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I Have No Problem with God with Dr. Jamie Marich · The Trauma Therapist

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Speaker 1: Trauma Thepist Podcast Plus listeners can listen to episodes early
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Speaker 1: going to Apple Podcasts searching for the Trauma Thepist podcast
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Speaker 1: and signing up today. Welcome to the Trauma Neverist Podcast,
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Speaker 1: a show about the incredible people dedicated to helping those
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Speaker 1: who experienced trauma. My name is Got macpherson and my
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Speaker 1: mission is to raise awareness of trauma and to inspire
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Speaker 1: each of us to help those around us. Okay, so five, four, we,
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Speaker 1: two and one are folks. Welcome back to the podcast.
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Speaker 1: Very excited as always to have back Doctor Jamie Marriage Jamie,
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Speaker 1: welcome back.
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Speaker 2: Glad to be back. I think this is time for
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Speaker 2: so I'm always joying to talk to you. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: So. Jamie speaks internationally on emd R therapy, addiction association,
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Speaker 1: expressive arts You'll Get in Mindfulness and runs a private
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Speaker 1: practice and online training network in her home base of Akron, Ohio.
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Speaker 1: She's written numerous books, notably Trauma and the Twelve Steps
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Speaker 1: and Inclusive Guides Recovery, as well as The Association Made Simple,
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Speaker 1: a Stigma Free guide to embracing associate of Mind and
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Speaker 1: navigating life. Her new book is titled You Lie to
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Speaker 1: Me About God and is scheduled to come out October fifteenth.
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Speaker 1: Jamie always, let me just say before I say welcome
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Speaker 1: to the podcast. Every time, I'm just so impressed and
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Speaker 1: inspired and awed and humbled and in timid intimidated about
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Speaker 1: everything you do. I mean, like Jesus, how much you
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Speaker 1: and not just that but a voice. And I think
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Speaker 1: I said that the last time. Your your voice in
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Speaker 1: the larger community of mental health and more specific trauma
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Speaker 1: is searing. We need it. Welcome to the podcast.
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Speaker 2: Thank you, lovely lovely to be welcomed.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, so, all right, quickly, as an intro reminder listeners
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Speaker 1: before we get come in here. Where you're from originally
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Speaker 1: and where you are currently.
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Speaker 2: I'm originally from Youngstown, Ohio, which is just about an
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Speaker 2: hour to the east of where I live now in Akron, Ohio,
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Speaker 2: all on Eerie Nation Land. I'm actually I think since
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Speaker 2: we talked last, maybe not. I'm officially a Croatian citizen.
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Speaker 2: My family is from Croatia and I did live there
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Speaker 2: in Croatian and Bosnia for three years and as part
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Speaker 2: of my healing process and journey with the ancestral trauma,
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Speaker 2: it felt very important to formally pursue citizenships since I
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Speaker 2: do spend a lot of time in the country. And yeah,
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Speaker 2: so I'm technically Croatian American and very proud of my roots.
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Speaker 1: Iratulations.
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Speaker 2: Thank you.
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Speaker 3: So this new book, Yeah you lied to me about God?
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Speaker 3: Why why do you write this book?
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Speaker 2: Because I want to validate people's experience that religious trauma
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Speaker 2: spiritual abuse is real and it does not necessarily happen
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Speaker 2: in what we classically code as cults. Because I think
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Speaker 2: when people hear cult, they think something that a Netflix
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Speaker 2: documentary gets made about, something that's very likely to make
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Speaker 2: the news. Yet I grew up in two very mainstream
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Speaker 2: religions that each of my parents practiced and experienced serious wounding.
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Speaker 2: As a result, I've been fascinated in validating spiritual trauma
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Speaker 2: spiritual abuse as a valid form of trauma throughout my
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Speaker 2: career as a trauma educator. I always talk about it
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Speaker 2: when I have a platform, and I knew I couldn't
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Speaker 2: write the book on it unless it was a memoir.
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Speaker 2: I even told my publisher that that, yeah, I could
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Speaker 2: write you a technical principles of spiritual abuse book. Yet
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Speaker 2: a lot of my books, as you know have very
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Speaker 2: personal qualities in them, and that's just the way I write.
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Speaker 2: Yet this story was so personal for me to share
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Speaker 2: that a major part of why I wrote it to
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Speaker 2: was really for a lot of my own healing that
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Speaker 2: it's time to tell the world what's made me tick,
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Speaker 2: and that's having recovered from this kind of experience.
