# Divorcing Religion: a Survival Guide Through Doubt and Non-Belief (with Janice Selbie)

An episode of [TheThinkingAtheist](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/412308695), 25 Feb 2025, 48 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/mgln.ai/e/711/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/64450297/podcast789_divorcingreligion.mp3

Many people experience post-religion trauma. Author and religious trauma coach Janice Selbie has some tools to help. https://www.divorcing-religion.com VIDEO of this conversation Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/thethinkingatheist--3270347/support.

## Transcript

[0:05] Speaker 1: The Thinking Atheist. It's not a person, it's a symbol,
[0:09] Speaker 1: an idea.
[0:10] Speaker 2: The population of atheists this country is going through the.
[0:13] Speaker 1: Rule, rejecting faith, pursuing knowledge, challenging the sacred. If I
[0:19] Speaker 1: tell the truth, it's because I tell the truth, not because.
[0:22] Speaker 2: I put my hand on a book and made a wish.
[0:25] Speaker 1: And working together for a more rational world.
[0:29] Speaker 3: Take the risk of thinking, feel so much more happiness. Truth,
[0:32] Speaker 3: Fusian wisdom will come to you that way.
[0:35] Speaker 1: Assume nothing, question everything, and start thinking. This is the
[0:43] Speaker 1: Thinking Atheist podcast hosted by Seth Andrews.
[0:56] Speaker 3: Jenna Selby has divorced religion. What does that even mean?
[1:01] Speaker 3: How do you divorce religion? What are the implications of
[1:05] Speaker 3: that kind of separation? Well, I'm going to talk to
[1:08] Speaker 3: Janis here today. She is a registered professional counselor and
[1:12] Speaker 3: coach and she works with people recovering from a religious
[1:16] Speaker 3: trauma syndrome. She's got a new book out called Divorcing Religion,
[1:21] Speaker 3: a memoir and survival handbook. Janice Selby, Hi, thanks for coming.
[1:27] Speaker 2: It's so nice to see you again. Seth, thanks for
[1:29] Speaker 2: having me on.
[1:30] Speaker 3: So you're up in Canada, you're looking down at us wondering.
[1:33] Speaker 3: I mean, I'm just about to ask you for asylum.
[1:36] Speaker 3: See if you had a couch, maybe we could sleep on.
[1:39] Speaker 2: Seriously, I told my husband we better get another pull
[1:42] Speaker 2: out couch because I'm hearing from so many of my
[1:45] Speaker 2: dear friends and loved ones in the United States who
[1:48] Speaker 2: are just thinking it might be nice to be somewhere else.
[1:51] Speaker 2: So I think on both sides of the border, we're
[1:53] Speaker 2: really actually feeling for each other right now. We've always
[1:58] Speaker 2: had a good relationship and it's just a little bit
[2:01] Speaker 2: of political chaos going on.
[2:03] Speaker 3: I mean, are Canadians. I'm not asking you to speak
[2:06] Speaker 3: for the whole country, just your experience, but is it
[2:10] Speaker 3: now we despise Americans because they're idiots or do they
[2:13] Speaker 3: understand that there is a group of people who are
[2:16] Speaker 3: just as horrified, if not more than everybody else.
[2:20] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, the second one that you said, because even
[2:23] Speaker 2: in Canada we have unfortunately what we refer to here
[2:26] Speaker 2: as maple magas. So it's like contagious stuff that goes
[2:31] Speaker 2: on where you guys are. And so yeah, I think
[2:34] Speaker 2: we're just feeling a lot of compassion and it's really
[2:39] Speaker 2: uniting our country. Frankly, Canadians are usually pretty chill, but
[2:44] Speaker 2: this feeling a little bit like we're having some maybe
[2:48] Speaker 2: persecution or a little more intensity coming from that side
[2:50] Speaker 2: of the border. Canadians are really pulling together and flying
[2:54] Speaker 2: our flag and just supporting each other, but also recognizing
[2:57] Speaker 2: you guys are having a pretty bumpy go of it
[2:59] Speaker 2: over there.
[3:00] Speaker 3: Bumpy, yes, understatement of this century, but I totally am
[3:05] Speaker 3: riding that ride with you, Jennie Selby. I have been
[3:08] Speaker 3: told by some apologists, Seth, you are never a true Christian.
[3:13] Speaker 3: Nobody who ever experienced the true love of Jesus would
[3:16] Speaker 3: have left the warmth of his embrace. How would you respond,
[3:20] Speaker 3: You were never a true Christian before you divorced religion.
[3:25] Speaker 2: I just find that so invalidating. It lets me know
[3:30] Speaker 2: that the people who are making that comment really are
[3:33] Speaker 2: lacking in compassion, and probably to some degree, they have
[3:38] Speaker 2: fear about their own belief system when they are saying that,
[3:43] Speaker 2: And really people are fearful that apostasy might be contagious,
[3:46] Speaker 2: and a lot of times that's why we don't hear
[3:48] Speaker 2: from people. It's just crickets when we leave and we
[3:51] Speaker 2: stop attending and we think there'll be a big brew haha.
[3:54] Speaker 2: And people be so upset, but there's often a lot
[3:57] Speaker 2: of quiet, and people don't want to know too much
[4:00] Speaker 2: much about why we don't believe anymore.
[4:02] Speaker 3: It's funny. I had an exchange with someone just a
[4:05] Speaker 3: couple of weeks ago, and I was explaining something this
[4:08] Speaker 3: was online, and they admitted, I didn't read anything you read,
[4:11] Speaker 3: but I know you're wrong. It was that kind of thing.
[4:14] Speaker 3: And it's much like that when you leave the faith.
[4:16] Speaker 3: We're trying to bring our protest or at least concerns
[4:20] Speaker 3: and the response is la la la, la la la.
[4:22] Speaker 3: You don't know what you're talking about, which makes no sense.
[4:26] Speaker 2: Right, And actually you and I can relate even we
[4:30] Speaker 2: were just mentioning politics a minute ago. So much of
[4:33] Speaker 2: what we see going on does relate to Christians being
[4:37] Speaker 2: desperate for a strong man, believing that they need a
[4:40] Speaker 2: strong person to protect them from perceived persecution, which isn't
[4:45] Speaker 2: even a thing in the United States typically for Christians. Yeah,
[4:50] Speaker 2: so we do understand what's going on there. Now.
[4:54] Speaker 3: You're so intimidating, Janee. I mean, I can see why
[4:57] Speaker 3: people would be afraid, they'd be totally into imitated and
[5:00] Speaker 3: require protection. Janie Selby has come to steal that is
[5:05] Speaker 3: good from us.
[5:06] Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know some people here, most people have
[5:10] Speaker 2: been really supportive of my book, and the CBC picked
[5:14] Speaker 2: it up and interviewed me in some other local stations,
[5:17] Speaker 2: but they all were a little you know, cautious about
[5:20] Speaker 2: it because religion is that last kind of sacred cow
[5:24] Speaker 2: got with my air quotes there. People do not like
[5:27] Speaker 2: to discuss religion if they think you're going to say
[5:31] Speaker 2: anything well truthful about it, or they would say negative
[5:34] Speaker 2: about it. But religion is not benign. Religion can be
[5:39] Speaker 2: quite malignant, quite harmful. In some cases, it's deadly. We
[5:42] Speaker 2: have to be able to speak truthfully about religion.
[5:45] Speaker 3: So the nic sayers are maybe the cynics or like
[5:48] Speaker 3: religious trauma, Come on, suck it up, grow up, right.
