Trusting Yourself After Religious Change (#370)

Trusting Yourself After Religious Change (#370)

Author: Dan Koch December 29, 2025 Duration: 1:10:14
In today’s episode, I’m joined by licensed professional counselor Monica DiCristina to explore the question that haunts so many people leaving conservative religious environments: What can I trust about myself?  Monica shares her thoughts on navigating the messy reality of learning to trust your own intuition, emotions, and body when you've been taught that authority figures and scripture are the only reliable sources of “knowing.” We swap stories about our own religious upbringings—hers navigating both Spanish Catholicism and 90s evangelicalism—and how anxiety disorders complicated our ability to discern what was "the Holy Spirit" versus our own mental health struggles.  We explore how naming your pain is different from naming yourself, why wisdom feels expansive rather than anxious, and how Jesus's command to "love your neighbor as yourself" actually validates self-trust rather than self-abandonment.  If you've ever wondered whether you can trust a gut feeling or found yourself paralyzed by the epistemological crisis of our current moment, this conversation offers a refreshingly non-anxious path forward.  Monica's Website | Monicadicristina.com ___________________________________________ Follow Dan on IG: www.instagram.com/dancoke/ Or Twitter: twitter.com/DanKoch Faith deconstruction resources: www.soyouredeconstructing.com/ Join the Patreon for exclusive episodes (and more) every month: patreon.com/dankoch Email about the "sliding scale" for the Patreon: youhavepermissionpodcast@gmail.com YHP Patron-only FB group: tinyurl.com/ycvbbf98 Website: www.dankochwords.com/yhp.html Join Dan's email list: www.dankochwords.com/ Artwork by sprungle.co/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hosted by Dan Koch, Religion on the Mind digs into the messy, fascinating, and deeply personal space where our inner lives meet our search for meaning. This isn't a sermon or a debate; it's a series of conversations that feel more like late-night talks with curious friends. Each episode brings in a different voice-psychologists, scholars, writers, and other experts-to explore how our beliefs, doubts, rituals, and spiritual yearnings are intertwined with the workings of the human mind. We get into the psychology behind religious experience, the spirituality that emerges outside traditional structures, and the very real ways these forces shape identity, community, and coping. The tone is thoughtful but unvarnished, embracing complexity without pretension. You'll hear genuine curiosity, nuanced perspectives, and, yes, the occasional bit of cussing when the topic calls for it. The goal is to offer a space for reflection on how these fundamental aspects of being human collide and coexist. If you've ever wondered about the psychological roots of faith, the spirituality of non-belief, or just how our brains make sense of the profound, this podcast provides a grounded, accessible entry point to those questions.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 50

Religion on the Mind
Podcast Episodes
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