parents they're kind people and they never hit us or anything like that they were they were exceptionally kind for the community that we were in.

And they really staunchly believed in the things that this community said and like to the nth degree and so I was taught these things from my earliest memories and I just didn't have a place

that felt safe and like I don't think I took a full breath until I was like 26 and I let go of the concept of hell.

Wow yeah that's so much isn't it and just when you said you weren't even safe in your own thoughts or your own brain because there's rules around that as well.

It's so much and parents are there obviously church going people they think that this is what they need to do to be good and just not seeing all the effects of that because they're so conditioned themselves to believe that this is everything and if they're doing these things and going to church then they're doing the right thing you know it's a difficult space isn't it.

Yeah and like they really I mean they just didn't want us to go to hell you know that's that's the root of it like in in their mind like even if it did cause trauma it was it was better that then then lose me for me being tortured forever and help right like to them it was a justifiable like thing which in in that framework if you're really believing that literally it's like well yeah like you know and they saw it so that it's so much.

They saw it so they saw it so literally they still do see it so literally that that it is justifiable in their minds and and it's not really a trauma it's just so like a part of life.

Yeah absolutely and I know you speak about an incident with a youth leader at the church.

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