There's a kind of pain that hides in plain sight. It's not bruises or broken bones. It's the ache of being told your deepest self is dangerous. It's the fear that your questions make you wicked. It's the shame of your body or your thoughts or your instincts. It's spiritual trauma. And for a long time, I didn't even know I had it. Today, we're talking about

the invisible wounds left by religion, how they form, how they fester, and how they slowly

can begin to heal. This is not an episode about belief or disbelief. It's about the cost of belonging or the cost of fitting in.

And what it takes to reclaim yourself when the price was your soul.

Next on Almost Awakened.

Healing begins in the body, but awakening touches everything.

Relationships, purpose, identity, pleasure,

and truth. Join Bill Reel and Teresa Hobbs as they explore the real work of becoming a healthier you.

Welcome to Almost Awakened. All right, welcome to another episode of the Almost Awaken podcast.

I am one of your host, Bill Real.

I'm joined by my co-host, Teresa Hobbs.

How are you doing, Teresa?

I'm doing good.

Excellent.

As the open there showed, today we're going to talk about religious and spiritual trauma.

I have to use both those terms because most of what we talk about happens

within the framework of religion, usually unhealthy religion, but I think all religions to some

degree do some of these things. And it's not just religion. It's sometimes in spiritual systems.

It could be a yoga class, for instance, where these kinds of abuses take

place. And so it's not just inside religion. It is also inside spiritual systems. And we may not

even think of some of those systems as spiritual. They may be self-help groups. They may be

exercise groups. They may be fitness groups that get together to to just keep

...