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Speaker 1: How do you define spiritual abuse?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, my quick and easy definition it is whenever God
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Speaker 2: or any spiritual construct that could be something like enlightenment,
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Speaker 2: because a lot of the spiritual but not religious crowd
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Speaker 2: also falls prey to perpetuating spiritual abuse also, so it's
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Speaker 2: whenever God or any spiritual construct is used as a
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Speaker 2: weapon to control or to demean others. Abuse. As we know,
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Speaker 2: there's generally a power differential present, and in spiritual abuse,
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Speaker 2: the major power differentials we're seeing would be either parent
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Speaker 2: a child, faith leader to their congregant or their follower
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Speaker 2: that could be gurued, disciple, priests to parishioner, et cetera.
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Speaker 2: And increasingly we're identifying where spiritual abuse can happen at
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Speaker 2: the level of the state, where people in charge are
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Speaker 2: doing things to control others in the name of religious conviction.
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Speaker 2: And we've had examples of that throughout history, and I
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Speaker 2: think a lot of us in the US are finally
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Speaker 2: calling it that in these current times. So spiritual abuse
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Speaker 2: is often conflated with religious trauma. Several many years now,
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Speaker 2: a person named Marlene Wennell coined the term religious trauma syndrome.
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Speaker 2: I tend not to use that because I don't think
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Speaker 2: it's just about religion, because part of what I share
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Speaker 2: in my book is yes, I grew up in two
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Speaker 2: very conservative Christian religions. My parents were two different denominations
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Speaker 2: within Christianity. They couldn't stand each other's denominations, but they
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Speaker 2: hated a lot of the same things. And then later,
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Speaker 2: as part of my own spiritual seeking, I ended up
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Speaker 2: studying yoga pretty deeply and was in and out of
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Speaker 2: a yoga aschrom for five years even as I was
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Speaker 2: Jamie Merritt, a professional studying yoga but also wondering if
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Speaker 2: I was missing something spiritually, and I saw that a
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Speaker 2: lot of the same patterns of power and control that
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Speaker 2: I encountered in religion were also present in yoga contexts,
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Speaker 2: and those are well documented as well. And so that's
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Speaker 2: why I tend to lean more into spiritual abuse as
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Speaker 2: a definition, because I think it involves this notion that
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Speaker 2: it can be more than just religion.
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Speaker 1: So let's get specific. How did this play out for
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Speaker 1: you specifically as a as a young kid.
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Speaker 2: So part of what makes my story unique because there's
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Speaker 2: a lot of coming out of religious story, coming out
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Speaker 2: of religion stories, especially for those of us who are queer,
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Speaker 2: and your holy parents tell you things like you're an abomination,
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Speaker 2: you're this, You're that, you're going to Hell for being
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Speaker 2: who you are, and that can be horrible enough and
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Speaker 2: shaking enough on development. So I was born to again
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Speaker 2: Croatian American parents. My parents were born Roman Catholic and
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Speaker 2: were married Roman Catholic. I was born into a Roman
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Speaker 2: Catholic family, and then when I was about five, my
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Speaker 2: father converted to an evangelical group that was very not
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Speaker 2: just anti gay, anti woman, they were also anti Catholic.
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Speaker 2: So my parents and became at odds which with each
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Speaker 2: other about faith and religion issues in my house from
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Speaker 2: when I was about five. And I tell people this
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Speaker 2: a lot, that I was raised with one Catholic parent,
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Speaker 2: one Evangelical parent in the same house, and it's like,
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Speaker 2: how did you navigate it? And it was tough as
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Speaker 2: a kid to navigate it because both parents legitimately thought
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Speaker 2: their way was the right way. Now, my Catholic mother
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Speaker 2: was a little softer, but part of the toxicity was
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Speaker 2: that my father was actively trying to convert her. From
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Speaker 2: when I was young as five to six, I remember
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Speaker 2: him telling me things like, your mother's going to hell.