[5:53] Speaker 3: I mean we've seen real trauma victims, you know, people
[5:56] Speaker 3: have been beat up behind closed doors and people who
[5:59] Speaker 3: have been victims of violent crime. I think they see
[6:02] Speaker 3: trauma more in terms of the physical or even if
[6:05] Speaker 3: it's psychological. They think, well, religion is a net positive.
[6:09] Speaker 3: Why would religion ever traumatize you? Don't be a big baby.
[6:13] Speaker 3: You've probably heard that right, Oh.
[6:16] Speaker 2: Yeah, And definitely the idea of just, well, so what
[6:19] Speaker 2: you stopped believing in Santa Claus again. I feel that's
[6:23] Speaker 2: a very invalidating statement, and it shows that people don't
[6:27] Speaker 2: understand the pervasive nature of religion, and particularly when people
[6:33] Speaker 2: are raised in it. If we're indoctrinated in childhood, it
[6:36] Speaker 2: really permeates every aspect of our life, especially if we
[6:41] Speaker 2: do become devout believers ourselves. Some people they manage to
[6:44] Speaker 2: grow up in religious homes and they don't buy it
[6:46] Speaker 2: from the get go, and it doesn't bother them. They
[6:49] Speaker 2: don't feel that they've been traumatized. But for many of us,
[6:52] Speaker 2: there is a lot of trauma when we realize that
[6:56] Speaker 2: we were believing a myth, we were believing it as reality.
[7:00] Speaker 2: It throws everything into question. It can really put people
[7:03] Speaker 2: into an existential tailspin. We doubt ourselves, we have a
[7:07] Speaker 2: hard time trusting other people. There's often codependency and boundary
[7:11] Speaker 2: issues that come as a result of spending a lot
[7:14] Speaker 2: of time in high demand religious groups as well.
[7:17] Speaker 3: It's interesting too to see those who may not realize
[7:20] Speaker 3: they've been beaten up right, I mean, they don't see
[7:23] Speaker 3: it in terms of trauma. I know something's wrong. I
[7:26] Speaker 3: can't process what's going on. I feel broken, I feel
[7:29] Speaker 3: like I'm not but they're not connecting the dots between Oh,
[7:33] Speaker 3: the abuser abused me. That's probably classic abuse model there, right.
[7:37] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think it can be a lot harder
[7:39] Speaker 2: for us to see. And also when we are raised
[7:42] Speaker 2: in a religious setting, a lot of times we are
[7:45] Speaker 2: taught that we must forgive. I call forgiveness the F
[7:49] Speaker 2: word when I'm dealing with my clients because forgiveness can
[7:53] Speaker 2: be weaponized by abusers, and so we can even get
[7:56] Speaker 2: to the point where we gaslight ourselves and that we think, oh, no,
[7:59] Speaker 2: that wasn't really that wasn't really abuse or neglect, was it?
[8:04] Speaker 2: And in a lot of cases, yes it was. And
[8:07] Speaker 2: if you're having trouble in relationships, if you're having trouble sleeping,
[8:11] Speaker 2: if you're having even food related troubles. There are a
[8:15] Speaker 2: lot of ways that we can be impacted by religious trauma.
[8:18] Speaker 2: It often shows up as complex PTSD and a complicated
[8:23] Speaker 2: grief as well.
[8:24] Speaker 3: Bill look at you and say you need to be
[8:26] Speaker 3: the adult, be the bigger person, and forgive. That's loaded, right.
[8:31] Speaker 3: It sort of shifts the burden of responsibility away from
[8:35] Speaker 3: the abuser.
[8:36] Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. It's almost taking victim blaming to another level.
[8:41] Speaker 2: That's what that feels like to me. What we really
[8:44] Speaker 2: need to do is get to a point of acceptance
[8:47] Speaker 2: and clarity so that we recognize, yeah, this thing was
[8:51] Speaker 2: done to me, or this thing did happen to me,
[8:54] Speaker 2: And now I'm in a place where I get to
[8:56] Speaker 2: choose how to move forward. I might choose to forgive
[9:01] Speaker 2: and forget, or I might choose to put boundaries, or
[9:05] Speaker 2: I might even choose to press charges, and I might
[9:08] Speaker 2: not want that person in my life again moving forward
[9:11] Speaker 2: if they're not healthy for me. And that's okay too.
[9:14] Speaker 3: Agency is hard, isn't it when you come out of
[9:17] Speaker 3: a high control culture. The book is called Divorcing Religion,
[9:20] Speaker 3: a memoir and survival handbook. It's actually divided into two halves.
[9:24] Speaker 3: A terrifically written book, Janice, But you start with definitions,
[9:29] Speaker 3: I want to start here. What is religious trauma syndrome?
[9:33] Speaker 2: Sure, this is a phrase that was developed by my
[9:37] Speaker 2: friend and mentor, doctor Marlene Winnell, an American psychologist, and really,
[9:41] Speaker 2: religious trauma syndrome is just a name for a collection
[9:45] Speaker 2: of symptoms that people can have that is common to
[9:48] Speaker 2: a lot of people when we have spent time in
[9:51] Speaker 2: a high demand, rigid fundamentalist religious group, and often that
[9:56] Speaker 2: can include our family that sometimes it might just be
[9:58] Speaker 2: a church group or.
[10:01] Speaker 3: In your own background, pretty fundy. I mean I thought
[10:04] Speaker 3: I was fundy, and then I saw the photographs of you,
[10:07] Speaker 3: and oh, you took it to a whole new level.
[10:09] Speaker 3: But are we talking the classic stereotypical nuclear family. Dad
[10:13] Speaker 3: brought the fear, mom brought the nurture, all in the
[10:16] Speaker 3: name of Jesus kind of thing.
[10:18] Speaker 2: Wow, yeah, that really sounds accurate. And in my case,
[10:22] Speaker 2: my dad also was a narcissist. So when you combine
[10:26] Speaker 2: a male narcissist and fundamentalism, it's not too fun actually
[10:30] Speaker 2: for anybody in the family. And of course then narcissists
[10:35] Speaker 2: often attract people who do have codependent rates. They kind
[10:38] Speaker 2: of fit together hand in glove. So then that was
[10:41] Speaker 2: my model of relationships when I was growing up, and
[10:44] Speaker 2: I think it's a fairly common model for people. But yeah,
[10:47] Speaker 2: so I really gravitated towards rules because in my house,
[10:51] Speaker 2: I felt that if I kept the rules then I
[10:54] Speaker 2: would be safe. Of course, the rules would keep changing.
[10:57] Speaker 2: But so then as far as my religious beliefs. I
[11:00] Speaker 2: felt comfortable more and more rules I had than I
[11:03] Speaker 2: felt like I would be safer. So that's where I
[11:05] Speaker 2: did the deep dive into fundyland.
[11:09] Speaker 3: Is it I only hurt you because I love you,
[11:12] Speaker 3: spare the rod, spoil the child, and spanking because that's
[11:16] Speaker 3: what a good parent does.
[11:19] Speaker 2: I think there can definitely be an element of that.
