This episode delves into the complexities of navigating the Christmas season, particularly for individuals grappling with religious trauma. I reflect on both nostalgia and discomfort that arises during this festive period, articulating what I miss from my past experiences within a church context, alongside the burdens I no longer wish to bear. The conversation emphasises the duality of memory; acknowledging the beauty in the rituals and community while simultaneously rejecting the pressures and emotional manipulations that often accompanied them. This episode serves as a space for shared reflection, encouraging acceptance of both the joys and challenges that accompany this time of year.

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Foreign. I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which I live and work, the Gundagara land and people.

I pay my respects to their elders, past, present and emerging, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. I also want to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands on which you, our listeners, are joining us from today.

I recognize the deep connection that first nations people have to this land, their enduring culture and their commitment to the preservation and care for their country. This land was never ceded and it always was and always will be Aboriginal land.

Hey there, and welcome to this special bonus episode of beyond the Surface.

In these episodes, we take a break from the personal stories and I get to chat with experts on all things related to to religious trauma, cults and deconstruction. These conversations are foundational and educational.

They provide deeper insights and understanding into the complexities of the experiences we hear in the stories.

Whether you're just beginning your journey, this is the first episode you're listening to, or maybe you're looking to expand your knowledge in general, These episodes are packed with valuable information that will help you navigate wherever you are. I'm your host, Sam, and this is beyond the Surface. Hey, friends. Welcome back to beyond the Surface. It's just me today. Just little old me.

So it's that time of year again. The season of carols of chaos and a collective pressure to be joyful. What a time. Or at least convincingly functional right now.

Now, last year I did that bonus episode called how to Be okay Over Christmas with Jane Kennedy, which was basically a survival guide for those of us with religious trauma or complicated family ties. And honestly, I wasn't going to do another one this year because what else is there to say?

And then I realised that every December, something sneaks up on me a little bit. It's not the shopping or the social overwhelm, although that's there. All the carols that haunt every aisle of the supermarket.

It's a weird, nostalgic ache for church Christmases. I do think that there is something interesting about that ache, about how we can simultaneously roll our eyes at the theology and get emotional.

When I hear a choir singing oh, Holy night, oh, Holy Night was my song. It was just the way that I connected to God at Christmas. And I have a really complicated relationship with that now.

But I wanted to talk about what I miss. And so that's what this is about. This bonus episode is going to be about what I miss and a little bit about what I Don't miss at Christmas.

This one's less of a structured episode and a chat because it's just me. I want it to feel like you and I are just sitting together, drinking hand, collectively processing the religious hangover that is the festive season.

So let's start with the things that I actually genuinely miss. Because I think that's the bit that sometimes we are afraid to admit.

Like we've done so much work to untangle ourselves from religion that sometimes it feels wrong to say, yeah, there were things that I loved. There were things that I still would love, I think. Things that I miss. Things that, like, brought joy and peace into my world, but they were there.

I missed the rituals. There was something about the rhythm of Advent, right?

I don't know about you, but I had, like, a biblical Advent, and not just like a chocolate Advent, because you needed to have both. But the rhythm of Advent involved candles and reading and the anticipation, and it made that time feel sacred and special. Every day had a purpose.

There was this collective slowing down and this quiet awe, this being able to connect with God during that time. That was really intentional. And yes, half of that was probably performance and half a little spiritual gaslighting of myself.

But hey, it was also kind of beautiful too. I miss that hush before a service started. The lights dimmed, the talking faded, and the music started.

There's a part of me that still melts when a piano intro echoes through a room. It's almost like Pavlovian at this point. For all the therapists listening. I miss the music.

Everybody knows this about me, I think, is that music was the way that I connected to God. It was a way for me to connect myself. It was the language of my soul, my spirit, and my heart. And so, God, I miss the music.

I miss being able to connect to A Christmas Carol because by geez, did I love A Christmas Carol. Not all of them, but some are theological nightmares now, for me, the melodies, the harmonies.

When a congregation sang oh Come, oh Come Emmanuel in minor key, Are you kidding me? It's beautiful. It's transcendent almost. It feels sacred. Or that haunting rendition of Mary. Did you know it was like Chef's kiss.

It was just beautiful. I can still feel it, even just, like, talking about it now in this moment.