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Speaker 2: Your grandparents are going to hell unless they accept Jesus
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Speaker 2: Christ as their Lord and savior the way that my
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Speaker 2: church teaches it. So, in addition to a lot of
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Speaker 2: the garden variety messaging, I heard about gays being horrible
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Speaker 2: and going to hell, and abortion and feminism are the
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Speaker 2: manifestations of the devil and being put down a lot
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Speaker 2: in the name of God. Again, any that would have
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Speaker 2: been bad enough, I think for a sensitive kid, but
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Speaker 2: then having to navigate a lot of spiritual conflict in
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Speaker 2: the house just made it harndous. Like I tell a
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Speaker 2: story in the book about how I was eight years
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Speaker 2: old and my parents literally asked me my opinion on
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Speaker 2: a doctrine matter about the Immaculate Conception, which is this
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Speaker 2: teaching that Mary was born without sin. Catholics believe in
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Speaker 2: it very fervently. Evangelicals do not because they think Catholics
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Speaker 2: worship Mary and put that down. And my parents were
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Speaker 2: arguing about this, which was pretty commonplace because my mom
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Speaker 2: decided to stay married, and they asked me, well, what
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Speaker 2: do you think about it? And I was eight and
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Speaker 2: trying to come up with a diplomatic answer, because I
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Speaker 2: was the oldest hero child anyway that was always trying
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Speaker 2: to play diplomat. But I knew answering in any one
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Speaker 2: way would make the other parent angry. And so I
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Speaker 2: remember after one of these arguments that happened, probably when
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Speaker 2: I was much later as a teenager, I plopped down
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Speaker 2: on my bed and I said, this has to be
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Speaker 2: what spiritual abuse is, because I had enough cognizance in
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Speaker 2: my head that emotional abuse was a thing, physical abuse,
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Speaker 2: sexual abuse was a thing, even though I wouldn't learn
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Speaker 2: until much later what all that meant monically. But in
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Speaker 2: that moment, as a teenager, I just got so fed
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Speaker 2: up with feeling like I was a pawn in their
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Speaker 2: religious game. And I would often hear things like I'm
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Speaker 2: going to lose you, yet I'm going to lose you
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Speaker 2: to your father's church. Ure, I'm going to lose you
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Speaker 2: to your mother's church. And as I write in the book,
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Speaker 2: no child should have to be worried about that right,
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Speaker 2: And I think it would have been bad enough if
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Speaker 2: being who I am, as somebody who's queer and outspoken
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Speaker 2: and feminist, I was growing up in either one of
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Speaker 2: the two faiths that were pretty traditional expressions, but with
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Speaker 2: having them at odds constantly added just another layer to
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Speaker 2: me getting very frustrated with God, religion, and Jesus. Yet
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Speaker 2: a lot of what I share in the book is
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Speaker 2: through my own trauma recovery journey and healing journey. I've
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Speaker 2: actually come out of its still very much a person
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Speaker 2: of faith. My spirituality, my spiritual life is very important
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Speaker 2: to me. But the title of the book, you lied
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Speaker 2: to Me about God comes from that. In my trauma
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Speaker 2: recovery personal work, I've had to unpack a lot of
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Speaker 2: the messages, the lies that were told to me, not
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Speaker 2: just about God, but lies that were told to me
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Speaker 2: about myself in God's name.
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Speaker 1: I'm just I can't fathom Jamie, what this did and
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Speaker 1: would do to you and to anyone. I mean, it
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Speaker 1: just feels like any kind of grounding or stability or
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Speaker 1: mooring that one would need as a young person growing
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Speaker 1: up was not only didn't seem to be shaky, but
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Speaker 1: it seemed to be condemning and dismissive and pejorative and
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Speaker 1: calling into question very foundation of who you were as
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Speaker 1: a person. Yes, use.
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Speaker 2: Yes, and I think really and I want to be
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Speaker 2: very clear before I go on, because I know a
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Speaker 2: lot of people who believe or people of faith listen
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Speaker 2: to your podcast. I am not anti religion. I'm not
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Speaker 2: anti faith. What I do get concerned about, and what
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Speaker 2: I am very much opposed to, are when you use
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Speaker 2: that religion or those faith beliefs to try to wield
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Speaker 2: power and influence and control over other people, especially children.
