Reclaiming Spirituality After Abuse: When Rejecting God Becomes a Shield
- Updated: October 23, 2025
You didn’t reject God because you were lost.
You rejected God because it felt like the only way to stay sane.
When you’ve been hurt by churches, parents, leaders—or even your own past self—faith can start to feel like a trap, not a refuge. Disbelief becomes a shield. A survival strategy. A way to avoid the ache of hope.
But what happens when that shield stops serving you?
When you’ve outgrown the anger, but the silence still lingers.
When you’ve healed the hustle, but something deeper still feels unanchored.
When you’re no longer trying to perform—but you still can’t quite pray.
This post isn’t about religion. It’s about reclaiming.
It’s for the high-functioning, heart-bruised soul who’s ready to explore what spirituality could look like—now—without shame, without performance, and without pretending it didn’t hurt.
🕯️ Light Posts for the Path Ahead
When You Rejected Spirituality—And It Made Sense
You didn’t reject spirituality because you were broken.
You rejected it because you were paying attention.
Maybe “God” was part of the abuse story.
Maybe faith became a leash that kept you bound to people who harmed you.
Maybe religion was the place where your voice was dismissed, your body was shamed, or your questions were treated like rebellion.
For some of us, shutting down belief was the most self-respecting thing we could do.
And to make things worse, we didn’t just have personal betrayal to reckon with—we had cultural scorn to swim in, too.
You entered industries, social groups, or communities where faith was seen as naive at best—and dangerous at worst. In some circles, God was replaced by metrics, platforms, or political purity tests. You were applauded for being detached, curated, and irreverent—because anything was better than being seen as “spiritual.”
But it’s not just institutions that make people walk away from the soul. Sometimes the rejection comes from inside. It makes perfect sense—especially when you look closer:
🔍 Why Some People Reject the Soul
🧠 Scientific Materialism: “Only what can be measured is real.”
Some folks see the soul as an outdated religious construct.
If it can’t be seen under a microscope or proven in a lab, they don’t buy it.
To them, consciousness is just neurons firing. Emotions? Biochemical responses. When you die, it’s lights out—no eternal spark.
🗣️ Translation: “I trust logic and evidence. I don’t want to build my worldview on fairy tales.”
📕 Religious Wounds: “I’m not giving the church one more inch.”
For many, “soul” was weaponized—used to shame, control, or terrify them.
Maybe they were told their soul was dirty. Or that they’d lose it. Or that only certain people’s souls mattered.
🗣️ Translation: “If that’s what a soul is, I want no part of it.”
🧨 Existential Defense: “If I don’t have a soul, I can’t be hurt.”
Some reject the soul as a form of self-protection.
If there’s no soul, there’s no deeper pain. No metaphysical betrayal. No eternal damage from what happened.
Trauma can create a kind of soul-detachment—“I’m just a body doing what it needs to survive.”
🗣️ Translation: “If I admit I have a soul, I’d have to admit how deeply I’ve been wounded.”
📉 Control & Certainty: “I need a world I can predict.”
Believing in a soul can feel like surrendering to mystery.
Some people need fixed rules, cause and effect, systems they can optimize.
A soul? It’s messy. It’s unpredictable. It asks questions algorithms can’t answer.
🗣️ Translation: “I’m not ready to live in a world I can’t fully explain.”
😶🌫️ Spiritual Dissociation: “I feel like an empty shell.”
Some trauma survivors don’t reject the soul on purpose—they just feel disconnected from it.
Dissociation, numbness, and spiritual abandonment can create the illusion that no soul exists.
This isn’t disbelief—it’s grief.
🗣️ Translation: “I don’t feel anything in here. Maybe nothing’s left.”
And so you became high-functioning. Brilliant. Measured. Maybe even successful.
You learned to silence the ache.
You learned to channel your need for connection into work, strategy, activism, performance, or reinvention. You built a life that looked good on paper. Maybe even one that made others jealous.
But beneath it all… something holy was still bleeding.
And for a while, rejection was a shield. A smart one. A necessary one.
