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Tears rolled down my plump toddler cheeks. The ruffle of my blue nightgown dragged against the hardwood floor, which felt cold on my bare feet as I made my way down the hall, descended the stairs, and crossed the living room.

A moment ago, I had heard the twelve chimes of the grandfather clock, but I had yet to fall asleep. As I listened to the last of my family shut their doors and sensed the deep breathing of sleep from my brother across the room, my mind had begun whirring.

What if the rapture happened tonight? What if I woke up to find Jesus had taken my family to heaven, and I was all alone? While he whisked my parents and siblings to the safety of God’s kingdom, I was left here on the fallen earth under Satan’s rule for 1,000 years.

Where would I go? Who would take care of me?

At three, I knew that I was supposedly protected from hell because, according to my father, God did not condemn children to hell until they turned 12. The profound wisdom of your 12 years apparently rendered you capable of making a decision that would bind your fate for eternity. But if you died before your 12th birthday, God automatically accepted you into heaven.

But that rule said nothing about the rapture. What if all bets were off when Jesus came back and shepherded his followers to safety?

I had accepted Jesus into my heart, which was also supposed to protect me. But what if I had unknowingly rejected him? Last week I got angry with my sister when she tried to braid my hair, and I often got bored during evening devotions. I also had thoughts that I knew were evil. What if I had unknowingly rejected Jesus, and now he would leave me behind?

Beginning to Heal Religious Trauma Syndrome

The panic began to rise in my throat, my heart clenched, and I was sobbing so hard I could barely breathe.

This terror went on for hours. I knew I needed to go to my parents and ask them to help me say the “sinner’s prayer”. I would repeat the familiar words: “I am a sinner and deserve to go to hell. I believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sins. I now receive Him as my Lord and Savior. I ask him to rule the throne of my heart.” Then they would reassure me that I was saved. But the trek across the house was dark and scary.

Finally, my fear of abandonment and eternity in the fiery pits of hell overcame my fear of ghosts in our spare room. I began the journey to my parent’s queen-sized bed and the consolation of salvation.

“Okay, stop tapping. What did you notice?” My therapist’s gentle voice came over the phone line.

I began deciphering what I had witnessed in an emotionless tone as if I were describing what I ate for dinner last night.

Understanding What Religious Trauma Syndrome Is

I knew consciously that fear of abandonment and eternal suffering had marked my childhood. This fundamentalist worldview, and the abusive structures it produced, sparked insomnia, thoughts of self-harm, and panic attacks. I also knew that these were symptoms of religious trauma syndrome¹, the term researchers use to describe the particular harm induced by dogmatic religious indoctrination. These belief systems demand rigid adherence to the group’s worldview to remain in the community and escape eternal retribution, while enforcing obedience through closed-world assumptions with impenetrable social structures. As a result, they produce cycles of fear, shame, and unquestioning submission to authority.

But emotionally, I couldn’t connect. This memory seemed distant, and I couldn’t feel the pain of my little self. Frankly, this memory didn’t seem as bad as the utter helplessness of physical abuse or the shame of sexual assault. This fear of the rapture was just in my head.

We went through the memory two more times, but nothing shifted.

After three years of EMDR, a therapy that uses bilateral stimulation to reprocess traumatic memories and shift their underlying beliefs, I knew that some memories are more challenging to reprocess than others. I also understood that feeling sadness, anger, self-compassion, and connecting emotionally is crucial to shifting the memory and resulting self-belief.

But you cannot force this emotional connection to your past self, which lies in the memory. I had to wait for it.

Emotionally Connecting to the Pain of this Trauma

As I went back into this memory the following week, I felt the tug of competing forces. My conscious mind urged me to feel something: let’s get this over with. And it also warned me not to fall into self-pity, “Other people have worse; this was just you being overly sensitive.”

Though this is not a regular part of the EMDR process, I began to ask for help silently. I grounded into my feet and seat. Through this grounding, I began to connect with the earth. I felt a sense of the Great Mother observing all that was taking place.

I could see myself through the eyes of an all-loving mama. I saw my young self so scared, and I sensed an overwhelming love along with a deep sadness for my pain.

The tears started flowing. I felt the immense torment that flowered in my small chest and created rigidity throughout my body.

I began to remember, really remember how it felt to be so afraid of abandonment, of eternal damnation that I would do anything to stop the pain.

Rejecting Fundamentalist Christian “God”

The God of my childhood was a confusing character. On the one hand, he healed the sick and died for your sins. One the other, he proclaimed that humans were evil; your righteous deeds were like filthy rags to him. Every mistake, rebellious (read: independent) thought, and intense emotion was merely more proof of your evilness. Simultaneously, every right dead, favorable circumstance, and material success was a sign of God’s goodness.

He took all of the glory and none of the blame.

Like an abusive relationship, God had all the power. He required complete submission in return for not killing you, both predestining your sin and demanding repentance for the same act. In turn, you repeated the cycle of sin, guilt, and repentance. After repenting your “sin” and “re-committing” yourself, there was a relief, as the honeymoon phase of an abusive cycle.

Honestly, I hated this God. I often felt I was in a straightjacket. Any hint of wrong emotion or disagreement could draw his eye and bring about his wrath.

A part of me thought maybe Satan wasn’t so evil. If he was the mortal enemy of such a cruel being, perhaps he was the hero here. And these were the thoughts that had me convinced I would be left behind. Jesus would come back, blowing his shofar, and see that I had chosen evil. In my heart of hearts, I did not love him.