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Speaker 2: Because kids, we have a lot of these discussions and
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Speaker 2: spiritually abuse discourse about who is most vulnerable to it,
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Speaker 2: like who is most vulnerable to join a cult, who
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Speaker 2: is most vulnerable to be blindsided by a teacher or
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Speaker 2: a faith leader or whatnot. And in discussing vulnerability, several
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Speaker 2: of my peers and I've just really concluded the act
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Speaker 2: of being a child makes you vulnerable just by being
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Speaker 2: a child, Because when you're a kid growing up in
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Speaker 2: a house, your parents or your guardians, who's ever feeding
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Speaker 2: you really becomes your god figure. Right, And yeah, we
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Speaker 2: know as trauma therapists, the horrible things you get told
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Speaker 2: about yourself in these contexts can be reason enough to
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Speaker 2: end up in trauma therapy. Yet when the divine is
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Speaker 2: brought into that and something else that we acknowledge is
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Speaker 2: spiritual abuse can be tied in with a lot of
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Speaker 2: other forms of abuse too. For example, a lot of
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Speaker 2: parents or other people who sectually abuse can say things
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Speaker 2: like this is what God wants, or children obey their parents,
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Speaker 2: and if you're not obeying me on this, then you're
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Speaker 2: displeasing God. So that was not directly a part of
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Speaker 2: my experience, but it is an experience that a lot
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Speaker 2: of people have who are still tangled up in spiritual
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Speaker 2: abuse is when God is used to just justify a
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Speaker 2: lot of horrible behaviors. And I think where that especially
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Speaker 2: hit me hard is everything about me love, spiritual connection,
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Speaker 2: connecting with something larger than myself. And that's why even
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Speaker 2: though for many people who come out of toxic faith
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Speaker 2: or toxic religion, leaving any kind of faith or God
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Speaker 2: altogether is where they go, and that's their right. That
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Speaker 2: never would have worked for a soul like ours, because
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Speaker 2: we've longed for something to connect to outside of ourselves,
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Speaker 2: and for us that's still the divine. For a lot
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Speaker 2: of people, it is more about making connections with nature,
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Speaker 2: making connections with each other, and seeing the spiritual quality
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Speaker 2: in that. But I think if you were ever the
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Speaker 2: kind of kid who was told you're too sensitive, and
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Speaker 2: you tend to be seeking some kind of deeper meaning,
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Speaker 2: it makes you especially vulnerable to being hurt whenever God
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Speaker 2: is used as this weapon.
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Speaker 1: You talked about being a teenager and kind of being
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Speaker 1: on the bed and asking yourself, being aware, cognizant of
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Speaker 1: what was going on, What did it look like for
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Speaker 1: you during that time day to day? How were you living,
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Speaker 1: how were you reacting? What was your self conception in
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Speaker 1: a sense, your your belief in yourself.
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Speaker 2: So remember I've been on this podcast before talking about
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Speaker 2: our dissociative disorder and honestly a lot and your dissociation, Yes,
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Speaker 2: a lot of how we coped with that was to dissociate.
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Speaker 2: In the memoir, we actually speak directly about how our
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Speaker 2: three dissociative parts formed our major parts at four nine
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Speaker 2: and nineteen, and we talked in the memoir about just
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Speaker 2: really bad things that happened at all three of those
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Speaker 2: ages that all directly involved my dad's, especially my dad's
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Speaker 2: just just spiritual viciousness. So here was the interesting thing
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Speaker 2: about the day to day. And yeah, a lot of
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Speaker 2: my childhood I have blocked out because the dissociation really
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Speaker 2: became how I coped through a lot of this, but
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Speaker 2: a lot of the vivid memory I do have, And
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Speaker 2: this is what made it tricky for me, and I
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Speaker 2: think could make a tricky This is what causes disorganized
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Speaker 2: attachment in a lot of ways. On a lot of days,
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Speaker 2: our home seemed great. My dad was a wonderful dad
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Speaker 2: in a lot of ways, yes, and then something would
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Speaker 2: seem like it caused him to snap. And I think
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Speaker 2: that would have happened even if he wasn't religious, that
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Speaker 2: there were some other things going on and he suddenly
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Speaker 2: became temperamental and angry. But then when God entered the picture,
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Speaker 2: it just became very like you can even see now.
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Speaker 2: It could still get hard for me to talk about
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Speaker 2: because we were me, especially had I did have a brother,
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Speaker 2: and sometimes when I say me, I mean me. Sometimes
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Speaker 2: when I say we, I mean me and my parts.
