In my early twenties, I joined a discipleship program at my church called The Master’s Commission. I planned to stay for a year, but remained for five. When I finally left, I felt further from myself than I had ever been. Truthfully, I felt pretty beat up.

The promises of belonging, healing, and becoming a leader who would change the world fell flat.

I had experienced a lot of harm — being asked to blindly obey, to submit all aspects of my life to my leaders, to participate in controlling practices, to humiliate and to be humiliated, and to work hard beyond a healthy capacity.

After I left the program, I started shedding what I had been trained to believe or do which caused the church to have less control over me. After a couple years of this, they told me to leave the church.

It was the most devastating moment of my life, and I was thrust into a kind of disorientation that I didn’t know how to handle.

Eventually, I reached out for help. In a small therapy room, someone finally named what I had been carrying: religious trauma. He named the ways the leadership of this church had misused their position of power which is why I felt hurt, angry, and unsure of myself. Hearing those words changed everything. It disrupted what I felt in my body, but didn’t know how to name, and opened the door to real healing.

My lived experience with religious trauma deeply informs my work today. I understand how disorienting it can be to lose a community, question what you were taught, or feel like your sense of self has been shaped by fear or control.

As a relational trauma therapist, my goal is to help you come back to yourself. Whether it’s religious trauma, childhood wounding, relational patterns that aren’t working for you, narratives you’ve been holding for a long time — I want to help you find your authentic self.