Retrieving a Part of My Soul

“What did you notice?”

Explaining my experience to my therapist through sobs, I had a sudden realization. Doing EMDR on this memory was different than any others I had experienced. What we were doing in this memory was also a soul retrieval.

Through reprocessing this memory, I was not only healing the trauma of this belief system, but I was also going back for a piece of my soul.

At once, I understood that I had tucked away an aspect of me, my soul essence, in part for safekeeping and in part for survival. The piece that I had given away was not quiet, obedient, or dutiful, all qualities necessary to move through my childhood world without being cast out or continually shamed.

In previous EMDR sessions, meditative experiences, and energy healing, I had experienced an intense sensation that some part of me was buried deep, so deep I had no conscious access to it.

I realized what we were doing.

This was a memory unlike any of the others. This was a portal to access that buried self. I didn’t know what the part of me was or how I would unbury it in this memory, but I felt the ache of its missing-ness for the first time. It was homesickness. And also an understanding of loss, like waking to a missing limb. I sobbed. The depth of grief was overwhelming

Recognizing the Residue of Fear 

Going back to the memory a third time, I was filled with anticipation. Entering a memory with expectation is challenging because my brain starts looking for fireworks and attempting to create breakthroughs. But this work doesn’t take place in the conscious mind. The transformation has to occur on a deeper level to have the power to alter self-beliefs created in trauma.

And as I entered the memory, no epic reveal occurred.

Instead, I could see my three-year-old self standing there, frozen, in the middle of the living room. It seemed that I had two choices: Say the sinner’s prayer, which felt like climbing into a thick suit of arms like that of the twelfth-century knight. Or I could stay out of the armor, turn away from my parents’ room and accept the fate of eternal damnation.

Fear clutched my throat and squeezed my chest in its iron grip. I was reliving the trauma that lay deep in my neural pathways. My brain shouted at me to get safe, climb inside that armor. It didn’t matter that it was stifling, cramped, and heavy. It didn’t matter that its rigidity held my body in unnatural positions, making it hard to move and connect. My brain was insistent: this is the only way to stay safe and alive. Climbing into that suit of arms was the only way to survive.

Choosing Freedom over Conformity

Then another part of me arose. This wise, gentle voice asked: How do you know?

How do you know that choosing to live outside that armor means death and destruction?

How do you know that refusing to give away your soul will lead to hell?

What if that was just a story you needed to believe when you were young but is no longer necessary?

What if you could choose right now to stop getting in that armor?

Even though I left the church at 16, no longer believed in hell or gave credence to the abusive God of fundamentalist Christianity, I was still climbing into that suffocating metal suit because I thought myself unworthy to live without it. I lived in a metal suit by giving my power away to others. Though a pastor or biblical teachings no longer ruled my life, I was directed by others’ expectations of me and a desire to follow the rules, fit in, and be accepted at all costs.

As I tapped alternately on either thigh, I had a sudden powerful realization. Since this night 28 years ago, I had been energetically saying the “sinner’s prayer.” Metaphorically I had been climbing into that suit of arms. And to fit inside, I had to cut off my soul essence from my awareness.

Though I no longer went to church or believed in hell, I was still afraid of this part of me. I had kept it buried and denied my intuition. My decisions were guided by what I believed would please others. Though the suit of armor no longer represented fundamentalist Christianity, I still felt that I needed to cut off my soul essence to be safe and acceptable.

In the memory, it seemed like a choice between accepting or refusing to climb into that armor and say the sinner’s prayer that night. I now realize I was choosing whether or not I was ready to denounce the God of my childhood and how I had been taught to view my worth to reclaim my soul essence.

I couldn’t get into that metal cask. It was like everything in me was rejecting the life I had lived. I realized in turning away from that armor, I was asserting that I no longer had to separate myself from my essence. I no longer had to hide away who I am.

Meeting My Sovereignty and Recognizing My Power

I was flooded with palpable relief. In the reprocessing of this memory, I turned from the suit of armor, which lay waiting for me to climb within it and away from my parents’ bedroom door and the awaiting sinner’s prayer.

 There was quiet, an edge of excitement, hope, and peaceful darkness.

Unlike the desolation and isolation that I had feared, the darkness was soft, velvety, and full of possibility. I tiptoed upstairs and crawled beneath my covers. Turning over on my belly, I looked out the picture window in my room. I saw the bright, magnificent stars. And they seemed to see me, to say, “You are not alone, you are loved.”

While the experience of reprocessing this memory was powerful, the real impact of reprocessing is often unclear for weeks or even months after I have cleared the memory. The effect of the resolution sometimes fades and is overpowered by the necessity to process another memory.

But this experience was different. I didn’t just clear a traumatic memory; I reconnected with my soul essence, reclaiming my power and sovereignty.

In the weeks and months that have followed, the changes resulting from reconnecting with my essence have been palpable. I feel rooted in a new sense of my power. My crippling fear of being seen and standing out has faded. My understanding of self has expanded ten-fold. The feeling of walking away from that suffocating armor that was conforming to other people’s beliefs has changed my life. I would not give back this new sense of worthiness, stability, and self-trust for the world.

¹https://journeyfree.org/rts/rts-its-time-to-recognize-it/

About the Author

Lisa Greene (she/her) is an intuitive writer and channeling coach. She is passionate about helping others trust and claim their intuition to channel their unique wisdom.  Ever in the growth process, she is learning to balance her passion for service with intuitively-led living, and writes about her insights on her blog, Rewilding with Intuition.