It let you survive what your nervous system couldn’t metabolize.
It gave you distance from the places that nearly destroyed you.
So if you’ve been carrying shame for that rejection—please stop.
It wasn’t failure. It wasn’t foolishness. It wasn’t spiritual immaturity.
It was a form of wisdom.
But wisdom that helped you leave… isn’t always the same wisdom that helps you heal.
The Defense That Quietly Turns Into a Cage
At some point, the thing that once protected you starts to feel… tight.
You don’t have a 12-step sponsor breathing down your neck, trying to force you into Step 2:
“Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”
And no one’s asking you to do Step 5, either:
“Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.”
But here’s the truth—whether or not you’re in recovery:
Eventually, the limits of logic show themselves.
Eventually, the numbness stops feeling safe and starts feeling like absence.
You realize not every wound can be dissected or diagrammed.
Not everything can be healed with data and discipline.
And the people you once looked up to—the smart, atheist, emotionally-guarded icons of success?
They can’t explain everything either.
You start to wonder:
“If I’ve already cleaned up my behavior… why do I still feel so hollow?”
Disbelief, once a fortress, begins to feel like emotional insulation—keeping you safe, yes, but also sealed off from anything tender or transcendent.
You might notice:
You can’t remember the last time you felt awe.
You keep striving, performing, fixing—but it never quite lands.
Your body is sober. Your life is managed. But your spirit feels flatlined.
You’re not spiraling.
You’re not broken.
But something inside is whispering: “This isn’t working anymore.”
That whisper isn’t weakness.
It’s wisdom—the kind that emerges when the shield has done its job… and you’re ready for something softer. Something deeper. Something true.
And if you find yourself doubting your clarity—or explaining away what your body already knows—you’re not being discerning. You’re rationalizing. That’s not logic. That’s a learned pattern of self-protection.
I break this down fully in Rationalization: The Polite Name for Quiet Sabotage, where I show how the mind creates believable excuses to avoid difficult truth—and how that pattern slowly erodes self-trust and emotional sobriety.
Rationalization doesn’t protect your peace. It postpones your awakening.
What Reclaiming Actually Looks Like
Let’s be clear:
This is not a call to the altar.
There are no pews in this post. No dogma. No guilt-trip prayers or inspirational manipulation.
This is about the moment—quiet, tentative—when something inside you says:
“I want to feel again.”
Not because someone told you to.
Not because you’re broken.
But because your emotional sobriety is asking for depth, not just discipline.
And here’s the truth most spiritual gurus won’t say:
You don’t have to believe everything.
But you can believe in something.
You don’t have to name it yet.
You don’t even have to trust it.
But the ache for meaning, for presence, for connection to something more—that ache is real.
And it deserves space.
🧘🏾♀️ What Reclaiming Looks Like (In Practice)
It might look like:
Sitting in silence for five minutes—not to perform mindfulness, but to notice you’re still here.
Saying, “God, I don’t know if you’re real—but if you are, I’m listening.”
Reading scripture, poetry, or ancient texts—not to obey, but to remember.
Crying in your car because for the first time, you feel safe enough to want more than survival.
This is where emotional sobriety and spiritual recovery begin to overlap.
You’ve already done the work of not reacting. Not chasing. Not fixing your feelings with chaos.
Now the question becomes:
Can I allow something sacred back in… without losing myself again?
That’s spiritual curiosity.
That’s soul work.
And it doesn’t need to be loud to be legitimate.
If you want more on how emotional sobriety looks in real life, you might explore:
Why Spirituality (Not Religion) Is the Missing Piece in Trauma Recovery
Why Spiritual Leaders Make Better Decisions (And Stay Sane Doing It)
You don’t need a temple.
Just a threshold.
You’re already standing on it.
Your Spirituality Is Not Their Religion
Let’s settle something right now:
Reclaiming your spirituality does not mean returning to the system that hurt you.
It doesn’t mean:
Going back to church.
Submitting to old leaders.
Memorizing doctrine you never felt safe enough to question.
This is not about revival culture, altar calls, or pretending that harm didn’t happen.
