Being and Becoming – Part 1 – Karl Listen to this blog – AI-Generated Karl I started recycling about three years ago. It always seemed like a promising idea. One company I worked for recycles about 95% of its material. They have obviously done it for years and have become very proficient at it. Various containers are strategically placed up and down our assembly line. They are emptied routinely, and adherence to the program is expected and normal. We all... Read more
Why Trump is in Our Deconstruction Stories Listen to this blog – AI-Generated In the 2016 election, I couldn’t vote for either candidate, Hillary or Trump. So, I voted for the third party, and I can’t even remember his name. I was following my convictions that there had to be a better person to be the leader of our country. When Trump was elected, I decided to remain positive and hope his business experience would pay off running the... Read more
Going Inside & Trusting Myself (From our new book, Evolving From Religious Trauma. June 4th)) Listen to Audio – AI-Generated Laura There are two reasons that my portion of this chapter may not be exceptionally long: 1) I said most of what I wanted to say on the topic of this chapter in the last chapter, and 2) Karl did a respectable job of explaining our approach to this part of the journey. I genuinely hope I conveyed the importance of... Read more
Going Inside & Trusting Myself (From our new book, Evolving From Religious Trauma. June 4th)) Listen to Audio – AI-Generated Karl For most of my life, religion told me not to trust myself, especially my feelings. We were taught what to believe based on the accepted belief systems and encouraged to trust that we were correct even when it did not feel right. The reason for this was the base reasoning that the body and our feelings were inherently bad because... Read more
A Plan for Us (From our new book, Evolving From Religious Trauma. June 4th) Listen to this blog – AI-Generated Karl As a former pastor, I remember the faces of people visiting for the first time. They were always more attentive than the other members. They were more hesitant to be demonstrative, but they looked hopeful in a cautious way. This always made me optimistic that they would be a new addition to the fold. They would be the right mix of... Read more
Evolving from Religious Trauma Hello! We are Karl and Laura Forehand! For the last 8-10 years, we have found our way outside organized religion. We were in ministry for about 20 years, serving upstart and struggling churches and helping them get on their feet. When we realized our beliefs were evolving, we stepped down from our Evangelical church assignment and started on an adventure. At first, we tried to harbor at a “better” church, but after a couple of years,... Read more
Listening (From our new book, Evolving From Religious Trauma. June 4th) Listen to this blog – AI-Generated Several years ago, we started a group called The Desert Sanctuary. We wanted it to be a home for spiritual nomads questioning their faith, struggling with their spirituality, or taking a break from organized religion. Eventually, it also included a blog and a podcast, and we started writing books. Being in the desert does not mean we are desperate, but it refers to how it... Read more
In Search of a Grown-up Audio version of this blog! AI Generated In real life, I’m a fairly low-key, go-with-the-flow person who occasionally gets emotional about something. When I feel like someone has to say something, I say it quite strongly. Those who know me know that I’m soft-hearted but also occasionally come out swinging when I notice injustice. I told my therapist the other day that the only fights I ever got into were with bullies. For some reason, I... Read more
The Four Existential Concerns (From our new book, Evolving From Religious Trauma. June 4th) Audio version of this blog! AI Generated Healing religious trauma and embarking on a journey of discovery can be terrifying! Many assumptions about the dangers of setting out on our own exist, but there are also the very real fears that all of us have. For simplicity’s sake, let us just call them existential concerns. For more information on these topics, see Yalom (1980), Heidegger (1957), and the National... Read more
What is Trauma? (From our new book, Evolving From Religious Trauma. June 4th) Listen to this blog – AI Generated When I first started to learn about trauma, it wasn’t very clear to me. We didn’t talk about trauma; we talked about sin. We certainly believed that there were things in life that were traumatic. Still, we ignored all the symptoms that are now becoming apparent because we assumed that we just needed to pray more, read the Bible, and... Read more
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