[11:23] Speaker 2: I'm fortunate. I mean in some ways in my family,
[11:26] Speaker 2: my mom actually wouldn't have tolerated my dad physically harming us,
[11:32] Speaker 2: so there was very little spanking, but there was a
[11:35] Speaker 2: lot of yelling and disrespect and just making people feel
[11:39] Speaker 2: scared and small and so that we would hide a
[11:43] Speaker 2: lot of the time. And of course, sadly, I took
[11:46] Speaker 2: my fundamentalism even farther than my parents. They had raised
[11:50] Speaker 2: me in a Pentecostal home. And when I was married
[11:53] Speaker 2: to my first husband, I really did a deep dive
[11:56] Speaker 2: into Holdeman Mennonite, the Haldeman Mennonite group. So that's when
[12:00] Speaker 2: I started wearing a head covering, no makeup, no jewelry,
[12:04] Speaker 2: no TV, this sort of thing. And that's when I
[12:06] Speaker 2: really started listening to James Dobson and unfortunately even some
[12:12] Speaker 2: awful authors like the Pearls who really talked about disciplining
[12:16] Speaker 2: babies and toddlers and just going overboard. So I'm glad
[12:22] Speaker 2: that I didn't fall completely under their sway. But I
[12:26] Speaker 2: feel I was tougher on my kids than my parents
[12:29] Speaker 2: were with me, and I've had to have some pretty
[12:31] Speaker 2: big apologies and conversations with my kids through the years
[12:35] Speaker 2: about that.
[12:36] Speaker 3: May I ask if those apologies were received.
[12:39] Speaker 2: Yes, you know, I had. I think I had been
[12:42] Speaker 2: talking about it and giving lip service, like really apologizing
[12:46] Speaker 2: with my words a lot. And then one night I
[12:48] Speaker 2: woke up in the middle of the night and I
[12:50] Speaker 2: wasn't living with my kids at that time, and I
[12:53] Speaker 2: just the weight of how my decisions had impacted them,
[12:58] Speaker 2: and I ran to my computer and I them each
[13:01] Speaker 2: a letter, a separate letter addressing individually these things, and
[13:04] Speaker 2: I emailed them. And the kids were like in their
[13:08] Speaker 2: late teens at that time, and the next day they
[13:11] Speaker 2: both had sent me the most beautiful letters back, and
[13:15] Speaker 2: my youngest one, who was sixteen or seventeen, she said, Mom,
[13:18] Speaker 2: you don't ever need to apologize for this again. I
[13:21] Speaker 2: know how sorry you are. So that was my indication, Okay,
[13:25] Speaker 2: I don't need to keep bringing this up and rehashing
[13:28] Speaker 2: it with them. But yeah, there was a lot of
[13:30] Speaker 2: sorrow on my part for sure.
[13:32] Speaker 3: So back to I'm going to beat the dead horse,
[13:34] Speaker 3: but the malignant male narcissist that was the model for
[13:38] Speaker 3: your home. In the book, you talk about how Christianity,
[13:42] Speaker 3: biblical Christianity. We know people have watered it down out there,
[13:45] Speaker 3: but this is attractive. Specifically, it's very attractive for male narcissists.
[13:51] Speaker 3: Do you want to talk about that?
[13:53] Speaker 2: Well, sure, And I think also it can even in
[13:56] Speaker 2: some ways breed. But boys take boys who maybe wouldn't
[14:01] Speaker 2: have been that way. But if they are taught over
[14:04] Speaker 2: and over again that their place is to lead and
[14:06] Speaker 2: they must do it with a heavy hand, that their
[14:10] Speaker 2: word is not to be questioned, they have got to
[14:12] Speaker 2: have the final say in situations, that's unhealthy. And I
[14:19] Speaker 2: can't believe that. I used to believe that, and in fact,
[14:21] Speaker 2: I believed it to such a degree that I stopped
[14:26] Speaker 2: voting for a time. And that also was tied in
[14:29] Speaker 2: with the tradition, the Mennonite tradition that I was investigating.
[14:33] Speaker 2: But I even wondered should I be driving like I
[14:36] Speaker 2: was gaslighting myself, saying I'm only a woman. I'm only
[14:40] Speaker 2: a woman. Maybe it's wrong for me to be trying
[14:43] Speaker 2: to take any leadership positions or even having a leading
[14:48] Speaker 2: role in my own life. And that is what I
[14:50] Speaker 2: think is so sad.
[14:52] Speaker 3: You mentioned James Dobson of Focus on the Family. There
[14:56] Speaker 3: was a Focus on the Family book that came out.
[14:58] Speaker 3: You may have heard of this one by Robert Lewis
[15:00] Speaker 3: called Raising a Modern Day Night, and the idea was
[15:04] Speaker 3: is that the man was there and he was strong
[15:07] Speaker 3: with armor, and he had all of you know, the
[15:09] Speaker 3: sort of the spirit and the breastplate of righteousness and
[15:12] Speaker 3: the helmet of salvation. But it was very much a
[15:14] Speaker 3: conqueror kind of an attitude. There's an implicit and a
[15:21] Speaker 3: subtle militarization of how men act and react in fundamental Christianity.
[15:27] Speaker 3: Would that be an overreach? Janis?
[15:29] Speaker 2: No, I think that's accurate and it's something we really
[15:32] Speaker 2: need to be paying attention to because I think we
[15:35] Speaker 2: see that coming out now with there's almost like a
[15:39] Speaker 2: been a really negative reaction by young men over the
[15:43] Speaker 2: past few years that's really been gaining steam where they
[15:48] Speaker 2: just feel they've had a very raw deal that they're
[15:52] Speaker 2: blamed for everything, and that the problem is women and
[15:55] Speaker 2: women need to sit down and shut up, and that's
[16:00] Speaker 2: we had come so much farther than that, And how
[16:03] Speaker 2: do we bring both sides to the table so that
[16:07] Speaker 2: they can feel like they're being heard but also so
[16:10] Speaker 2: that they're being treated respectfully and earnestly. Men are no
[16:14] Speaker 2: smarter than women.
[16:16] Speaker 3: You know, it's no coincidence. The Bible was written by men, right, suspiciously,
[16:24] Speaker 3: all sixty six books of the Christian Bible written by dudes.
[16:29] Speaker 2: What are the chances?
[16:30] Speaker 3: What are the chances of that? So you talk in
[16:34] Speaker 3: the book about your upbringing. I'm not going to make
[16:37] Speaker 3: you read the book here, but you got into sex
[16:41] Speaker 3: d I remember when I was in sixth grade. It
[16:44] Speaker 3: was a big deal. Right, we're in homeroom today. We
[16:46] Speaker 3: got a special speaker and they bring in somebody who
[16:48] Speaker 3: was a preacher and he was going to They divided
[16:51] Speaker 3: the boys and the girls and they did sex AD,
[16:54] Speaker 3: which was mostly cross your legs, don't about girls, don't
[17:02] Speaker 3: do it, or you're in AD. I mean, I'm six
[17:04] Speaker 3: sixth grade, I'm leaving going, Oh my god, I wanted
[17:07] Speaker 3: to make out with you know, Sherry Rasmus And in
[17:11] Speaker 3: homeroom and now I'm an adulterer. Oh my god, I'm
[17:17] Speaker 3: sinning before man. And God, was that your? It was
[17:20] Speaker 3: that sex said for you? Janie Selby?
[17:24] Speaker 2: I just I remember it was in grade five for us,
[17:27] Speaker 2: and it was in my public school, and it was
[17:30] Speaker 2: a film, and so we had we knew. They had
[17:32] Speaker 2: sent out a letter beforehand that we were going to
[17:35] Speaker 2: be having the talk at school, and again they separated
[17:37] Speaker 2: the boys and girls. To my horror, my mother showed up.