And it's probably partly trauma and partly nostalgia, but both sort of like joining hands together. But whatever it is, it hits. And honestly, I think it always will. And I think that's okay.

If you're listening to this and, you know, it might not Be those carols, but it might be other ones. And there is a part of you going, yeah, I miss that, too. That is okay. Okay. I'm going to say this because I miss the aesthetic of church. Christmas.

Church at Christmas was gorgeous. Like, even if we, like, my church didn't have a team of pros doing the decorating, we did the decorating.

There were fairy lights, and there was the Nativity scene and the fake snow, like, on the windows, the smell of pine and cheap candles because we didn't have the budget for, like, fancy smoke processing in the. In the space. It was like stepping into a Hallmark movie directed by someone who kind of just discovered Pinterest.

We didn't have a Hillsong Christmas, but it was still beautiful because it was created by us. And so I miss church. Christmas aesthetic. Aesthetic, for me now looks different.

I've just finished decorating the hall and the office here, and she's full of reindeers and nutcrackers and the Grinch and Christmas trees and little, like, porcelain houses and things like that. And there is not a Nativity scene inside. There is not a Noel inside. There are no carols.

There's nothing that says, Jesus is the reason for the season. Although that used to be on my door for years growing up. It's new Christmas and it's got a new aesthetic, and that's okay.

So if your aesthetic looks different, that's also okay. But if you miss the churchy one, too, I get it.

Even though when I walk past a church all lit up for Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, there is a part of me that still wants to peek inside.

Not to pray, not to hear the sermon, not even to sing, but just to remember what it was like to exist in a church space at Christmas and to feel safe and to belong there.

This one's a little harder, but I miss the community, but not necessarily in the way that you might think, because I kind of just miss the illusion of it, you know, the dinners, the awkward but heartfelt hugs, the shared exhaustion after the Christmas production. Like, we had just really accomplished something. For a very small team, small church, we did something.

We contributed to community in enhancing the Christmas message. For a long time, church was home for me, and so Christmas was home for me at church. Even if that love came with a long, long list of conditions.

This one is harder to sit with some days, and it might be hard for you to sit with, too, which is missing that certainty and that closeness and actually believing in the story of Christmas, because I miss the simplicity of that belief. Of knowing I knew the story, that life had purpose, that suffering had meaning, and that someone was in control somewhere. I don't want that back.

I really don't. But I can still recognize how comforting it was to have that neat little framework for the world, for me, for life.

It's like looking at an old version of yourself or an old photo of yourself. You can see how naive you were, but you also want to hug that version of you, right?

Because I really thought that Christmas was about peace on earth and goodwill to all humans. That was what I thought Christmas was. That's what me from 15 years ago clung onto.

And then she found out that all humans didn't actually mean all humans.

So what I actually miss, I think, isn't faith isn't even the certainty necessarily that sense of belonging, and not just belonging in a community of people, but that sense that you are a part of something bigger, that you realized that there was meaning and closeness and transcendence and sacredness in this world. Before you realized that that bigger thing was quietly erasing you or people that you loved. So tis messy too's complicated. But she's okay.

And it's okay to miss all of those things. Maybe it's other things that you miss, but sitting with the things that you miss too, it doesn't mean that you want to go back.

It just means that you're human. Okay, what do I not miss? Let's talk about that. Because there's a lot I don't miss. Let's be honest.

I do not miss the pressure to perform joy Christmas. Oh, the hyper positive Christmas energy is bloody exhausting.

Like, I think we all know that whether you were raised with religion or not, even in secular spaces now, there is still that hyper pressure to perform joy and to be happy at Christmas. The we're so blessed smiles, the relentless gratitude posts because you had to be a witness on social media around Christmas. It was the perfect time.

The insistence that joy was a choice.

Meanwhile, half the congregation is burnt out, struggling, dissociating, crying in the bathroom after services that didn't matter because it was Christmas. And the spiritual bypassing at Christmas is all too real. I don't miss the guilt, and I talk about guilt a lot with Easter.

But there was guilt at Christmas too, because you were still constantly measuring where your heart was spiritually at Christmas, because the sermons were about don't be too materialistic, as if wanting a break or a present somehow made you unholy. I remember once being told that feeling sad at Christmas was an opportunity to Realign my heart. And I was like, no, I'm pretty sure I'm just sad.

