Coauthoring Your Story
+ Discerning Your Boundaries
An Anecdote
I met with my therapist—a new therapist. I wanted to talk to her about my boundaries and growing in my discernment of where those should be. I have become a more boundaried individual in my 30s. It started by acknowledging others were often better served by my “no” than my “yes,” but I still burn myself out on overused yeses.
My new therapist quickly showed me a scribbled piece of paper with concentric circles. She pointed at the center and said, “This is you. You get to determine who has access to you.” She pointed to another area of the concentric circles and said, “The people who are in these outer layers get less access to you, but they should also get less of your time and energy.” In other words, “Don’t pour your capacity into people who should not have access to the most tender parts of you or who have treated those tender parts without care.”
“But what if…,” and I lobbed a bunch of what-ifs at her.
“You can’t control what they do. You can choose what you’d like to do.”
The advice I’ve given others boomeranged right back at me.
Holy Opportunities
As a writer who focuses on healing after religious trauma, social media is my virtual dining table. In that space, there is one question I am asked more than any other: “What do I need to know before I reengage with a new church?”
Our separate stories are complex journeys. Handpicking a few, strict ingredients, blending them up, and offering them to you in a smoothie cup has the potential to do more harm than good. It’s an important question I want to honor.
Additionally, I want to mention something pivotal but generally unacknowledged: I don’t know you. In your questions and by sharing your story with me, you are offering me a small olive branch of trust. You are placing me in a layer of your concentric circle that you may not allow many others into. It is a beautiful sacred gift, and I do my damnedest to not take that for granted.
I also want to say extending trust also comes with a power gradient. Because misused power dynamics are woven through so many of our wounds, I am naming & acknowledging the power of my words and position right now.
It is for these reasons I will never give you a one-size-fits-all, magic crystal, practical answer. My goal is singular: That you feel empowered to name and coauthor your story moving forward.
It is a holy opportunity to write your story with God. In spiritual abuse and religious trauma, it is the opportunity often withheld. Make no mistake: advocates, speakers, authors, leaders, and the like hold power. In sharing your story, some of them may be tempted to label your story for you, forcing their way into layers of your concentric circles where you have yet to invite them. And it can be nice to have someone else yell for you when you have no voice. But redeemed power is in finding your voice again and picking up the pen.
So, please, do not read the below suggestions as a step-by-step on how you can be safe in the next church you visit. Rather, I’ll tell you what my therapist tells me: “You are the expert of your story.”
And if you extend it, I will accept the humble privilege to be a gentle guide.
Guideposts for Engagement
1. Give Yourself Time
Getting your bearings takes time. Last year, I realized how my experience with spiritual abuse left me disoriented; I didn’t know which way was up or down, left or right. Naming where I was in the story was a hard task. After we’ve weathered storms, we’re going to need the waters to still before proceeding ahead.
First, know there is no timeline in reengaging with a new community or church. Someone might say, “It is unfaithful to not gather with the saints,” and, in turn, I will say, “Gathering with the saints might look different in this season.” Maybe it will look different for the rest of your life. If you’re up for the challenge, if your body and mind are ready, you can visit a new community as early as you want. But if the idea of visiting a new congregation next Sunday gives you the heebie-jeebies, pump the brakes. Religious trauma happens over time. Your healing will take time as well, and it will hardly be linear.
Additionally, if you’re navigating this with a spouse or other family members, pause for a moment to take stock of everyone’s emotional health. Ask how everyone feels with the idea of reengaging. I was ready to reengage before my husband, Tyler. I missed community, and I missed people, but taking a personal inventory of where our family was encouraged me to slow down. I welcomed the chance to rest—the chance to not rush or manufacture an experience. I also do not want what “feels” right to me to bulldoze others I love.
2. Discern Your Boundaries
Know where your no is. Know where your yeses are. Know yourself. Or take time to get to know yourself.