[17:42] Speaker 2: I don't know she was afraid that they were going
[17:44] Speaker 2: to teach us too much about sex, but and so
[17:47] Speaker 2: some she was maybe there was one other parent there
[17:50] Speaker 2: or something. She maybe just wanted to know what they
[17:53] Speaker 2: were going to be teaching us. But I didn't feel
[17:57] Speaker 2: that I learned a whole lot from that. I was
[18:00] Speaker 2: only ten years old, and I felt confused, even as
[18:05] Speaker 2: my body changed. I knew I was attracted to boys.
[18:08] Speaker 2: I knew I was attracted to girls, but that the
[18:10] Speaker 2: girl part was wrong. I shouldn't be attracted to that,
[18:13] Speaker 2: so I shouldn't tell anybody about that. I definitely knew
[18:17] Speaker 2: from my family and my church that sex was not
[18:20] Speaker 2: something to even be considered before marriage.
[18:24] Speaker 3: So let me turn in if I made. Did they
[18:27] Speaker 3: give you any of the biology? I think we got
[18:30] Speaker 3: one chart and it showed us what we already had,
[18:35] Speaker 3: but you know, this is what's on you, this is you.
[18:38] Speaker 3: But it didn't really tell us anything about you know,
[18:40] Speaker 3: we didn't learn about organs and orgasms. We didn't learn
[18:42] Speaker 3: about any of that stuff. There was no practical application.
[18:45] Speaker 3: Did they go there with you?
[18:47] Speaker 2: No? No, it was like, here's how your body is
[18:49] Speaker 2: going to change girls, here's how it's going to change.
[18:52] Speaker 2: But there wasn't. Actually, they weren't addressing sex and pleasure
[18:58] Speaker 2: and relationships and things like that. I mean, like I said,
[19:01] Speaker 2: it was grade five, so I think it was good
[19:04] Speaker 2: that we were taught here kind of what to expect
[19:08] Speaker 2: does our bodies change over the next few years. But
[19:10] Speaker 2: it sure would have been helpful then maybe in grade
[19:14] Speaker 2: eight or through high school or something to have additional
[19:17] Speaker 2: sexual education to follow that up with.
[19:22] Speaker 3: Jenna Selby says she used to be a Mennonite. What's
[19:26] Speaker 3: that about. We're gonna find out more next. I'm trying
[19:36] Speaker 3: something new out. It's not all that new. It's kind
[19:39] Speaker 3: of my wheelhouse anywhere, and something we've done on the podcast.
[19:42] Speaker 3: But this will be a YouTube specific show. It is
[19:46] Speaker 3: called Seth Andrews on a tangent Monday night, six o'clock
[19:50] Speaker 3: Central YouTube dot com Slash the Thinking Atheist where it's
[19:55] Speaker 3: just a video thing. I'll start with some commentary and
[19:59] Speaker 3: then we'll go the phones. I get a chance to
[20:01] Speaker 3: actually put chat comments that people make during the live
[20:05] Speaker 3: show on the screen, and it's a little bit of
[20:08] Speaker 3: a different vibe and it's an extra chance for us
[20:10] Speaker 3: to get together, hang out, encourage each other, exchange ideas,
[20:14] Speaker 3: just extra stuff to do. Monday night, six p Mcentral
[20:19] Speaker 3: YouTube dot com, Slash the Thinking Atheist. Okay, Continuing now
[20:26] Speaker 3: with Janice Selby, licensed professional counselor and author of the
[20:31] Speaker 3: new book Divorcing Religion. I heard the word Mennonite, Mennonite Mennonite, Janis,
[20:40] Speaker 3: what's that about.
[20:43] Speaker 2: So Mennonites are they follow the Anabaptist tradition, so they
[20:46] Speaker 2: don't believe in baptizing infants. Is basically where it really
[20:51] Speaker 2: came about. And then Meno Simons was the fellow who
[20:55] Speaker 2: kind of started it. Also they're called Meno Nights. Yeah,
[21:00] Speaker 2: and so there are different versions of Mennonite. Some Mennonites
[21:05] Speaker 2: are you'd walk into a Mennonite church and you wouldn't
[21:07] Speaker 2: really know it was that different from any evangelical church.
[21:09] Speaker 2: But the one that I was involved with, the Haldeman's,
[21:12] Speaker 2: they were very different. The men and the women sat on,
[21:15] Speaker 2: you know, in different pews. There were no instruments for
[21:20] Speaker 2: the music. When we were singing. Women always cover their hair,
[21:23] Speaker 2: and you know, wore skirts and dresses very very modest.
[21:27] Speaker 2: And that's the part that appealed to me because I
[21:29] Speaker 2: saw in the New Testament, Oh, women aren't supposed to
[21:32] Speaker 2: be fancy. They're not supposed to be wearing jewelry, and
[21:35] Speaker 2: they are supposed to cover their hair, and we were
[21:37] Speaker 2: never excused from that. So I just felt I was
[21:39] Speaker 2: really being biblical and obedient, and being obedient was super
[21:44] Speaker 2: important to me back in the day.
[21:47] Speaker 3: So in the book Divorcing Religion, you call it Menecostal.
[21:51] Speaker 3: And of course the whole time, I'm thinking, under his eye,
[21:55] Speaker 3: janis right, blessed be their fruit. Janis we're talking Handmaid's
[21:59] Speaker 3: Tale stuff.
[22:00] Speaker 2: Yes, yes, And actually that even got me to reach
[22:03] Speaker 2: out to Margaret Atwood and I had her on my
[22:06] Speaker 2: podcast last year. We were talking about Handmaid's Tale and
[22:11] Speaker 2: the reason I had reached out to her. Was that
[22:12] Speaker 2: I felt in some ways like I had lived that,
[22:16] Speaker 2: and it was it was frustrating and upsetting to me
[22:18] Speaker 2: because I felt a lot like I was the one
[22:21] Speaker 2: that put myself through that. My first husband, he wasn't
[22:24] Speaker 2: a very uptight person. He would have been quite happy
[22:28] Speaker 2: to just let me be myself. But because of the
[22:31] Speaker 2: way that I grew up, I really had a bent
[22:34] Speaker 2: towards fundamentalism. But yeah, it is a lot like Handmaid's Tale,
[22:39] Speaker 2: And that's what's so scary we see going on in
[22:41] Speaker 2: the United States right now.
[22:43] Speaker 3: Margaret Atwood, what a score like a big fish. When
[22:48] Speaker 3: she agreed, you must have been over the moon. It
[22:52] Speaker 3: must have been crazy.
[22:53] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, No one was more shocked than me. But
[22:56] Speaker 2: so my husband and I were watching Handmaid's Tail one
[22:59] Speaker 2: day and he said, oh, I know her. I know Peggy.
[23:02] Speaker 2: And I said, well, who's Peggy? And he said Margaret.
[23:05] Speaker 2: I said, you know Margaret out what he said, Yep,
[23:08] Speaker 2: I've stayed at her house before because he used to
[23:11] Speaker 2: take her and her husband, Graham, her late husband. He
[23:14] Speaker 2: used to take them bird watching in Cuba. And so
[23:17] Speaker 2: my husband's from the United States, he'd have to come
[23:19] Speaker 2: to Canada first to go over to Cuba. And so
[23:22] Speaker 2: as soon as he told me that he knew her,
[23:23] Speaker 2: I was like, well, I'm going to write her a
[23:25] Speaker 2: letter right away, And so I had to go through
[23:28] Speaker 2: her publishing house rather than directly to her, of course,
[23:30] Speaker 2: but she was so kind to agree to come on
[23:33] Speaker 2: my small Canadian podcast.
