Flying Free

In this episode I’m answering a pressing question Christian women in difficult marriages ask: how do you find a church that will actually support you instead of silence you?
Because not all churches are created equal, and the difference between a safe church and a harmful one can change everything for a woman trying to find her footing. I’ll break down exactly what to look for, what to ask, and what red flags to run from.
🔑 Key Takeaways:
There's a question you can ask a pastor before ever setting foot in a pew that will tell you almost everything you need to know about whether that church is safe.
What a church puts on its website (and what it leaves off) reveals far more than you might think about how they actually treat abuse survivors.
One word in a pastor's answer about couples counseling is a dealbreaker. Do you know what it is?
The church's leadership page can disqualify them before you ever walk through the door. 
There's a theology that sounds biblical and even beautiful to some women, but I make a case that it's actually setting the stage for harm.
Get Today’s Free Resource:

📒 Take a free Emotional Abuse Assessment by going to emotionalabusequiz.com

I will also send you my weekly Hope Letters for Christian women in emotionally and spiritually abusive marriages.

In this episode, I sit down with my real-life friend Jessica, a pastor's wife whose story intersects with mine: her husband was a pastor at the very church that excommunicated me. What started as a conversation about her story turned into one of the most layered, honest episodes I think we've ever recorded.

Jessica spent decades being told her emotions were idols, her feelings weren't facts, and her needs were sin problems she needed to repent of. In this conversation, she shares what it took to finally see through that, what the long road out of a high-control religious marriage actually looks like, and why freedom sometimes takes many years to arrive even after the divorce papers are signed.
Questions we cover:
What does it actually take to leave when your abuser is also your pastor husband?
Why do so many women choose the familiar over the safe?
Is codependency just a fancy way to blame the victim?
What does it look like when someone uses scripture as a weapon?
What does a pastor's wife do when she can't tell anyone the truth?
What actually happens when you let yourself grieve?
What does it take to actually push yourself out?
Get Today’s Free Resource:

🧐 Are you wondering what is happening inside your own painful and confusing marriage? I wrote a book just for you called Is It Me? Making Sense of Your Confusing Marriage. Get a free chapter by going to isitmebook.com

I will also send you my weekly Hope Letters for Christian women in emotionally and spiritually abusive marriages.

This is part four of the High Functioning Christian Women in Destructive Marriages series, and today we talk about a concept that ties the whole series together: sovereignty. 
Synonyms for sovereignty include: freedom, autonomy, and independence.
If you've spent years managing everyone's needs, shrinking your own, and building an identity around your capacity to give without limit, this episode will challenge a misunderstood theology that was never meant for women who are already pouring out from an empty cup.

🔑 Key Takeaways:
There's a critical difference between two things that look almost identical from the outside, and which one you're living in changes everything about how you understand your marriage.
The "die to self" command you've been handed your whole life? It may have been written for the exact opposite kind of person from you.
Why does even asking yourself "what do I need?" feel like a threat to your survival, not just a little uncomfortable?
What Jesus actually modeled about rest, limits, and saying no might completely reframe what you think faithful living looks like.
The one question you could ask yourself in the mirror every single morning that could quietly begin to change everything.
Get Today’s Free Resource:

🧐 Are you wondering what is happening inside your own painful and confusing marriage? I wrote a book just for you called Is It Me? Making Sense of Your Confusing Marriage. Get a free chapter by going to isitmebook.com

I will also send you my weekly Hope Letters for Christian women in emotionally and spiritually abusive marriages.

This is Part Three of our series on high-functioning Christian women in destructive marriages. You are the woman people call when something complicated needs solving. You read rooms, spot patterns, and get it right. And yet in this one area of your life, you have been told that your judgment, specifically, cannot be trusted.
Key Takeaways:
Why the very perceptiveness that makes you exceptional everywhere else has been deliberately turned off in your marriage
What is actually happening when religious systems tell you to wait, and who is really benefiting from your patience
How to tell the difference between genuine knowing and fear, and which one you have most likely been carrying all these years
What "blind adherence" has to do with faith, and why the real version of faith might look completely different than what you have been taught
The one question that changes everything when someone tells you to wait a little longer
Get Today’s Free Resource:

🎁 I want to give you a free gift. It’s the audio version of my book, All the Scary Little Gods. It’s a spiritual memoir about healing from religious trauma and toxic programming. You can listen to it FREE by going to scarylittlegods.com

I will also send you my weekly Hope Letters for Christian women in emotionally and spiritually abusive marriages.

This is Part Two of my series on high-functioning Christian women in destructive marriages. In Part One, we explored how the very qualities that make these women extraordinary are the same ones that make them exceptionally vulnerable. Today we're going deeper into one of the most specific and targeted of those qualities: empathy.

If you've ever felt like your compassion is working against you, like the more you understand him, the more stuck you become, this episode will show you exactly what's happening underneath that cycle. And it will start to give you a way out.

🔑 Key Takeaways:
Why does understanding his pain seem to pull you closer to danger instead of toward safety? The answer will reframe everything you thought you knew about your own compassion.
There's a biological metaphor in this episode that explains precisely how your God-given empathy gets hijacked, and once you see it, you cannot unsee it.
What does a "scapegoat" have to do with your marriage? Natalie unpacks a family systems concept that might explain why you always end up holding everyone else's chaos.
There's a trap that was specifically designed to make every exit feel impossible. Natalie names it, and then shows you the crack in the wall.
What's the difference between empathy and enabling, and why does that distinction change everything about how you move forward? The answer might surprise you.
Get Today’s Free Resource:

📒 Take a free Emotional Abuse Assessment by going to emotionalabusequiz.com

I will also send you my weekly Hope Letters for Christian women in emotionally and spiritually abusive marriages.