I Belong to Me: A Survivor's Guide to Recovery and Hope After Religious Trauma

Description:

What does it mean to heal from trauma caused by the people, beliefs, and practices of your faith? And to rebuild a sense of self, when high-control religion said you shouldn't have one?

Indoctrinated from early childhood to obey, conform, and want what others wanted for her, Tia Levings learned love and acceptance meant being someone other than herself.

After years of abuse in a violent marriage and high-control religion, Tia Levings escaped with her children (a story told in her memoir, A Well-Trained Wife) and thought the hardest was behind her.

But leaving was just the beginning.

With an audacious persistence to reclaim her life, Tia set off on a 15-year quest to psychological peace. The result is an emotionally regulated, actualized, self-aware woman who is able to tell her harrowing story without retraumatizing herself --a woman who can reach back to help others claim what's theirs. If trauma took your past, it shouldn't get your present and future too.

Through a series of personal stories, therapeutic stages, and resources, Tia Levings guides readers through the journey that helped her leave abuse, rediscover selfhood, and heal her mind, soul, and body after religious trauma --so that you can too.

Brief description: TIA LEVINGS is the New York Times bestselling author of A Well-Trained Wife. She writes about the realities of religious trauma, decoding fundamentalist influences in today's culture. Her work and quotes have appeared in Teen Vogue, Salon, the Huffington Post, and Newsweek. She also appeared in the hit Amazon docu-series, Shiny Happy People. Based in North Carolina, she is mom to four incredible adults and likes to travel, paint, and daydream.

Review Quotes:

"Eloquent. [I Belong to Me] focuses on how to recover hope after a religious trauma--in fact, any trauma--examining the journey in minute detail with the goal of nurturing a healthy mind and body." --Booklist

"Tia Levings's I Belong to Me thoughtfully and skillfully expresses the developing path forward for those of us deconstructing faith, not necessarily to replace it, but to rediscover what our trumped-up religion itself replaced and repressed: our humanity." --David R. Morris, author of Lost Faith and Wandering Souls

"Today, when the devastating effects of religious trauma are widespread and well known, Tia Leving's book I Belong to Me is an essential lifeline. Tia not only identifies the effects of high control religion, but offers a gentle, nourishing pathway for recovering agency and strength to chart a new path. Tia's helpful practices are only matched by her superb way with words! A pleasure to read." --Julie Bogart, author of Raising Critical Thinkers

"Tia Levings has an unflinching way of turning wounds into maps and making hard truths bearable. I Belong to Me reaches through the darkness like a knowing hand and refuses to let go until you find your way back to yourself." --Bethny Ricks, author of Face Forward

"Compassionate and empowering, I Belong to Me offers a road map to help the betrayed children of American evangelicalism navigate the uncharted landscape of religious trauma. Her pages on estrangement in Christian families are the best I've read on the topic, and the way Tia carefully respects reader agency really makes this book stand out." --Marissa Franks Burt, author of The Myth of Good Christian Parenting: How False Promises Betrayed a Generation of Evangelical Families

"Few people write about religious trauma with the honesty, clarity, and compassion that Tia Levings brings to I Belong to Me. This book is both a witness and a guide, naming the harm so many have endured while offering a path toward healing, wholeness, and self-reclamation. For anyone trying to find themselves after toxic faith, this book will feel like the lifeline they have been longing for." --Brandan Robertson, Author, Queer & Christian: Reclaiming the Bible, Our Faith, and Our Place At The Table