Leaving a high-control religious environment can feel like stepping into a whole new world—one where your body doesn’t always seem to get the memo that you’re safe. Even when you intellectually understand that you’re no longer in that rigid system, your nervous system might still be operating as if you are. If you find yourself feeling constantly on edge, overwhelmed, or emotionally shut down, you’re not alone. Religious trauma doesn’t just affect your thoughts—it lives in your body.
Understanding how trauma impacts your nervous system can be a powerful step toward healing. Let’s talk about why this happens and how you can begin to regulate your body after religious trauma.
How Religious Trauma Affects the Nervous System
Our nervous system is wired to protect us. When we experience fear, control, or shame over long periods—like in high-control religious environments—our nervous system adapts to keep us safe.
If you are recovering from religious trauma, you may have lived in a state of chronic stress, feeling watched, judged, or afraid of punishment, hell, or rejection. Over time, your body may have learned to default to survival modes like:
Fight: Becoming defensive, argumentative, or angry when discussing religious topics.
Flight: Avoiding anything that reminds you of religion, feeling the urge to leave conversations or places.
Freeze: Feeling stuck, numb, dissociated, or disconnected from your body.
Fawn: People-pleasing, struggling to say no, or over-apologizing to avoid conflict.
Even after leaving, your body may still react as if the threat is present, triggering anxiety, panic, exhaustion, or shutdown. Healing requires teaching your nervous system that you are now safe.
Practical Ways to Regulate Your Nervous System After Religious Trauma
Healing doesn’t mean “getting over it” or forcing yourself to move on. It means helping your body feel safe again. Here are some practices to gently regulate your nervous system:
1. Breathwork: Calming the Fear Response
You may have been taught to fear your own thoughts and emotions, leading to chronic anxiety. Breathwork is a simple yet powerful tool to reset your nervous system. Research on the vagus nerve and the autonomic nervous system shows that deep, slow breathing stimulates the parasympathetic response (the body's 'calm-down' system), reducing stress hormones and promoting a sense of safety and relaxation. Try:
Diaphragmatic breathing: On the inhale, expand your belly; on the exhale contract your belly. See if you can inhale to a count of 5 or 6 and exhale to a count of 5 or 6.
Box breathing: Inhale for 4 seconds, hold for 4, exhale for 4, hold for 4.
Longer exhales: Breathe in for 4 seconds, exhale for 8. This signals safety to your body.
2. Grounding: Reconnecting to the Present
If you feel dissociated or disconnected, grounding helps bring you back into the present moment. Research in somatic psychology suggests that grounding techniques work by activating the sensory and proprioceptive systems, which help reorient the brain to the here and now, reducing dissociation and anxiety. Some ways to do this: Some ways to do this:
5-4-3-2-1 method: Name 5 things you see, 4 you can touch, 3 you hear, 2 you smell, and 1 you taste.
Walking barefoot on grass or sand to physically reconnect with your environment.
Push your back against a wall or feet against the floor to feel supported and grounded.
3. Self-Compassion: Undoing Shame-Based Conditioning
Religious trauma often comes with deep-rooted shame—about your thoughts, emotions, or even very existence/"sinful nature." Practicing self-compassion can help rewire this response.
Research in neuroscience and psychology shows that self-compassion activates the brain’s care and connection system, increasing oxytocin and reducing cortisol, which helps counteract shame and promote emotional healing.
Talk to yourself like a friend. When self-criticism arises, ask: “Would I say this to someone I love?”
Use affirmations that feel authentic, like: “I am allowed to exist as I am.” or “I don’t need to earn my worth.”
Practice small acts of self-kindness, like wrapping yourself in a blanket or giving yourself permission to rest. You can ask yourself, "How can I be kind to myself right now?" "What does my body deserve right now?" (Rest, good nutritious food, intentional movement?)
4. Movement: Releasing Stored Trauma
Trauma gets trapped in the body, so movement can help release it.
Research in somatic therapy and neuroscience suggests that physical movement engages the sensorimotor system, helping to process unresolved trauma by completing the body's stress response cycle. Activities like shaking, stretching, and rhythmic movement can regulate the nervous system and restore a sense of safety.
