Tiffany

“For a lot of my students and clients the biggest spiritual belief they have that they have a hard time letting go of is that they are bad. It’s a kind of learned spiritual helplessness and they’ve learned to outsource their spiritual or moral discernment to a spiritual authority...

… Then some people say, hold on this is weird. There is this nudging process of spiritual exploration where they eventually realize “that was silly, I’m not spiritually evil, my intuitions for flourishing are good.” Then they come to this new level of satisfaction. But a lot of times their spiritual and religious communities can’t hold that kind of growth. That is a disorientation of its own. They end up becoming spiritually exiled. They have to find new communities.”
― Hillary L. McBride, Holy Hurt: Understanding Spiritual Trauma and the Process of Healing

“We teach people to hate their humanness and praise them, calling it righteous because we believe got hates their humanness too. We offer people chronic guilt, shame and fear of hell and celebrate them as signs of spiritual maturity.

We stoke in people an inner critic and tell them it’s the voice of god.”
― Hillary L. McBride, Holy Hurt: Understanding Spiritual Trauma and the Process of Healing

“When we feel awful the only explanation in the minds of many for why we FEEL awful is that we ARE awful. The echo of the anthem from many faith communities ringing in our ears. If we had tried harder, had more faith, prayed more or said the prayer correctly we wouldn’t feel this way.

Our anxiety, shame or self hatred is used as proof that we need saving, that we are bad, that we can’t trust ourselves. Not understanding what is happening to us which can lead to self blame is part of how the problems in these systems continue. Thus understanding itself can be part of healing.”
― Hillary L. McBride, Holy Hurt: Understanding Spiritual Trauma and the Process of Healing

“I don’t want to diminish the suffering involved in believing you are both evil at your core and powerless to do anything about it. It creates a distress and inner conflict that can torment a person their entire life…

…It doesn’t help that the system or person who promises to help in this toxic dynamic is usually also reinforcing the idea of the continual badness of people.

Said another way, this is like a doctor providing a medicine that both causes and treats a wound at the same time. The cure is also the cause of the harm.”
― Hillary L. McBride, Holy Hurt: Understanding Spiritual Trauma and the Process of Healing