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Speaker 2: But we were just cut to the core by a
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Speaker 2: lot of things. Dad would say in God's name, or
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Speaker 2: to try to scare us into complying, like you know
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Speaker 2: you're going I heard so much, you're going to go
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Speaker 2: to hell if you're going to lose your salvation if
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Speaker 2: And it could sometimes be innocuous as something like watching
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Speaker 2: a movie or listening to rock music. I mentioned in
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Speaker 2: the book how my dad did not like anything modernly
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Speaker 2: secular on TV. This was in the eighties and early nineties,
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Speaker 2: no secular music. And so I had cousins who lived
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Speaker 2: one straight over and I loved hanging out with them
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Speaker 2: because they just seemed like they were normal kids doing
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Speaker 2: normal things that normal kids did, and they provided a
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Speaker 2: lot of the kind of attachment needs that I was lacking.
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Speaker 2: And even sometimes with Dad there was inconsistency about that,
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Speaker 2: like one summer we'd be fine to watch certain Disney
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Speaker 2: movies and other summers like It's of the Devil, you know,
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Speaker 2: and whatnot. And then I was one of the churches
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Speaker 2: I was raised at was his evangelical. It was I'm
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Speaker 2: not going to say the denomination here on the interview,
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Speaker 2: you could read it in the book, but it was
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Speaker 2: a particular denomination where in the nineties there was this
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Speaker 2: push towards like purity culture and anything about kind of
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Speaker 2: normal sexual development was just shut down as it's not
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Speaker 2: of God. You wait until you get married. And I
19:03
Speaker 2: remember the youth group sponsored a big book burning my
19:06
Speaker 2: junior year of high school, between my junior and senior year,
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Speaker 2: And yeah, like now when I see in the news
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Speaker 2: things about book burning and book banning, it's very real
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Speaker 2: to me because I grew up with this in the
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Speaker 2: nineties that we were told as part of youth group
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Speaker 2: to bring your books, your CDs, anything that was not
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Speaker 2: of God, meaning anything that was secular. So I remember
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Speaker 2: kids bringing their Disney movies and their Sarah McLaughlan CDs
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Speaker 2: and not getting like torched in the fire. So yeah,
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Speaker 2: there was also a sense that I felt I couldn't
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Speaker 2: really connect with what other kids my age were connected with.
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Speaker 2: And I know a lot of people who grew up
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Speaker 2: religious or especially extremely religious, have this, so I'm not
19:49
Speaker 2: unique in that way. But yeah, I had a lot
19:53
Speaker 2: of gaps to fill in as part of my healing
19:58
Speaker 2: because things that I thin thought were bad as a kid,
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Speaker 2: we're really just things that other kids my age were
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Speaker 2: doing and experience. The book I talk about what it
20:09
Speaker 2: was like learning to date and kiss and like people
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Speaker 2: when I was in junior high in high school, very
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Speaker 2: age appropriate stuff I've come to learn, especially as a professional,
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Speaker 2: but so much of that was put down as evil
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Speaker 2: by the church. The one church especially in which I
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Speaker 2: was raised.
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Speaker 1: Was Does shame come in to play here? Oh?
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Speaker 3: Yeah?
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Speaker 2: And the book title really directly comes from my so
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Speaker 2: my favorite working definition of shame. It's the quote that
20:44
Speaker 2: starts chapter one, Shame is the lie that someone told
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Speaker 2: you about yourself. That is from a NAIs Nin, the
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Speaker 2: feminist author, Shame is the lie that someone told you
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Speaker 2: about yourself. I encountered that quote for the first time
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Speaker 2: in two thousand and five when I was in the
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Speaker 2: heart of my own deep trauma therapy, and it just
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Speaker 2: really really hit me that quote that yes, I knew,
21:11
Speaker 2: especially as someone in recovery from addiction, that shame was
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Speaker 2: an issue I carried other people's shame. I had shame
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Speaker 2: for things that I did an addiction, and I've come
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Speaker 2: to learn I've had shame for things I did when
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Speaker 2: I was religious, myself, very religious myself as a young
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Speaker 2: person in my late teens, left it alone for a while,
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Speaker 2: became religious again in my early twenties, and then as
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Speaker 2: I started studying therapy and trauma, I just knew that
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Speaker 2: I couldn't be religious in a traditional sense the way
21:43
Speaker 2: either of my parents wanted me to be. So, yeah,
21:47
Speaker 2: shame is definitely a factor. But the reason I titled
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Speaker 2: the book you Lied to Me about God. As I
21:53
Speaker 2: shared earlier, it's not just that I've been carrying all
21:57
Speaker 2: these lies about myself. It's lies that people told me
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Speaker 2: about myself in God's name. And so yeah, there's been
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Speaker 2: a lot of shame to heal from and unpack and
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Speaker 2: comb through and to be frank, even though we're in
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Speaker 2: a much better place in our life right now, particularly
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Speaker 2: with all these triggers for religious trauma surrounding us in
22:22
Speaker 2: the American political landscape, we are still actively healing. We're
22:26
Speaker 2: still actively wading through the waters of this, because it
22:30
Speaker 2: can feel like it's everywhere.