Brené Brown mentions in her book, Braving the Wilderness, that finding belonging elsewhere is wonderful, but it is so important to belong to yourself. Know where you begin and end. Remember the Imago Dei in your face. Know where you stand on the issues that are important to you. If a church doesn’t hold the same stance, but they are willing to engage with you, you get to determine if you have the capacity for that sort of engagement.
Briefly, I’ll mention this: Do not cross your own boundaries. If you think you can change the system if you just try harder, do more work, or take more meetings, you’re going to start burning yourself out. No one will protect your boundaries like you will. Asking others to respect your boundaries begins with honoring your limitations. (I spoke on this on the Humble & Honest podcast linked further below).
3. Make Your List of Negotiables & Non-negotiables
I could give you a laundry list of what is important to me, and questions I would want to ask, but my specific questions might not matter to you. So, take a second and make a list of what you’d like to know about a new faith community.
Make a list of questions you’d like to ask via email before visiting. (E.g. Is it okay to simply be a visitor for a season and not serve as a volunteer for an extended period of time?; Can my children sit with me in the pews?; Could you define the overall demographic of your church?; How do you engage in social justice issues?; Do you speak about politics or news media from the pulpit?; etc.) Pick your questions, & humbly ask them with confidence.
Determine if you’d like to meet with a pastor to have him or her answer a few questions in person. (E.g. Do they acknowledge abuse in the church?; Do they have preventative measures?; How does the church leadership understand power dynamics?; What does oversight look like in the organizational structure?; Have abuse allegations ever been made in your church?; etc.) Again, ask humbly but with confidence because they are important to you.
If you do have an opportunity to meet with someone, you might not have the time to get into the details of your story. Practice making bullet points of what is safe to share in a first meeting. Oversharing and a lack of boundaries are trauma responses, so map your story ahead of time. Be slow in what you share. Being honest and authentic does not require you to share everything. And respect their boundaries and limitations, too; ask them, “Can I share a bit of my story with you?”
4. Name Your Safety
You set the terms of your safety. Unless you’ve granted someone the privilege in an official capacity (lawyer, agent, etc.), others should not take it upon themselves to speak on your behalf or name your safety for you.
Take an inventory of what you need to feel safe. If helpful, rank each item in your list as either high, moderate, or low priority. An empathetic listener would ask what you need to feel safe, but in case they do not, it would be a good practice to start naming what you need to feel safe while you are already in a state of calm.
If there are others in your family, take stock of what they need to feel safe as well. Do your children want to go to the kids area, or would they prefer to stay with you in the pews? If they have separate gender groups or mixed-gender bible studies, decide on your shared answers. You can take time to determine where your familial boundaries are.
An environment or system may be safe for some people, but it might not be safe for you. So, name those things for yourself & those in your care before you are in the thick of it. And take care not to cross your boundaries simply because the worship music is really good.
5. Give Yourself More Time
After reading the above, you may have realized that determining these things is going to take more of your headspace than expected.
Give yourself more time. Look into the resources I listed below as helps and guides.
Wrestle with these questions with other people you might trust. Wrestle through them in a place were you feel safe, ensuring your nervous system isn’t activated and your anxiety is at a low. If you are working with a therapist or a spiritual director, ask for guidance and help. If you’re working through these things as a family, ask family members if they have the capacity to engage this conversation before requiring answers from them. Set up a time in the future to have a conversation to honor everyone’s struggle.
Be gentle & mindful. There is no shame in going slow.
Post-script: The above suggestions work well for those who are already a part of a church and need a guide to determining their boundaries. They also work well as a starting point for those who desire to cultivate an environment of safety within churches. A statement of faith on a website is helpful, but knowing how you can engage the religious trauma conversation while honoring your statement of faith comes with its own struggle in nuance.
Pause
Maybe this is more than you bargained for. Or maybe it’s less than what you wanted & you find yourself hating everything suggested. With certainty, I know it will take time and discernment if you want to find a way forward without cycling through what you’ve already experienced.