Shake it out. Some animals naturally shake after a stressful event to release excess energy. Tension & Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE), developed by Dr. David Berceli, use shaking to help discharge stored tension and return the body to a regulated state. Literally. Shaking your hands, legs, or whole body for a minute can help discharge stress.
Yoga or stretching can gently help reconnect you to your body. Studies on Trauma-Sensitive Yoga (TSY) have shown that yoga activates the vagus nerve, which helps shift the body from a fight-or-flight response to a calmer, regulated state (van der Kolk et al., 2014) can gently help reconnect you to your body.
Dancing or rhythmic movement can reset your nervous system, especially when paired with music you love. Rhythmic movement engages bilateral stimulation, a mechanism used in EMDR therapy, which helps process trauma and restore emotional balance. can reset your nervous system, especially if paired with music you love.
5. Safe Relationships: Rebuilding Trust
Many of us were taught to fear people outside of our religious group. Finding safe, supportive relationships is an important part of nervous system regulation.
Join communities (in person or online) where you feel seen and validated.
Set boundaries with triggering people—you don’t owe anyone access to you.
Give yourself permission to take relationships slow. Healing from spiritual trauma takes time.
6. Seeking Trauma-Informed Support
Religious trauma is real, and healing isn’t something you have to do alone. A trauma-informed therapist, particularly one familiar with religious trauma, can help you process past experiences and develop personalized strategies for nervous system regulation.
Your Body Deserves to Feel Safe
Leaving a high-control religion is a huge step toward reclaiming your autonomy, but healing takes time. Be patient with yourself. Your nervous system didn’t learn these patterns overnight, and it won’t unlearn them overnight either.
The goal isn’t to never feel anxious or triggered again—it’s to teach your body that safety is possible. Little by little, you can move from surviving to truly living.
Want More Support?
If you’re navigating religious trauma, check out my Free Tools section for recommended books, resources, and worksheets to support your healing journey. If you’re looking for personalized guidance, I’d love to help—reach out to schedule a consultation call and start your path to healing today.
References:
Jerath, R., Crawford, M. W., Barnes, V. A., & Harden, K. (2015). Self-regulation of breathing as a primary treatment for anxiety. Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback, 40(2), 107–115.
Zaccaro, A., Piarulli, A., Laurino, M., Garbella, E., Menicucci, D., Neri, B., & Gemignani, A. (2018). How breath-control can change your life: A systematic review on psychophysiological correlates of slow breathing. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 12, 353.
Price, C. J. (2005). Body-oriented therapy in recovery from child sexual abuse: An efficacy study. Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, 11(5), 46–57.
Mehling, W. E., Wrubel, J., Daubenmier, J. J., Price, C. J., Kerr, C. E., Silow, T., Gopisetty, V., & Stewart, A. L. (2011). Body awareness: A phenomenological inquiry into the common ground of mind-body therapies. Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine, 6, 6.
Kirby, J. N., Tellegen, C. L., & Steindl, S. R. (2017). A meta-analysis of compassion-based interventions: Current state of knowledge and future directions. Behavior Therapy, 48(6), 778–792.
Germer, C. K., & Neff, K. D. (2013). Self-compassion in clinical practice. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 69(8), 856–867Van der Kolk, B. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Viking.
Berceli, D. (2008). The Revolutionary Trauma Release Process: Transcend Your Toughest Times. Namaste Publishing.
Emerson, D., Hopper, E. (2011). Overcoming Trauma through Yoga: Reclaiming Your Body. North Atlantic Books.
Shapiro, F. (2018). Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy, Third Edition: Basic Principles, Protocols, and Procedures. Guilford Press.
Porges, S. W. (2011). The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation. W. W. Norton & Company.
Ogden, P., Minton, K., & Pain, C. (2006). Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy. W. W. Norton & Company.
Van der Kolk, B., & Buczynski, R. (2018). The Trauma Therapy Toolkit: Healing PTSD, Complex Trauma, and Dissociation. National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine.
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