Category: Flying Free Podcast

Confronting Religious Trauma and Reconstructing Faith: Interview with Dr. Tiffany Yecke Brooks

Confronting Religious Trauma and Reconstructing Faith: Interview with Dr. Tiffany Yecke Brooks [Episode 192]

“I’m going to be ninety-two next month, and I have waited my entire life for a book like this.”

A woman said this to Tiffany after she spoke to a Sunday School class about her book, “Gaslighted by God: Reconstructing a Disillusioned Faith.”

Many Christians are told their doubts are a sign they haven’t prayed or fasted enough. That their spiritual frustrations are an indication they’re backsliding. That they just don’t have enough faith.

Do you feel a sense of futility over ever measuring up as a Christian? Ever pleasing God? Ever nailing down the formula for blessing or meeting the mark for making yourself small enough?

Tiffany wrote “Gaslighted by God” to give a voice to the pain of devoted Christians whose faith is cracking under the abuse of legalism, who are desperately clinging to beliefs that are hurting them, and who need to know it’s not their fault.

More
Why Self-Leadership is More Effective Than Being Held Accountable

Why Self-Leadership is More Effective Than Being Held Accountable [Episode 191]

How do you feel about accountability? Like it, love it, want some more of it?

Or maybe it’s like medicine to you — icky but necessary.

Hold on to your booty, cause I’ve got an opinion on it too.

I think it’s a made-up practice that got a “virtue” sticker slapped on it. I think it arrests our development into emotional adulthood. In fact, I’d say accountability does more harm than good.

And it can never match the power of internal motivation for true, lasting life change.

More
What if I Want a Divorce but My Abusive Husband Doesn't?

What if I Want a Divorce but My Abusive Husband Doesn’t? [Episode 190]

Surprise! Abusers never want the same thing as their victims. Why should divorce be any different?

Shocking! Abusers never want their “property” to start acting like a person and hightail it out of Dodge (“Dodge” being the marriage. Okay, you get it.)

Spoiler alert! You get to make your own decisions because you’re a grown woman. What? Yes, it’s true.

Divorce isn’t a magic toilet that flushes all your worries away. But it’s a wise, viable option for women who are being systematically destroyed by their closest relationship.

For women who want a divorce from their emotionally abusive husbands, this episode is a reminder of the core things they need to know.

More
I’m Afraid of My Christian Husband’s Criticism and Disapproval

I’m Afraid of My Christian Husband’s Criticism and Disapproval [Episode 189]

Imagine a mother who stares at her baby.. She won’t smile. Won’t look it in the eye. Doesn’t react when it holds its arms out to be held. Refuses to comfort it when it cries. The baby screams and sobs. The mother won’t move.

Now multiply that cruelty across each thousands of days. Switch the mother for a husband. Change the baby to a wife.

Other people may throw out the “But does he hit you?” strawman (only extremes, only obvious physical, qualifiable harm counts as abuse). But that baby knows better. You know better. Your desolate heart knows better.

The most devastating hurts don’t show on the outside.

More
When Your Ex-Husband Tries to Use Your Kids to Control You After the Divorce

When Your Ex-Husband Tries to Use Your Kids to Control You After the Divorce [Episode 188]

“I feel like a massive failure as a Christian and a mom. Like a puppet—and he’s pulling the strings.”

Too many women finally muster up the courage to leave their abusive husbands and face an even more painful betrayal: Their exes turn their own children against them. Lying, manipulating, bribing, even using threats in order to get the kids on their side.

It’s sickening. And it can feel like there’s no hope, no justice, and no way forward.

If this is you—wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, no matter how bad things are—I need you to stop and listen to me.

Because I’ve seen terrible cases of parental alienation turn around. I’ve lived it.

No matter what happens: Your future depends on cutting the strings of your puppeteer.

More
Will Divorce Ruin My Kids and Their Opportunities in Life?

Will Divorce Ruin My Kids and Their Opportunities in Life? [Episode 187]

For women escaping emotionally abusive husbands, divorce often feels like a scarlet “A” on their chest. Or “D.” They wonder if they’ll be marked for life.

And worse, they fear how their kids will suffer the consequences.

First, because they lived in a home of chaos and pain and trauma. Second, because they’ll have to face the assumptions and judgment of other people.

A “broken” family. A single-parent household. “Sinful” parents. Not “true” Christians. Bad influences. The sort of mom and kids other people whisper about.

Is this your fear? Your reality? Then I’ve got great news and lots of it.

More