And that is okay. We are allowed to just have emotion as humans. And so I certainly do not miss the guilt of having to be an acceptable version of myself.

And the only way of doing that was to deny who I actually was and how I was actually feeling at Christmas. I do not miss the gender roles in our church. Women did everything.

We did the decorating, we did the catering, the cleaning, the hosting, the coraling of kids in angel costumes, the Sunday school. And yet the men on the stage preached about servant leadership. And the irony of that now is not lost on me.

Every year I'd be elbow deep in glitter glue because I taught Sunday school while the leader got up to thank the women of the church. For their faithfulness and dedication. Faithfulness, it's not what it was. It's not what it felt like. It's what I knew it to be at the time.

But faithfulness was just the church's favorite euphemism for free labor. I don't miss the emotional manipulation. We had candlelit services, but this emotional manipulation really happened for me when I.

When I would attend the big Christmas productions, the Hillsongs productions. Which for me was a Christmas ritual in itself, because it was big, it was grand, it was transcendent.

It was where everyone sang oh Holy Night and the lights dimmed just perfectly so you'd cry. That was not the Holy Spirit. That's stagecraft. But at the time, it connected me so deeply to the God that I had at that point.

But I do not miss having people, music, the setting and scenery of the space you are existing in, wielding emotion from me, the church could have run a masterclass in emotional production, let's be honest. The fog machines, the soft lighting, the minor key piano music, all of it was choreographed to make you feel moved by God.

And it worked every time, like, literally. So I do not miss having to wield, conjure and force emotion, because that's what it was expected of me. Or that's what I thought God expected of me.

I do not miss the exclusion, the Christmas sermons about family and tradition, knowing half of the room was quietly breaking because they'd been cut off from theirs. Or the way people like me were expected to swallow the heteronormativity and just smile through it.

You'd sit through endless sermons about Mary and Joseph and God's design for the family and wonder how you even counted as human in that place. And yet you push it away. You dissociate and you suppress it. And I do not miss that one little bit. Oh, and I mentioned the spiritual bypassing.

I don't miss that. Just pray through it. It's not about the presence. It's about his pres. That kind of thing. Jesus is the reason for the season. You need to remember that.

No one wanted to talk about the grief or the loneliness or how painful it was to sit in a pew and sing about joy when your life felt like it was in pieces. Because that's not Christmas cheer. It's not joyful. That's not going to bring people into church.

Everything was framed into God's plan, like usual, which was basically just the divine way of saying, don't make it awkward, guys, it's Christmas, and Christmas, we smile. I don't miss any of that at all. And maybe you don't miss it either. Maybe there are other things that Christmas was for you that you don't miss.

I think sometimes the worst part wasn't even the theology. It was the pretending. Pretending to be grateful, pretending to be faithful, to pretending that you felt close to God when actually you were drowning.

I thought I was losing faith when I started questioning it all, but really I was just losing the permission to perform. And I might not sit as a person of faith today, but I know I could. And I just.

I just allowed the questions to continue, and I allowed the permission to continue to just not be the person that they wanted me to be. And honestly, that's been the most freeing part and the most painful part of all of this.

Realizing how much my faith was just me trying to survive in a system that never saw me. So, yeah, I do not miss that pressure.

I do not miss the sermons, the performative Merry Christmas greetings, the passive aggressive, you'll be with us Christmas, Christmas Eve service, right? The force, joy, the guilt, the exhaustion, the you. They can. You can keep all of that. I do not miss any of that.

And so what I love talking to people about is, what is Christmas now? Because if we miss all of that, we don't miss all of that. What does Christmas look like? And honestly, Christmas looks completely different.

Sometimes we do nothing.

We had a year where we did nothing and we just sat on our couch with cheese and fruit and biscuits and we had pavlova and, like, we just watched Christmas cheesy Christmas movies. Sometimes we do everything. Sometimes we just watch Love, actually and eat pavlova straight out of the container.

Because leftover pavlova is probably the best thing about Christmas, right? I've made Peace with the fact that Christmas actually doesn't need to mean anything for me anymore. I don't have to justify it, redeem it or reject.