The part of the story my family and I are healing from is 11 years long. We spent 11 years with our former church. There are eleven years of good and not-so-good memories we continue to grieve. We wouldn’t expect a mother, who devotes 9 months of her life to growing another being in her body, to be gym-fit immediately after birth. We also will need time to prepare ourselves for the next chapter in our lives.
The Israelites labored in Egypt for 430 years (Exodus 12:40)—harmed and oppressed many lifetimes over—only to wander in the wilderness for 40 years more before fighting their way into the Promised Land. You might be wandering longer than you’d like. When the wandering is over, you might have to fight a different set of challenges. Take the time you need to receive daily bread.
Lastly, shed shame, and remember Christ draws near. During his lifetime, he experienced the wilderness, too. Broken, betrayed, tested, abandoned, and abused, he empathizes with you. We are the experts of our stories, but he knows the intricacies of those stories, too.
He’ll be our oasis in the desert, extending new life to us.
With you,
Jenai Auman
Some Help & Guides
*Below are some helpful links. Before clicking on anything, check in with yourself to see if you are in a place to take in more content. They are helpful, but they may not be helpful to you right now.*
Podcast Interviews—I’ve had the opportunity to be interviewed for two podcasts recently.
Untangled Faith Podcast - Amy Fritz, the host of the Untangled Faith podcast, had me on to talk about the frustration of being misrepresented. After my interview, Amy speaks with Mary DeMuth, author of the recently released book, The Most Misunderstood Women of the Bible. You can listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
Humble & Honest Podcast - Stephen Francis, a Brooklyn-based pastor, asked me on to the Humble & Honest podcast to share my thoughts on the culture surrounding abuse in the church. With podcast requests, it is hard to discern whether or not I am “walking” into a hospitable environment. But Stephen cultivated a really charitable conversation, and I felt honored by how my story and thoughts were held & shared. You can listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
Resources—
I recently referenced the Houston Chronicle’s 2019 six part series, “Abuse of Faith,” in one of my Instagram posts. You can find the series HERE. (Content warning: the series does expose many instances of sexual abuse.)
Post for reference:
In the same Instagram post, I also mentioned that Wade Mullen, author of the book, Something’s Not Right, made his dissertation on impression management tactics available for public viewing HERE. At the time of publication, I found the dissertation link available on his website. (Content warning: Wade’s dissertation also contains instances of sexual abuse and subsequent actions of cover-up).
Reclamation Collective has a great Instagram post with a Spiritual Power Inventory. It has questions you can answer to check in with yourself and take a pulse of the relationships you are currently in. You can also ask some of these questions within the context of entering into a new faith community or church.
I have recently started to engage Dan Allender’s work. He emphasizes the power of knowing and coauthoring your story. I’m going to be reading through his and Cathy Loerzel’s book, Redeeming Heartache, to learn more in this area. Follow along with me on GoodReads.
I host a free, private, online community called The Wilderness Forum. If you need a soft landing place filled with people who have navigated similar journeys—a place where you can ask questions you may feel uncomfortable asking publicly—feel free to check out my previous post on The Wilderness Forum HERE.
For Churches & Church Leaders
I have begun to receive a few requests to speak with both congregations and church leaders on the impacts of religious trauma.
If you believe you and your church would be served and better equipped by hearing bits of my story and how I am encouraging those harmed to move forward with hope in Christ, please feel free to email me (jenai@jenaiauman.com) or send me specifics through my contact page.
Just for Fun
Song - “Whether Terrified or Unafraid” by ‘68
My favorite line:
“I could have been
anyone from anywhere,
but I chose to be me
from right here.”
If this post was helpful, considering tapping the heart 🖤 icon & leaving a comment. Your engagement helps me reach more people who may need a few words as daily bread.
All of this was so, so good! I literally found you two days ago and have been reading and listening to the podcasts you were featured on. You definitely have a way with words and articulating things so clearly. So often I have thoughts but don't know how to vocalize them or get them out. This gave me a lot to mull over and work on as write my own story. Thank you for sharing your story and using your gift to help so many.