Connie Baker, LPC author of Traumatized by Religious Abuse and a therapist who works with survivors of religious trauma, joins Uncertain to discuss what thriving might look like after Spiritual Abuse. This is a nuanced subject, intended to provide hope (not pressure!). Thank you for joining us for Spiritual Abuse Awareness Month in 2024!





























[00:00:00] I'm Katherine Spearing, and this is Uncertain. It's Spiritual Abuse Awareness Month, and this is our last episode of January 2024. My guest today is someone who It has become very, very special to me. Her name is Connie Baker. She is a therapist. She has a book for survivors of religious abuse. And Connie was our very first guest speaker at our very first in person event.Back in October, and it was phenomenal. She can speak to the survivor experience in such a meaningful way because she is one. And she's been doing this work long before I even heard of spiritual abuse.She has so much knowledge and I trust her to address this subject of thriving after spiritual abuse with nuance and care because nobody wants to be pressured [00:01:00] into thriving when you're just trying to survive and that's not the point of this episode but this is a glimmer of hope for down the road that maybe someday maybe someday We will be here. Here is my conversation with Connie Baker.Katherine: Hello, Connie. How are you? Connie: Good. So fun to see you, Catherine. I'm so Katherine: excited to see you again. For our listeners, Connie was our guest speaker, keynote speaker at the RetreatCon, which was Terzian's very first in person event in the fall. She was phenomenal. I loved every moment of her. Connie's talks, but then also just getting to hang out with this person.So if you have a chance to buy her book and oh shoot, I'm totally blanking on the name of your book. What Connie: is it? It's right, Traumatized by Religious Abuse. Yes. Say it one more time. Traumatized by Religious Abuse. Katherine: Beautiful.Wonderful. Amazing book. Very, very, very practical. A lot of folks [00:02:00] have named your book is just very practical for survivors. And one of the things that we invited Connie to do at the retreat con was speak about. Yeah. thriving after spiritual abuse, which I think so many of us are surviving. Maybe we're healing.We don't really talk about like that moment when you get a chance to just kind of come out of that survival space and laugh. And have fun and see the sun and, and it seems impossible sometimes that we'll ever get to that place. Yes. But, but Connie, Connie is really great about making that realistic. Not, that's, that's what I think I loved about it.It's not fluffy and silver linings. It's realistic and I learned so much from your talk. So I'm really excited to get to jump into that again. to just get us started and sort of lay a [00:03:00] foundation for discussing what it's like to thrive after spiritual abuse after we've been through this. Could you paint a picture for us of what the impact of spiritual abuse feels like?Like, what does that look like to someone? Oh, Connie: yes, yes, I can. Yes, I can. And before we go there, Catherine, I just want to say, I am so thrilled that that was the first retreat. Like, in other words, others are following. It was so, and I know you probably talked about this in follow up podcasts after the retreat, but it was powerful having all those humans.And I think there was also extra power in it post, well, post late pandemic, whatever we're calling this thing for people to to. Humanly be in the same space and connect. I think, well, Terry, just remembering it, it just was so [00:04:00] powerful. And so I'm just thrilled that you are hosting. Cause we talked about this when I was there.We both have hosted big events before, you know, in our life. And I know what it takes to put something like that on. What was there 25, 30 people somewhere in that range, you know, and, and to have that. And the spaces that you. Provided