[23:35] Speaker 3: Oh remember the little people, Janice, Remember the little people?
[23:39] Speaker 3: As you hobnob with all these A listeners. This isn't
[23:43] Speaker 3: in my prep, and I don't mean this in a
[23:45] Speaker 3: creepy way, but I'm just curious because it's a common
[23:47] Speaker 3: thing when people talk about escaping purity cultures. So when
[23:51] Speaker 3: you finally got out of all this and you first
[23:54] Speaker 3: showed I don't know how to say this, Janis, but
[23:56] Speaker 3: you first showed skin, right, you first did a neckline.
[24:00] Speaker 3: I don't know arms if you come out of minecostal,
[24:03] Speaker 3: I don't know what's considered scandalous. I don't have a framework.
[24:06] Speaker 3: But the first time you thought, fuck it, I'm going
[24:09] Speaker 3: to wear something that's a little more sexy or even
[24:14] Speaker 3: exposed as more skin. Is something going on up here?
[24:17] Speaker 3: What's happening to you?
[24:19] Speaker 2: Yes, I would say that there there were you know,
[24:23] Speaker 2: there were warring factions, there were some conflicting feelings going
[24:27] Speaker 2: on inside me. But I'd had a few years in
[24:30] Speaker 2: my very early twenties where I was backslidden, and so
[24:34] Speaker 2: had I knew what it was like. I'd been to
[24:36] Speaker 2: the bars, I had sung in rock bands, and you know,
[24:38] Speaker 2: had that kind of really secular experience. So in some
[24:42] Speaker 2: ways it felt like going back to what I knew.
[24:46] Speaker 2: But I definitely felt nervous about what if I see people,
[24:50] Speaker 2: you know, what if I see church people in this
[24:53] Speaker 2: sort of thing. But boy, I mean in the memoir
[24:55] Speaker 2: portion of my book, I talk about really I went
[24:59] Speaker 2: from one extreme to the other. I had some very
[25:03] Speaker 2: wild times. I told myself that I would deny myself nothing,
[25:07] Speaker 2: and I denied myself nothing.
[25:09] Speaker 3: My friend, you just decided I'm going to own it. Right.
[25:12] Speaker 3: All the stuff, well, I think some of that's a
[25:14] Speaker 3: liberation exercise, isn't that? All the stuff that used to
[25:17] Speaker 3: tie me down and control me and everybody pointed a finger,
[25:20] Speaker 3: and by being able to decide to or not to
[25:23] Speaker 3: do it on my own terms, is really a liberation exercise.
[25:27] Speaker 3: So when I see you and my imagination looking in
[25:29] Speaker 3: the mirror saying this is what I'm wanted, this is
[25:31] Speaker 3: what I'm going to do, and who cares what anybody
[25:34] Speaker 3: else thinks? That Really, it's almost like you're you're working
[25:37] Speaker 3: a muscle, You're developing a muscle of agency in your
[25:41] Speaker 3: own mind and hearts.
[25:42] Speaker 2: Right, yes. And I think it would have been easier
[25:45] Speaker 2: if I had moved to another place where nobody knew
[25:48] Speaker 2: me and I could just start over again. That's the
[25:51] Speaker 2: part that was so challenging was that I still lived
[25:55] Speaker 2: in the same community, so my family was here and
[26:00] Speaker 2: people from church, and so I dealt with that a lot.
[26:03] Speaker 2: What will people say? What will people think? And I
[26:07] Speaker 2: just had to get to the point where I felt like,
[26:09] Speaker 2: I don't care. They're living their lives and I've got
[26:12] Speaker 2: to be free to live mine. And then I had
[26:15] Speaker 2: to have some really serious conversations with my teenage daughters too,
[26:20] Speaker 2: about sexuality and you know, all the stuff that I
[26:23] Speaker 2: always told you had to wait till you were married,
[26:25] Speaker 2: all this kind of stuff. You don't have to wait
[26:27] Speaker 2: till you're married, but you do have to be careful.
[26:30] Speaker 2: So let's see how ways that you can be careful
[26:34] Speaker 2: and what you think of might be good qualities in
[26:36] Speaker 2: a partner and have those conversations instead, so we weren't
[26:40] Speaker 2: repressing things anymore. And that was a bit hard on
[26:44] Speaker 2: their dad. And we're no longer married, but we are
[26:47] Speaker 2: very good friends. But I think it was very good
[26:49] Speaker 2: for my daughters and they know they can come to
[26:52] Speaker 2: me and tell me anything.
[26:55] Speaker 3: She wouldn't mind me telling the story because she told
[26:58] Speaker 3: it either on the show or on a video essay
[27:01] Speaker 3: that I had done a profile of Gail Jordan, executive
[27:04] Speaker 3: director of Recovering from Religion. So she came out of
[27:07] Speaker 3: a super super super fundy background a little bit like
[27:10] Speaker 3: you did. And now on the other side, she has
[27:14] Speaker 3: taken agency and she is no longer governed by shame,
[27:17] Speaker 3: and she does an amazing job helping other people to
[27:20] Speaker 3: do the same. But she talked about the time that
[27:22] Speaker 3: like she on Christmas or one of the stocking stuffers
[27:25] Speaker 3: for her daughters with vibrators, she gave her kids vibrators.
[27:30] Speaker 3: And of course that's just like a foreign planet, because
[27:32] Speaker 3: in my family, if the word sex ever came up,
[27:36] Speaker 3: everybody's face blushed and they twisted up, and it was
[27:39] Speaker 3: almost like they were having to just say it sex.
[27:41] Speaker 3: It was just so uncomfortable, so to be in a
[27:44] Speaker 3: place of liberation where it's just. And then I envy
[27:47] Speaker 3: those people because I think if we hadn't been so
[27:51] Speaker 3: shame oriented and would have simply accepted it as part
[27:55] Speaker 3: of the human condition, something beautiful. But we got to
[27:57] Speaker 3: know how to protect ourselves, know what it is. Now,
[27:59] Speaker 3: it works, what's going on. I mean, I think how
[28:01] Speaker 3: many how much more prepared for the world would I
[28:04] Speaker 3: have been, right Jennis?
[28:06] Speaker 2: Oh, Yes, And I'm so glad you brought up Gail
[28:09] Speaker 2: because her daughter Glinda is going to be speaking at
[28:13] Speaker 2: the Shameless Sexuality Life After Purity Culture conference that I'm
[28:17] Speaker 2: hosting in Seattle in May, and I really want people
[28:21] Speaker 2: to show up and support that event exactly for this reason.
[28:25] Speaker 2: So many of us were repressed and suppressed when it
[28:29] Speaker 2: came to sexuality, and we just don't have to be
[28:33] Speaker 2: People sometimes need a little bit of help, a little
[28:36] Speaker 2: bit of reassurance, a little bit of coaxing out of
[28:38] Speaker 2: their shell. When they've lived their whole life feeling like
[28:42] Speaker 2: they couldn't be sexual beings, they had to shut that
[28:45] Speaker 2: part of themselves down.
[28:47] Speaker 3: Is there a website for that, a place people can go?
[28:50] Speaker 2: Yes? Thank you for asking is shameless sexuality dot org
[28:54] Speaker 2: I tell everyone that's short for orgasm, but I it's
[28:58] Speaker 2: just sexual and the event is happening May twenty third
[29:03] Speaker 2: to twenty fifth in Beautiful Seattle. I really want people
[29:07] Speaker 2: to come join us.