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Speaker 1: We talked a little bit about, uh, you know, your
22:36
Speaker 1: impetus for writing the book, who is it for? Mm?
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Speaker 2: The simple answer is it's for anybody who likes memoir
22:48
Speaker 2: because a lot of my other books have definitely been
22:52
Speaker 2: for more of a clinical audience. And even though Dissociation
22:56
Speaker 2: made simple is for more of a general audience than
22:59
Speaker 2: my other books. People who have some connection to the
23:02
Speaker 2: content typically dive it. So this is being classified as memoir,
23:09
Speaker 2: so I know there's a lot of voracious memoir readers
23:11
Speaker 2: out there, So if a general reader finds it interesting,
23:15
Speaker 2: I think I tell some pretty good stories in it.
23:18
Speaker 2: Yet I think who may be most likely to pick
23:21
Speaker 2: it up are people who the title speaks to them
23:24
Speaker 2: because they know God trauma has been a factor for them.
23:28
Speaker 2: Religious trauma has been a factor for them. And my
23:31
Speaker 2: hope is that therapists who maybe know my work and
23:34
Speaker 2: will read anything I put out there, will also pick
23:37
Speaker 2: it up because I think what I've seen in the
23:40
Speaker 2: clinical landscapes is that a lot of us who grew
23:43
Speaker 2: up religious or grew up in some kind of cult,
23:46
Speaker 2: we get it when our client has come to us
23:49
Speaker 2: with this kind of material. But a lot of times
23:52
Speaker 2: I've done consultations where folks have said I just didn't
23:55
Speaker 2: grow up that religious, or if I did grow up
23:58
Speaker 2: let's say Catholic or Presbyterian or whatnot, my parents weren't
24:03
Speaker 2: vicious about it, or my faith community wasn't vicious about it.
24:07
Speaker 2: So I hope that clinicians can pick this up who
24:13
Speaker 2: want to get a greater sense of insight into what
24:16
Speaker 2: it can be like for somebody who does grow up
24:20
Speaker 2: traditionally religious, where religion is brought in as a big
24:25
Speaker 2: factor in the trauma.
24:27
Speaker 1: Speaking with doctor Jamie Marriage, the book is titled you
24:32
Speaker 1: lied to me about God said to come out in October,
24:37
Speaker 1: just before we go. This is kind of a big
24:40
Speaker 1: question before we go, But how did you get to
24:44
Speaker 1: a point where you were able to come to a
24:51
Speaker 1: settlement or an appease situation with the divine m.
24:59
Speaker 2: You're right, big question, but I like your big question,
25:05
Speaker 2: how did I come to a settlement? I give twelve
25:08
Speaker 2: Step recovery credit for a lot of that, and as
25:12
Speaker 2: I say in the book, as I've said in my work,
25:14
Speaker 2: I acknowledge that twelve step settings have been a problem
25:18
Speaker 2: for a lot of people. That twelve step recovery is
25:20
Speaker 2: far from perfect. That's what a lot of my trauma
25:22
Speaker 2: and the twelve Step books were about. But I started
25:26
Speaker 2: attending twelve Step recovery meetings through someone I met in
25:30
Speaker 2: a Catholic church when I was working for the Catholic
25:32
Speaker 2: Church in my early twenties. Whole big story. You could
25:37
Speaker 2: read that book to summarize. I was working for the
25:39
Speaker 2: Catholic Church in my early twenties, and I knew I
25:41
Speaker 2: was struggling with addiction and mental health stuff. And my
25:45
Speaker 2: answer at that time was just go back to church,
25:48
Speaker 2: because the whole reason you're struggling is because you're not
25:51
Speaker 2: going to church. So I picked the gentler of the
25:54
Speaker 2: two churches in the two I was raised, and I
25:57
Speaker 2: started attending Catholic service pretty devotedly. And I was working
26:01
Speaker 2: for the Catholic Church in Europe and I met a
26:03
Speaker 2: woman who ended up introducing me to the Twelve Steps.