Can just be a few days of rest, connection, and hopefully air conditioning because we're in Australia and it's freaking hot. But I am learning to reclaim these things. I like candles because they're beautiful and they smell good, not because they're symbolic of divine light.

I sing sometimes carols, but usually the Santa, baby, last Christmas kind of variety. There's something about being able to hear George Michael sing Christmas carols that feels okay for me.

And sometimes I sing Taylor Swift or Wicked because music finally feels good in my body again. And sometimes I spend time with people and dogs, preferably that mean the most to me.

I let myself feel all of those mixed emotions, the grief, the tenderness, the relief, the strange nostalgia that sneaks in when I hear oh come all you faithful sung at carols in the domain, which is a carol like a national carols for people who are international. Listening to this.

And I can feel that lump in my throat when Sylvie Palladino comes onto the stage, knowing that she's going to sing something beautiful, but also beautifully faith based, even though I don't believe a word of it anymore. I can sit with that nostalgia and be okay. I think the best thing that I've learned is that you can miss that without missing the control.

You can miss the comfort without missing the cost that it came with. And so now I find sacredness around Christmas in really small things.

In laughter, in my chosen family, in the Grinch, who is sitting in my hallway in front of our Christmas tree, In quiet mornings where I don't have to get up and get ready to go to church. In feeling of snuggling to bed, knowing that I just don't have to rush right now.

I can just be in this moment, in not having to be grateful all the damn time. Because usually by the time we reach Christmas, we're all just really fucking tired. And we are allowed to be tired.

Sometimes I still get that ache, that little longing for community or transcendence. But I've stopped interpreting it as a signal that maybe I need to go back or that something's wrong.

I think it's just a part of me that loves connection, ritual and beauty. And I get to honour that now on my own terms, not in a way that it needs to be. So maybe this is my Christmas liturgy now.

Good food, soft music, people I trust, and permission to not have it all figured out. If you are Listening to this and feeling that same complicated cocktail of nostalgia and relief.

I just want to say you are not weird or doing anything wrong or doing it slowly. You are just recovering. Missing parts of your old life doesn't mean you want it back, just means that you that those parts once met a need.

And maybe now you get to meet that need yourself instead. So if you find yourself missing the candlelight this year or craving carols but rolling your eyes at the lyrics, it's okay. You can hold both.

You can miss the beauty and still name the harm. You can laugh about the cringe and still mourn what was lost. And you don't owe anyone a merry Christmas if you are not feeling it.

You can have a quiet one, a weird one, a really boundary heavy one if you need to. You can spend it in your pyjamas in a full Christmas get up or in the bush or on the beach with no guilt in sight.

This year I'm going to be having one of the biggest family Christmases that I have ever had in my life and I am holding on to the parts of me that remind me that I do not need to be everything and I do not need to do everything for this Christmas. I do not need to perform. I do not need to pretend. I get to just have rest, food and connection and probably a whole bunch of irreverence.

And if you need a line to hold on to this season because Christmas is really freaking hard for a lot of people, maybe it is this. You can miss the magic without missing the manipulation. You can miss the magic without missing the manipulation. That's an okay space to land.

Okay, that's kind of all from me today. Talking about what I miss and what I don't miss about church. Maybe you relate, maybe you don't.

Maybe there are some things that I didn't talk about that feel right for you. But thanks for being here for this little solo reflection.

Wherever you are this Christmas, whether you are celebrating, surviving or somewhere in between, I hope you find one small moment that feels like yours. Because that's enough. And you're enough. Okay, so that's it. That's us for the year.

We'll be back on the 8th of January with a whole new season of stories, reflections, and probably a whole lot more rants because that's apparently my spiritual gift I've found. In the meantime, go back and listen to any episodes you missed or maybe the ones you didn't quite have the capacity for the first time.

Take care of yourself over this break, whatever that looks like. Find a tiny pocket of peace, a moment of softness, something that belongs only to you and I will see you next year. Merry ish Christmas friends.

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of beyond the Surface. I hope you found today's conversation as insightful and inspiring as I did.

If you enjoyed the episode, be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with others who might benefit from these stories. Stay connected with with us on social media for updates and more content. I love connecting with all of you.

Remember, no matter where you are on your journey, you're not alone. Until next time, keep exploring, keep questioning and keep moving forward. Take care.