[29:09] Speaker 3: When you were writing the book Divorcing Religion, this is
[29:13] Speaker 3: kind of a Barbara Walters question. But I mean, as
[29:16] Speaker 3: you're going, you're retreading those old steps. Did it kind
[29:19] Speaker 3: of screw you up a little bit? I mean that's
[29:21] Speaker 3: pretty raw nerves after all this time and you're digging
[29:24] Speaker 3: up the past. Did you go through some stuff?
[29:27] Speaker 2: Yeah? I absolutely did. This is my first book, so
[29:31] Speaker 2: I didn't really know everything that would be involved in it.
[29:34] Speaker 2: But as I was writing the memoir portion, sometimes things
[29:39] Speaker 2: would hit me so hard that I'd actually have to
[29:41] Speaker 2: step away from it for one or two months. And
[29:45] Speaker 2: that was, you know, recalling some of the very painful
[29:48] Speaker 2: experiences through my first marriage and even sometimes through things
[29:54] Speaker 2: that I had done that had hurt other people. I
[29:57] Speaker 2: really I don't try and paint myself in a great
[29:59] Speaker 2: life when I'm telling my story. I'm pretty honest about it.
[30:03] Speaker 2: Maybe shocking for some folks, but so yeah, there were
[30:06] Speaker 2: times when I had to step back, give myself permission
[30:09] Speaker 2: just to kind of grieve and more and let some
[30:12] Speaker 2: things go and build myself back up again and get
[30:15] Speaker 2: back to the writing process.
[30:17] Speaker 3: Well, I made a note here. You included in the
[30:20] Speaker 3: book the Shannon Adler quote don't ignore pain, appreciate its message.
[30:25] Speaker 3: Avoidance is it's a tactic, and I'm not saying it's wrong,
[30:31] Speaker 3: but it may be maladaptive in the long run if
[30:34] Speaker 3: we have been harmed. Ignoring or blocking out pain never
[30:38] Speaker 3: really deals with the problem. You think people should just
[30:41] Speaker 3: handle it, just go head on against it.
[30:44] Speaker 2: I think sometimes it depends on the person and the situation,
[30:49] Speaker 2: because yeah, coping mechanisms are different for different people. But
[30:53] Speaker 2: ignoring things and denying things, that's not helpful because eventually,
[30:59] Speaker 2: you know what, what can't be said will be wept,
[31:01] Speaker 2: It's going to come out in some way. It's probably
[31:04] Speaker 2: going to come out very uncomfortably in relationship patterns that
[31:08] Speaker 2: we keep repeating. So it's definitely worth it for people
[31:12] Speaker 2: to find a secular therapist, someone that they can talk
[31:16] Speaker 2: with about these things that they may not even be
[31:18] Speaker 2: aware of what's driving them and driving their behaviors. And
[31:22] Speaker 2: it's a good thing to be introspective and figure out
[31:25] Speaker 2: why we do the things we do.
[31:27] Speaker 3: Janis, you talk about a separation agreement and you tie
[31:31] Speaker 3: it into a relationship like a marital relationship, and then
[31:34] Speaker 3: you separate your divorce and you correlate it directly to
[31:40] Speaker 3: divorcing religion. Did you sign a separation agreement with your faith?
[31:46] Speaker 2: Yes? Yeah. I felt like it was a real stroke
[31:49] Speaker 2: of insight when I have the idea to do the
[31:52] Speaker 2: separation agreement, and of course I had been I was
[31:56] Speaker 2: also walking through the end of my marriage the same
[31:59] Speaker 2: time that I was walking through the end of my faith,
[32:02] Speaker 2: and so it did feel like a divorce. It was
[32:05] Speaker 2: so serious and so sad and so difficult. And I
[32:09] Speaker 2: came up with the idea for the separation agreement because
[32:13] Speaker 2: it really does kind of speak to the seriousness of
[32:16] Speaker 2: the situation, and it gives people permission to start seeing
[32:20] Speaker 2: things a little differently and moving behaving differently in their
[32:25] Speaker 2: life as they look at what behaviors were a part
[32:28] Speaker 2: of that marriage to religion that they don't want to
[32:31] Speaker 2: have anything to do with anymore, and are there different
[32:34] Speaker 2: behaviors that they might prefer to adopt in its place.
[32:37] Speaker 3: Does that get sticky when the partner doesn't want to separate.
[32:41] Speaker 3: Christianity be a great example, right, someone wants to leave Christianity,
[32:45] Speaker 3: but the church won't separate from them. You know, no,
[32:49] Speaker 3: we're not going to let you go. You're the prodigal.
[32:52] Speaker 3: We're going to bring you back. You are now a project.
[32:54] Speaker 3: You are an object, something that must be brought back in.
[32:59] Speaker 3: How do you handle that if you want to divorce
[33:02] Speaker 3: or at to very least separate from your faith.
[33:05] Speaker 2: Right, and in some groups you do actually have to
[33:08] Speaker 2: write a letter and requests to be taken off their role.
[33:11] Speaker 2: And thinking of Mormons, and I know some people who've
[33:14] Speaker 2: left Jehovah's Witnesses as well. Some churches will just kick
[33:20] Speaker 2: people out and say you're dead to us. You know,
[33:23] Speaker 2: you don't get to come back. For most people, that's
[33:28] Speaker 2: not a part of it. But having still religious family,
[33:31] Speaker 2: people who are entrenched in their religious beliefs, that's what
[33:36] Speaker 2: can be so very very hard, and it's a fine
[33:39] Speaker 2: line to walk. Then where are we going to maintain
[33:42] Speaker 2: this relationship when we don't really feel like we can
[33:45] Speaker 2: one hundred percent be ourselves. I work with a lot
[33:49] Speaker 2: of people around that figuring that out. Do they stay connected.
[33:53] Speaker 2: We have to change our focus from the shared beliefs
[33:58] Speaker 2: to shared values. At that point, if we still have
[34:01] Speaker 2: shared values.
[34:02] Speaker 3: In the book, you talk about coming out to friends
[34:05] Speaker 3: and relatives. I no longer believe, or at the very least,
[34:08] Speaker 3: I'm doubting, or I'm on a journey. I don't know
[34:10] Speaker 3: wherever you are. If I don't come out to my
[34:13] Speaker 3: friends and family, am I coward? No?
[34:17] Speaker 2: And for some people it's not even safe for them
[34:21] Speaker 2: to come out to their family as non believers. So
[34:25] Speaker 2: I like people to have a checklist when they are
[34:27] Speaker 2: considering coming out as a non believer. So are they
[34:33] Speaker 2: going to be safe? Are they beholden to religious family
[34:36] Speaker 2: members for their finances, for childcare? For people who make
[34:43] Speaker 2: the very big decision to divorce Islam, they are in
[34:48] Speaker 2: danger of their life sometimes. So we really have to
[34:51] Speaker 2: think through these things. Just because it was, you know,
[34:55] Speaker 2: relatively uncomplicated for me to divorce religion walk away, that
[35:00] Speaker 2: doesn't mean it's that way for everybody. So I want
[35:03] Speaker 2: people to really think about it and consider why is
[35:06] Speaker 2: it important, Why does it feel important for them to
[35:08] Speaker 2: have this conversation, What are they helping? The result will
[35:12] Speaker 2: be of the conversation and what might a bad outcome be?
[35:16] Speaker 2: Can they live with that if it's a bad outcome?
[35:19] Speaker 3: Jenna Selby, I read your book. It didn't sound like
[35:21] Speaker 3: an easy extrication. I mean, there weren't you know, no
[35:25] Speaker 3: one issued a fatwa against you, right, But it doesn't
[35:29] Speaker 3: mean it wasn't hard, because I read complicated, messy, traumatic.