26:06
Speaker 2: And it was there that I was introduced to this
26:09
Speaker 2: idea of God as I understand Him, or God as
26:11
Speaker 2: I understand God. And it was very Oh, I get
26:16
Speaker 2: chills not thinking of it, to have this woman who
26:18
Speaker 2: was religious, but in that context of a twelve Step meeting,
26:23
Speaker 2: she dropped the religion talk and it was just God,
26:26
Speaker 2: because we're all here for the same thing, because we're
26:29
Speaker 2: struggling with alcoholism and addiction. So I credit AA specifically
26:35
Speaker 2: for helping me find that loving God. Even a few
26:39
Speaker 2: years before seeking out AA, I had this great experience
26:43
Speaker 2: in nature in the mountains of Colorado, where I was
26:46
Speaker 2: so hung up with the Jesus stuff because it felt
26:49
Speaker 2: like my parents were fighting over interpretations of Jesus's life.
26:53
Speaker 2: But I was in the mountains with a cousin of mine,
26:57
Speaker 2: and the cousin was just like, isn't this amazing that
27:03
Speaker 2: God has created all of this? And I didn't doubt it.
27:07
Speaker 2: It was nothing that struck me as untrue to give
27:10
Speaker 2: God credit for this. So that's why I very much
27:13
Speaker 2: experience God in nature, and I think for many people
27:16
Speaker 2: that is a valid spiritual path for them, is to
27:19
Speaker 2: connect with nature. So I say a lot, guy, I
27:22
Speaker 2: have no problems with God. I'm even cool with Jesus.
27:26
Speaker 2: It's what people have done in their name that's the problem.
27:31
Speaker 2: And when I've really learned to separate the two and
27:34
Speaker 2: heal from the two, I've made my peace. So I
27:39
Speaker 2: hope that answers your very great question.
27:42
Speaker 1: It does. You know one of the things I might
27:45
Speaker 1: have said this before. One of the things I really
27:47
Speaker 1: admire about you is you have this beautiful way of
27:54
Speaker 1: educating us through your own journey. You know, you're you
28:02
Speaker 1: present yourself. This is this is me, Yeah, in all
28:07
Speaker 1: of my texture and gloriousness and uh quote unquote faults
28:15
Speaker 1: and and and victories, you know, and I benefit from
28:23
Speaker 1: that because it's freaking human. And I know a lot
28:27
Speaker 1: of people benefit from that.
28:29
Speaker 2: Thank you and thank you. And to that point, I
28:36
Speaker 2: I have this line in the book that in a
28:38
Speaker 2: lot of my previous books like Dissociation Made Simple, Trauma
28:41
Speaker 2: and The Twelve Step cmd I Made Simple, I'm candid
28:44
Speaker 2: about the fact that I struggled with suicidal ideations and
28:48
Speaker 2: gestures for much of my early life. I'm candid about
28:51
Speaker 2: a lot of my mental health struggles. I don't really
28:55
Speaker 2: in those books, though, give you the why, and the
29:00
Speaker 2: book will give you the why. And I felt it
29:03
Speaker 2: was important to be honest about this story that for
29:06
Speaker 2: very sensitive people, bullying and religion, which were my two traumas,
29:13
Speaker 2: might be enough to set someone into that place.
29:16
Speaker 1: Yea.
29:17
Speaker 2: So if you like my work, if you follow my work,
29:20
Speaker 2: you're going to get to know me a heck of
29:22
Speaker 2: a lot better in this book.
29:25
Speaker 1: All right. So to that end, how do people reach you?
29:27
Speaker 1: What's the best way, Jamie?
29:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can just go to my name dot com
29:31
Speaker 2: jamiemarriage dot com. That links you to all my other projects,
29:34
Speaker 2: including Institute for Creative Mindfulness, which is my emd Our
29:38
Speaker 2: training program. And we also have a free resources site
29:41
Speaker 2: now at redefine therapy dot com. Everything I've done for
29:44
Speaker 2: free is online at that site, and then if you
29:48
Speaker 2: just search my name on all the socials, you'll find
29:50
Speaker 2: me there.
29:51
Speaker 1: Okay, we'll have those linked up here at the show
29:53
Speaker 1: notes page at the Trauma therespodcast dot com. Jamie, awesome
29:57
Speaker 1: as always having you on here. You welcome back as
30:00
Speaker 1: always anytime you want. Look forward to the new book
30:03
Speaker 1: coming out.
30:04
Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
30:04
Speaker 1: Guys, All right, take care