It’s about naming God—on your own terms.
Maybe for you, that name is God.
Maybe it’s Spirit, or Grace, or Love, or Light.
Maybe it’s just the steady silence that no longer feels empty.
What matters is this:
Your relationship with the sacred is yours now.
No one gets to mediate it. Gatekeep it. Shame it.
Not anymore.
You can rebuild trust with the divine without revisiting the people who distorted it.
You can grieve what was taken from you and choose to reconnect with what was always yours.
There is no dress code for this kind of return.
There is no checklist, no creed, no spiritual aesthetic you have to adopt.
The sacred doesn’t need you to perform.
It needs you to be present.
So if all you can do right now is light a candle, whisper a maybe, or sit in silence that feels less hollow than it used to?
That’s enough.
You’re not betraying your past self.
You’re not betraying the pain.
You’re just choosing to stop letting pain be the only story you tell your soul.
FAQ – For the Ones Who Are Watching You Closely
So… what do you say when your atheist best friend raises an eyebrow?
Or when your old prayer-circle cousin says, “We’ve been praying for you to come back”?
What do you say when you don’t even know what you believe—only that something shifted?
This section is for you.
❓“I’m not religious. I’m just… exploring. What do I even call this?”
You don’t have to call it anything.
You’re reconnecting with your spirit, not applying for a theological degree.
You might say:
“I’m rebuilding something that was taken from me. I don’t have a label for it yet, but I know I need it.”
That’s more honest than most sermons.
❓“What if my atheist friends think I’ve lost my mind?”
Let them.
Or better yet, say:
“You don’t have to believe in it. But I’ve hit a point in my healing where logic alone isn’t enough.”
You can love reason and believe in mystery. Those two are not enemies. They just speak different languages.
And if they keep pressing?
You don’t owe them a PowerPoint presentation about your internal evolution. Boundaries are holy too.
❓“What if I don’t want to go back to church—but I do want to talk to God again?”
Then talk.
No robe required.
No building necessary.
No approval from your old pastor or your childhood faith.
You can hold a grudge against religion and still whisper toward God.
You’re not confused—you’re healing.
❓“How do I explain this to people who say, ‘We’ve been praying for you to return’?”
You might say:
“I’m not returning. I’m reclaiming. And this time, it’s between me and God—not me and guilt.”
If they don’t understand, that’s okay.
They don’t have to bless your journey for it to be valid.
❓“What if I don’t know where this is going?”
Good. That means it’s real.
This isn’t a formula. This is a feeling—one that’s just now waking up after years of sleep.
You’re not performing spiritual progress.
You’re practicing spiritual presence.
And that’s more than enough for now.
Your Spirituality Doesn’t Have Be Perfect. Its just Needs to Start.
You didn’t lose your soul.
You buried it under years of grit and grief.
You armored up.
You walked away.
You told yourself it was safer not to believe in anything.
And maybe it was.
For a time.
But now that you’re strong enough to feel again…
Maybe it’s time to listen.
Not to the voices that told you who God should be.
Not to the systems that demanded perfection before acceptance.
Not even to me.
Just to that quiet ache inside—the one that’s no longer numbed by certainty, strategy, or sarcasm.
The one that wants something deeper.
✨ Ready to explore what reclaiming could look like for you?
I don’t have a formula or a fix.
But I do have space.
And if you’re ready to stop performing and start healing—for real—I’d be honored to support you.
💛 Work with me, Denise G. Lee – Together, we’ll untangle the deeper patterns holding you back and create clear, practical strategies that match you. No hype. No formulas. Just honest, personalized support.
👉 Explore working together
🎙️ Want more real talk like this?
Listen to my podcast for unfiltered conversations on emotional growth, leadership, and the truth about healing in business and life.
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💌 Got thoughts or questions about this article?
I’d love to hear from you.
👉 Write me a note
And just in case no one’s reminded you lately:
You don’t have to go back to the place that hurt you.
You just have to come home to yourself.
That’s where the sacred begins.
That’s where healing gets real.
