If you were raised in a restrictive religious environment, you might notice that your struggles with religious trauma haven’t remained confined to religious and spiritual aspects of your life. Trauma by its nature affects our whole being, both internally (in the way we think and relate to ourselves) and externally (in the way we relate and interact with the world around us.) Therefore, it makes sense that as you work through religious deconstruction you may find that your religious experiences have an effect on how you show up at work. Here are a few examples of how religious trauma shows up at work, and what you can do about it.
Deferring to authority
You probably received a lot of messages around deferring to authority in your conservative or high control religious environment. Restrictive religions emphasize following leadership even at the expense of your own wellbeing or intuition. You may have been punished harshly if you ever questioned a parent, religious leader, or God, which can serve as a powerful emotional lesson to never speak up when someone is in charge.
Now as an adult in a work environment, you might feel like it’s automatic to defer to authority, even when it’s not in your best interest. For example, your boss might tell you to do something unsafe or unethical, and you might find yourself obeying their orders before ever realizing you don’t feel right about what you’ve been asked to do. This is compounded by the capitalistic structure of our society – we are all taught to fear losing a job and so we come to believe we have little power to speak up to authority.
Learning to listen to your own intuition and voice can be challenging and takes time, but it is possible. Find ways to start small so that you can build up the practice of both listening to your inner voice, and vocalizing your wishes when they arise. For example, try speaking up about a minor preference, like letting your boss know that you don’t like the coffee options in the break room. (I realize even that may not feel “minor” to some!) You’ll start to develop the muscle of speaking up so that when it really counts (such as when you need to advocate for yourself or someone else), you’re able to speak up.
Ignoring your basic needs
Many religious trauma survivors struggle to listen to their own basic needs. From the need to nourish yourself with food, to the need to go to the bathroom, religious trauma survivors can grow to ignore these needs for hours at a time.
There might be a number of reasons that contribute to this. For one, you were likely taught that nothing is more important than religion/God, which sends a message that your own needs are insignificant when there is a higher purpose at hand. Many survivors of adverse religious experiences develop a strong critical inner voice in response to constant messages of your own sinfulness, which can lead to a belief that you don’t deserve basic care. And often restrictive religions contain messages that criticize the experiences of pleasure and satisfaction, which can cause you to downplay the necessity of meeting your needs for these experiences.
At work, this might look like ignoring your need for the bathroom for hours if you have a deadline you’re working on. You likely find yourself skipping meals, preferring to have a granola bar (or nothing) at your desk if it means getting more work done. You might discount your need for stretching breaks, fresh air, or simply some mindless scrolling on your phone.
And during those times when you do find yourself taking a long lunch, or getting sucked into an internet rabbit hole, you likely are filled with deep shame and guilt for “letting yourself get carried away”. Or you may feel intense anxiety over the possibility of getting in trouble over this.
Overcoming these tendencies to ignore your needs requires you to start to treating yourself as if you deserve breaks, satisfaction, and pleasure. Which you do deserve, simply for the fact that you are human and we all deserve this. Tuning into your physical needs might be hard at first, so you might find ways to remind yourself to check in, such as setting an alarm for stretch breaks and meal breaks. Or you could let a coworker you enjoy know that you tend to skip lunch and see if they want to get lunch with you on a regular basis. Eventually you can build up to learning to notice your needs even without reminders, and recognize that you deserve breaks and care even when work is busy.
Making work an all-consuming passion
High control religions maintain their level of control partly through expecting the religion to consume every aspect of your life and fill all of your free time. In your religion, you may have gone to multiple religious services a week while also contributing unpaid time in the form of teaching bible study, leading youth groups, or participating in service projects. Even if you weren’t involved to that degree in your community, you may have felt that you always have to be praying and thinking about your religion.
When you entered the workforce, this feeling of being expected to be devoted to a purpose likely felt very familiar to you. Similar to your religion, many workplaces reward commitment to the company and the willingness to sacrifice your personal needs to accomplish a goal. While some people who didn’t grow up in restrictive religions may learn some balance and realize they can establish enjoyable pursuits outside of work, you likely struggle to recognize that this is possible or safe to do. The way religious trauma can affect your whole being makes it feel like it’s dangerous to deviate from making work your passion. You may even feel like work has become your new religion – something you devote yourself to completely.
You likely also feel like rest is unsafe or sinful, so when you do have slow periods with work you may feel completely uncomfortable. In response you might start researching volunteer opportunities, side hustles, or hobbies that require a lot of commitment and work to help escape this discomfort of doing very little.
It’s a bit cliche to say, but there is more to life than a job. You might feel anxious about challenging your extreme devotion to your job, but that anxiety is a byproduct of your old religious programming. It’s possible to disentangle yourself from it and allow yourself to have more ease and rest.
One way to begin this disentanglement is to practice allowing yourself to do nothing. Set a timer for an amount that feels doable to you – maybe one minute, or five minutes, and just allow yourself to sit and do nothing. Notice the messages that arise around what you should be doing with that time. Also notice what it feels like to let yourself rest and experience the present moment. Learning to coexist with the pleasure of being in the present moment and the anxiety of “not doing enough” is a starting point to allowing yourself to exist outside of work being your only purpose and passion.
Breaking free from the impacts of religious trauma at work is possible
You can break free from the restrictive beliefs and struggles that can arise at work from your adverse religious experiences. For many people, this is slow, intentional work that takes time. If you want guidance in this process, I recommend seeking the help of a therapist experienced in working with religious trauma or religious deconstruction. If you’re in Texas I specialize in religious trauma therapy and I see people virtually throughout the state and in-person in my Houston office. You can book a call here to learn more about working with me.
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