[35:34] Speaker 3: You know you were cycled. Literally you were like the
[35:37] Speaker 3: etcha sketch and you know you were who am I
[35:39] Speaker 3: what's this drawing going to look like at the end
[35:41] Speaker 3: of the day. I know it must have been sort
[35:43] Speaker 3: of cage rattling for you. And then you came out
[35:47] Speaker 3: the other side and you committed yourself to helping other
[35:50] Speaker 3: people with this sort of work book. I don't know
[35:53] Speaker 3: if that's the best handbook? Is what you call it
[35:55] Speaker 3: in the in the subtitle what are we talking about here?
[35:58] Speaker 3: What kind of exercises?
[36:01] Speaker 2: It's a lot of getting people to take stock of
[36:06] Speaker 2: the beliefs that they have held, or the beliefs that
[36:09] Speaker 2: have been holding them. Where did those beliefs come from,
[36:12] Speaker 2: who delivered those beliefs to them, how old were they
[36:16] Speaker 2: do they still believe them? And even at the very
[36:20] Speaker 2: end of the book. The final chapter, there's a module
[36:23] Speaker 2: called mind control. Don't let an old flame burn you twice,
[36:29] Speaker 2: because we are vulnerable when we've been raised in a
[36:33] Speaker 2: fundamentalist situation and circumstances. We may be able to leave
[36:38] Speaker 2: that fundamentalist religion, but we can still take the fundamentalist
[36:41] Speaker 2: mindset with us, the black and white rigidity of thought,
[36:46] Speaker 2: and that's something we don't want to do. We need
[36:49] Speaker 2: to learn about nuance.
[36:52] Speaker 3: I'm stealing that, Janice, I'm stealing it. Don't let an
[36:56] Speaker 3: old flame burn you twice. God, that's good. I'll credit you.
[37:01] Speaker 3: I'll credit you. But I'm I'm using that. Okay, I'm
[37:06] Speaker 3: going to talk more about this workbook. Somebody's deconstructing coming
[37:10] Speaker 3: out of the faith, having a hard time, not sure
[37:12] Speaker 3: what to do. How about a step by step guide.
[37:16] Speaker 3: Janice Selby is providing one. We're going to find out
[37:20] Speaker 3: more about that next. Thanks for being here and enjoying
[37:32] Speaker 3: my conversation with Janice Selby. She is author of the
[37:36] Speaker 3: new book Divorcing Religion. When I came out of the faith,
[37:43] Speaker 3: I had to reassess what do I think about everything?
[37:47] Speaker 3: It doesn't matter, I mean, whether it's gay people or
[37:49] Speaker 3: whether it's drugs or whether it's the role of the
[37:51] Speaker 3: government or any or whatever. So you come out, did
[37:54] Speaker 3: you go point by point what are some of the
[37:56] Speaker 3: things about you that changed when you were when you
[38:00] Speaker 3: had divorced religion?
[38:02] Speaker 2: Yeah, I felt like it was a bit by bit
[38:05] Speaker 2: process because I was still married to my first husband
[38:09] Speaker 2: when I started divorcing religions. So first it was, you know,
[38:13] Speaker 2: I stopped wearing a head covering. Then I went to
[38:17] Speaker 2: work outside the home. Then I bought my first pair
[38:20] Speaker 2: of ear rings that I, you know, hadn't worn earrings.
[38:23] Speaker 3: In Harlot, Harlot, God is watching you, Janie the ear rings.
[38:30] Speaker 2: So it kind of went bit by bit like that,
[38:33] Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, when I when I allowed myself to
[38:35] Speaker 2: start enjoying secular music again and try and catch up
[38:39] Speaker 2: on the decades that I had missed out on popular culture.
[38:43] Speaker 2: There's still so many movies I haven't seen and references
[38:47] Speaker 2: that I don't necessarily understand from the nineties and the
[38:51] Speaker 2: two thousands, So it was kind of a step by
[38:55] Speaker 2: step process for me.
[38:57] Speaker 3: I was listening to the story of someone who had
[38:59] Speaker 3: escaped a high control called no TV, no Radio, No Nothing.
[39:03] Speaker 3: Eighteen years old, nineteen busted out and was watching reruns
[39:09] Speaker 3: of Friends just to try to figure out what had
[39:12] Speaker 3: been going on in the world, because she didn't speak
[39:15] Speaker 3: any cultural language beyond what was within her literal walls,
[39:19] Speaker 3: and so she's watching Friends over and over again, just
[39:23] Speaker 3: trying to how do they speak? What's okay to talk about?
[39:26] Speaker 3: Was it that kind of deal?
[39:28] Speaker 2: Janis Gosh, isn't that something that's just that's a wonderful story?
[39:32] Speaker 3: Crazy?
[39:34] Speaker 2: Yes, in some ways it was like that. Now. I
[39:36] Speaker 2: was fortunate to have older siblings who had divorced religion
[39:41] Speaker 2: long before I did. They never bought into the same
[39:43] Speaker 2: degree I did, and so I was able to talk
[39:47] Speaker 2: with them some I didn't really feel like I could
[39:50] Speaker 2: talk to my husband at the time, and I certainly
[39:53] Speaker 2: wasn't talking to my church friends as I tried to
[39:55] Speaker 2: figure out what was going on. So and then I
[39:58] Speaker 2: reached out, became very in the New Age kind of
[40:01] Speaker 2: community there, but I again ran into a similar issue
[40:06] Speaker 2: where I just eventually saw that I didn't belong there.
[40:09] Speaker 2: I didn't have those beliefs either, and I didn't need
[40:12] Speaker 2: to have any beliefs like that. So then I had
[40:15] Speaker 2: more losses because I lost that community too. But it's
[40:18] Speaker 2: all been helpful along the way as I figured out
[40:21] Speaker 2: who I am and what I do believe.
[40:23] Speaker 3: Oh, I saw your diploma, the graphic patent in the
[40:26] Speaker 3: book something about the University of the Metaphysicals, and I
[40:30] Speaker 3: was like, this sounds like woo you right, this is
[40:34] Speaker 3: woo you jan.
[40:36] Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's exactly what it was. And I was
[40:39] Speaker 2: so excited because the things that had been previously forbidden
[40:44] Speaker 2: I could dive into. So I went to psychics and
[40:47] Speaker 2: I got my astrology chart done, and I you know,
[40:50] Speaker 2: started exploring all these different things and oh you know,
[40:54] Speaker 2: dabbling in homeopathy and stuff. But then when people started
[40:58] Speaker 2: talking about channeling you can channel the spirits, I was like,
[41:02] Speaker 2: oh my god, are you kidding? Like here we go again.
[41:05] Speaker 3: Okay, But as a counselor, is that common? I mean,
[41:09] Speaker 3: someone comes out of a fundy faith, but the idea
[41:11] Speaker 3: of going all the way to non beliefs terrifying, So
[41:14] Speaker 3: they sort of go to shallower and shallower waters and
[41:18] Speaker 3: going into wuism, you know, the spiritual, metaphysical, this nebulous deism.
[41:23] Speaker 3: Whatever they go into. That's common, right, you know.
