In this bonus episode of the Inner Light Companion, Tamara slows the series cadence to one Tuesday bonus episode for the next three weeks so she can honor her body, her nervous system, and the sacredness of this work—while giving you more space to integrate. She then names what so many raised in Mormonism and other high-control religions have felt but struggled to articulate: the invisible abuse of psychological harm wrapped in spiritual language.

Tamara walks through four forms of psychological harm in high-control religion—emotional suppression, induced fear and anxiety, shame and scapegoating, and constant criticism and humiliation—and shows how they sever you from your emotional reality, your body’s wisdom, and your sense of direct connection with the Divine. She shares powerful personal stories from temple marriage, missionary culture, worthiness interviews, and public “correction,” alongside research on trauma, perfectionism, and mental health in high-control systems, to validate that the harm you experienced was real and not your fault.

You’ll also hear how religious trauma lives in the nervous system as chronic fight, flight, freeze, or fawn, and why regulation is such a subversive act of freedom. Tamara offers concrete somatic practices (breathwork, gentle movement, vagus nerve support, grounding), reframes emotions as sacred feedback rather than sin, and names therapeutic modalities that support recovery from religious trauma, including EMDR, IFS, somatic work, and narrative therapy.

The episode closes with a guided reclaiming exercise to help you come back into your body: placing hands on heart and belly, breathing slowly, naming suppressed emotions, and practicing new internal statements like “My emotions are my friends” and “My body is a safe place.” This is an invitation to name what happened to you as abuse, rebuild self-trust, and remember that the Divine has been loving your whole, unperformed self all along.

Send us a text

If your nervous system feels tired—and you’re longing for a deeper, more embodied connection with the Divine—I’d love to invite you to my free Sacred Intimacy Snapshot. In just a few minutes, you’ll discover which area of intimacy in your life is asking for care right now—and you’ll receive a gentle four-part mini-course to help you tend what’s next on your journey. You can take it at innerlightcompanion.com

A quiet invitation to Grace's World appears in this episode.

🌿 The Inner Light Companion is hosted by Tamara Ridge, LMFT — guiding spiritually curious souls into deeper connection, intuitive healing, and divine remembrance.

💌 Connect with me:
Website & Guest Submissions: www.innerlightcompanion.com
Spiritual Counseling: www.guidinglightspiritualcounseling.com
Instagram: @innerlightcompanion

🎧 Subscribe for weekly stories, tools & reflections to help you reconnect with your inner light.

However you show up on this path, your story is sacred.
Let’s walk it together. 💫

After nearly six decades of living in shutdown and over‑functioning, Tamara shares a tender update on a surprising nervous system reset that began just one month ago. She describes how a new tatami mat, a co‑regulating dog, and a night of deeper rest led to a spontaneous, interoception‑led stretching and prayer practice—without any “shoulds” or spiritual performance.

In this short, story‑driven episode, you’ll hear how comfort, co‑regulation, and nervous system safety even showed up in Tamara’s continuous glucose monitor, and why that matters for your own healing if you’ve been trained to override your body in the name of devotion. Together, you’ll explore a radically different way of understanding spirituality: when the body feels safe enough, the nervous system doesn’t resist God—it leads you toward connection.

In this episode:

• A real‑time nervous system reset after decades of shutdown and over‑functioning
• How co‑regulation (with a dog!) and sleep environment support safety and repair
• Interoception‑led stretching as a form of embodied prayer and devotion
• Why many spiritual disciplines are actually survival strategies—and how that can change
• A new lens: when we are safe, the nervous system leads devotion, not performance

If you’re healing from high‑control religion, spiritual abuse, or chronic over‑functioning, this episode offers both language and lived example for letting your spirituality finally live in your body.

Stay close to this work
If today’s episode spoke to your heart and you’d like gentle support for your own sacred intimacy with the Divine, you’re welcome to join my Inner Light Companion email list. Each week I send a brief reflection, a simple spiritual practice, and a question to pray or journal with—so you can keep deepening your relationship with God in the middle of your real life.

Work with me 1:1
If you’re longing for a soul friend to walk beside you in this season—someone to hold quiet, sacred space as you heal spiritually, disentangle religious wounding, and learn to trust your own direct connection with the Divine—you can learn more about my 1:1 spiritual counseling sessions and inquire about working together through Guiding Light Spiritual Counseling.

Send us a text

If your nervous system feels tired—and you’re longing for a deeper, more embodied connection with the Divine—I’d love to invite you to my free Sacred Intimacy Snapshot. In just a few minutes, you’ll discover which area of intimacy in your life is asking for care right now—and you’ll receive a gentle four-part mini-course to help you tend what’s next on your journey. You can take it at innerlightcompanion.com

🌿 The Inner Light Companion is hosted by Tamara Ridge, LMFT — guiding spiritually curious souls into deeper connection, intuitive healing, and divine remembrance.

💌 Connect with me:
Website & Guest Submissions: www.innerlightcompanion.com
Spiritual Counseling: www.guidinglightspiritualcounseling.com
Instagram: @innerlightcompanion

🎧 Subscribe for weekly stories, tools & reflections to help you reconnect with your inner light.

However you show up on this path, your story is sacred.
Let’s walk it together. 💫

• A simple, 3‑story‑house explanation of the nervous system (ventral vagal, sympathetic, dorsal) and why your body reacts before your theology does.
• How “we alone have the truth,” fear‑based doctrine, and love‑bombing create chronic threat and shutdown in the body.
• A breakdown of the “breakthrough weekend” arc—hope, high, crash—and how it can overload your window of tolerance.​
• Why not feeling anything in worship, prayer, or meditation is often a sign of dorsal vagal protection, not a lack of faith.
• Practical red flags and green flags for churches, spiritual communities, and retreats, seen through a nervous‑system lens.
• A closing grounding practice you can do in real time to help your body feel just a little safer again.​

Stay close to this work
If today’s episode spoke to your heart and you’d like gentle support for your own sacred intimacy with the Divine, you’re welcome to join my Inner Light Companion email list. Each week I send a brief reflection, a simple spiritual practice, and a question to pray or journal with—so you can keep deepening your relationship with God in the middle of your real life.

Work with me 1:1
If you’re longing for a soul friend to walk beside you in this season—someone to hold quiet, sacred space as you heal spiritually, disentangle religious wounding, and learn to trust your own direct connection with the Divine—you can learn more about my 1:1 spiritual counseling sessions and inquire about working t

Send us a text

If your nervous system feels tired—and you’re longing for a deeper, more embodied connection with the Divine—I’d love to invite you to my free Sacred Intimacy Snapshot. In just a few minutes, you’ll discover which area of intimacy in your life is asking for care right now—and you’ll receive a gentle four-part mini-course to help you tend what’s next on your journey. You can take it at innerlightcompanion.com

A quiet invitation to Grace's World appears in this episode.

🌿 The Inner Light Companion is hosted by Tamara Ridge, LMFT — guiding spiritually curious souls into deeper connection, intuitive healing, and divine remembrance.

💌 Connect with me:
Website & Guest Submissions: www.innerlightcompanion.com
Spiritual Counseling: www.guidinglightspiritualcounseling.com
Instagram: @innerlightcompanion

🎧 Subscribe for weekly stories, tools & reflections to help you reconnect with your inner light.

However you show up on this path, your story is sacred.
Let’s walk it together. 💫