June 15, 2022

Healing Religious Trauma Featuring Bre Hamilton

Healing Religious Trauma Featuring Bre Hamilton

Deconstruction as a journey to wholeness may begin with our own wounds, but it has a profound impact on our collective reality as well. I’m joined by religious trauma coach Bre Hamilton who shares practical insights on healing religious trauma and finding a supportive community.

Deconstruction can feel like a lonely journey. But guess what, we’ve got you!

In this episode of Gritty Mystic, I serve up some piping hot tea about issues I’m seeing in the spiritual community that ultimately stem from not fully deconstructing baked in beliefs from one’s fundamentalist or evangelical past. And it’s fueled a tragic lack of discernment we need to have the courage to address. Like confronting whiteness.

We continue the conversation about deconstruction by joining Religious Trauma Coach Bre Hamilton at the table. This is a heart-held conversation of deeply personal experience and equal measure of triumph.

And we don’t shy away from the hard parts of who deconstruction is not just about belief, it’s about all the structures in your life including your community. You do not have to do this alone. Tune in for ways to connect to community right where you are.

After our conversation, I asked Bre for a few of her favorite resources she and her clients have found insightful and supportive.

1. Books by Bart Ehrman - he dives into the theology behind why the Bible isn't the "inspired word of god" and other problematic issues of the evangelical Christian church.

2. Unfollow by Megan Phelps-Roper - a very impactful memoir from someone who was part of the Westboro Baptist church and left as an adult.

3. #Churchtoo: How Purity Culture Upholds Abuse and How to Find Healing by Emily Joy Allison and Lyz Lenz

4. Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobes du Mez

5. Pray Away (Netflix) - a documentary featuring ex-leaders and survivors of so-called "conversion therapy" and more than a decade of trauma inflicted by evangelicals based on faulty Biblical interpretation disparaging gay people.

I also highly recommend

  • Dr. Marlene Winell's book Leaving the Fold: A Guide for Former Fundamentalists and Others Leaving Their Religion. 
  • The Jesus Mysteries by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy
  • The Christ Conspiracy by D. M. Murdock
  • Confronting Christofascism by Carolyn Baker

Do you have resource recommendations? Let us know.

Bre Hamilton (she/her)Profile Photo

Bre Hamilton (she/her)

Religious Trauma Coach

Bre is a Religious Trauma Coach who left the Christian cult she grew up in for the last time 10 years ago, and had no plans to ever ascribe to any faith.

She had spent pretty much her entire life (since she was 6 or 7) in that church & community, and all she knew about faith and God was what she had been brainwashed to believe – he was vindictive, unapproachable and to be feared.

She honestly doesn’t think she’d ever had her own personal spiritual connection to God that didn’t feel like she was just trying to walk the straight and narrow line that she had been told was “THE WAY”.

Bre was able to begin healing through a lot of inner personal work on her own, through therapy and life coaches and by being committed to doing the work even when it was SUPER uncomfortable. Sooo many times she’s wondered if she’d ever “get there” while screaming into pillows and crying all the tears it is possible to have.

However, she KNOWS this is possible for you, because she’s been able to do it and she wants to help you do it in an even shorter period of time than she did. Working through the past religious/toxic Christianity blocks will enable you to lead a fuller life – strong relationships, thriving emotional and mental health – while enjoying the freedom you never got to have while growing up!

When Bre is not sitting behind the computer, she enjoys trying out lattes of the season, binge-watching TV shows or movies and reading a good book or playing the piano.

The piano (or music in general) is her spirit animal and rose gold is her m… Read More