About this episode

Tia Levings shares her journey of healing from religious trauma and offers insights into recovery and reclaiming identity.

Tia Levings is the New York Times bestselling author of A Well-Trained Wife and her newest book, I Belong to Me . She survived a Christian patriarchy cult, escaped a near murder-suicide, was excommunicated for telling her own story, and spent 15 years in intensive trauma therapy doing the work to put herself back together. Now she's handing you the map to healing from religious trauma. In this episode, Tia and I dig into the real mechanics of religious trauma recovery: why your body refuses to believe you're safe even when your brain knows it, what "aftermath" actually means (it's an agricultural word, and it will change how you see your own devastation), why grief work is not optional, and what agency has to do with the entire trajectory of your healing. Key Takeaways: What does it actually mean to "belong to yourself" after religious trauma has dismantled your sense of identity from the inside out? Why trauma survivors often write, speak, and even think about themselves in the passive voice, and what that reveals about the agency that was quietly stolen from them What the agricultural origin of the word "aftermath" tells us about why the most painful, raw season of your healing…

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