[41:27] Speaker 2: I find for women it can be very common. And
[41:30] Speaker 2: something that I've seen in men is some of them
[41:33] Speaker 2: tend to go more towards conspiracy theory things which also
[41:39] Speaker 2: can be terrifying. But a lot of women definitely get
[41:43] Speaker 2: into the wo and just enjoy floating around in the
[41:47] Speaker 2: And again, it felt wonderful because I was like, oh,
[41:50] Speaker 2: now I have the secret sauce. Now I understand. Before
[41:53] Speaker 2: I was totally mistaken. Now I understand. But you know
[41:57] Speaker 2: that was awesome.
[41:58] Speaker 3: And so you go from You're wearing the handmaid's tail
[42:02] Speaker 3: uniform too. You're sitting in a corner surrounded by incense
[42:05] Speaker 3: and blue crystals. I'm listening to the maharishi. You know
[42:10] Speaker 3: that's awesome. Janie, I want to go back just a second.
[42:13] Speaker 3: I don't want to monopolize your time, but I just
[42:15] Speaker 3: love talking to you. You mentioned your husband as a counselor.
[42:20] Speaker 3: All right, let's say I'm a spouse married to a
[42:24] Speaker 3: devout believer. I'm going internally through a journey of deconstruction.
[42:28] Speaker 3: This doesn't make sense. It's not working. Alarm bells are
[42:31] Speaker 3: going off. I'm more and more uncomfortable with the idea
[42:34] Speaker 3: of living as a believer, going to church, but I'm
[42:37] Speaker 3: terrified of telling my spouse for whatever reason. I know
[42:42] Speaker 3: you've heard these stories inside locked rooms right with your patients.
[42:47] Speaker 3: Can you speak to maybe how someone can navigate that.
[42:52] Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say with great caution, particularly when there
[42:58] Speaker 2: are children involve So again taking a look at well.
[43:03] Speaker 2: People are typically pretty aware of what they stand to lose,
[43:08] Speaker 2: so that's where taking things slowly can be helpful. We
[43:12] Speaker 2: might first suggest a podcast or a book, or say, oh,
[43:17] Speaker 2: you know, I heard this thing and it seemed really
[43:19] Speaker 2: interesting to me. I'm curious what you think about it.
[43:23] Speaker 2: That is a much less threatening way than just abruptly
[43:28] Speaker 2: saying I don't believe this anymore. I think it's total baloney.
[43:32] Speaker 2: That can be very hard for the still believing spouse.
[43:35] Speaker 2: Who believers operate from a very fear based situation. Their
[43:40] Speaker 2: greatest fear is not that you would die, but that
[43:43] Speaker 2: you would reject Christianity and you would go to hell
[43:46] Speaker 2: and then potentially take the children to hell. So we
[43:49] Speaker 2: have to bear that in mind when we're talking with people.
[43:53] Speaker 2: So for some folks, they do feel like they need
[43:56] Speaker 2: to immediately get it right out on the table. They
[43:59] Speaker 2: can't hold this big secret in because they need to
[44:01] Speaker 2: be able to be who they are, and that's the
[44:04] Speaker 2: road that they choose to go. Other folks take it
[44:06] Speaker 2: more slowly, and then, as I mentioned earlier, as much
[44:10] Speaker 2: as we can shifting from that sense of shared beliefs
[44:15] Speaker 2: to the shared values. But the believer has to be
[44:19] Speaker 2: pretty broad minded in order to accept that a lot
[44:24] Speaker 2: of times those marriages don't work out. Sometimes they do.
[44:27] Speaker 2: Marriage is hard anyway.
[44:29] Speaker 3: Well, I'm not a registered counselor or trauma coach, but
[44:32] Speaker 3: when I speak one on one to people, I try
[44:35] Speaker 3: to encourage them that I mean, because many are terrified
[44:37] Speaker 3: I'm going to lose my marriage. They're going to take
[44:39] Speaker 3: the kids because I'm now Satanic and they don't want
[44:42] Speaker 3: me to be around the children. I'm going to lose
[44:44] Speaker 3: my parents. No one's going to want me to Thanksgiving dinner,
[44:46] Speaker 3: I don't know whatever. These are very real consequences, and
[44:50] Speaker 3: I try to remind people that this is not your fault,
[44:54] Speaker 3: right because they are demonstrating would you call it conditional love, Janice.
[45:00] Speaker 2: Hmmm, yeah, And I think that's how that's how we're
[45:03] Speaker 2: trained in fundamentalist belief systems, that it is conditional, that
[45:09] Speaker 2: it can be withdrawn when people reject the belief system.
[45:14] Speaker 3: All right, give me a final slug for the book,
[45:16] Speaker 3: which I will link in the show notes. Divorcing Religion
[45:20] Speaker 3: a memoir and survival handbook. What is it? What does
[45:24] Speaker 3: it do?
[45:25] Speaker 2: This book explains my own journey of divorcing religion, and
[45:30] Speaker 2: then even goes beyond that, because then I have developed
[45:34] Speaker 2: a handbook or a workbook for other people who are
[45:37] Speaker 2: walking this very interesting and sometimes complicated journey. And there's
[45:42] Speaker 2: lots of exercises for reflection and figuring out who we
[45:47] Speaker 2: are and where we want to be. So I hope
[45:49] Speaker 2: it's a helpful book for everybody.
[45:51] Speaker 3: Funny, writing a book is harder than you think, isn't it.
[45:54] Speaker 3: Like you started and you're like, this is going to
[45:56] Speaker 3: be great, and then you get into it and you're
[45:58] Speaker 3: like this is going to be great, I hope, And
[46:01] Speaker 3: then you get into it and you're like, this sucks.
[46:04] Speaker 3: I can't do this, you know what am I thinking?
[46:06] Speaker 3: And then finally when it's over, you're a little bit bewildered,
[46:09] Speaker 3: hoping that it's going to help somebody. But your book
[46:13] Speaker 3: is going to help people, Jennis. It's so well done
[46:15] Speaker 3: and it's so personal, and what I love is that
[46:18] Speaker 3: I read it in your voice, right, I'm like, oh,
[46:21] Speaker 3: I hear Janis as I'm speaking as I'm reading all
[46:23] Speaker 3: of these things.
[46:24] Speaker 2: So I'm recording it this week. I'm recording the audio
[46:28] Speaker 2: version this week.
[46:29] Speaker 3: Wonderful. Well, thank you for the work you do to
[46:32] Speaker 3: help other people. I know deconstruction is a lot of
[46:35] Speaker 3: people say it's sexy. What was there an apologist who
[46:37] Speaker 3: said something like, oh, this is just a trendy thing
[46:40] Speaker 3: people like to talk about because deconstructing is so sexy.
[46:43] Speaker 3: And I'm like, you have no idea what you're talking about,
[46:46] Speaker 3: and you'd agree with that, right, I mean it's hard
[46:49] Speaker 3: to deconstruct.
[46:51] Speaker 2: Yeah, it is hard, and you're not sure how things
[46:54] Speaker 2: are going to come out. On the other end, I
[46:56] Speaker 2: think it's probably the scariest thing that a person can do,
[47:00] Speaker 2: is to confront the beliefs that they've held for most
[47:04] Speaker 2: of their lives and even built their life around. It's
[47:06] Speaker 2: a hard thing to do. People deserve support. They can
[47:09] Speaker 2: reach out to me for support.
[47:11] Speaker 3: You keep wearing those ear rings, Jannis. You just be defiant,
[47:14] Speaker 3: be bold, be you. Janie Selby, you are such a
[47:19] Speaker 3: lovely person. Divorcing Religion a Memoir and Survival handbook, get
[47:24] Speaker 3: a copy, share a copy, and thanks for your great work.
[47:28] Speaker 2: Thank you, I appreciate you so much.
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