Flying Free

Latest Episodes:

Celebrating the Holidays When Life Is Blowing Up - Part Two [202] Dec 20, 2022

Show notes

The holiday season can be a very emotional time. While it’s festive and fun for many people, this time of the year isn’t necessarily a happy or carefree period for everyone. Last week, we answered some questions posed by our Flying Free community about how to get through the holidays when life feels like it’s falling apart. In fact, we received so many questions from the women in our program that we decided to make this into a two-part series. Tuning in today, you’ll receive some heartfelt advice for moving past holiday guilt and shame, standing your sacred ground despite nasty comments, navigating gift-giving in a way that aligns with your core values, and more. We also offer you some valuable tools and strategies, including questions to ask yourself to help you shift your thinking and show up with love and joy in the present moment. Join us for more tips about creating a space of peace amidst the chaos!

Key Points From This Episode:

Overcoming holiday guilt by addressing core beliefs and programming.
Journal prompts you can use to help you shake up your thinking.
Reconciling shame without overcompensating.
How to regulate your emotions by examining your thoughts.
Why you can’t fix the past, only relish the present and show up with love.
Ways to take back your power and love yourself despite negative comments.
How therapy helps you regain control of your healing journey.
Making peace with filing for divorce during the holidays.
To gift or not to gift?
Tips for negotiating awkward or emotionally difficult holiday functions.
How to create your own space of peace and rest amidst the chaos.

Access the transcript, read the show notes, and/or ask Natalie a question here

If you are a Christian woman who thinks you may be in an emotionally destructive marriage, learn more at https://flyingfreenow.com

I'll send you (free!) the first chapter of my book, Is It Me? Making Sense of Your Confusing Marriage, which has an assessment to help you figure out if your relationship is abusive or not. All you have to do is hop on my mailing list at https://flyingfreesisterhood.com/free-download

You can also find out about our online education and support program for women of faith at https://joinflyingfree.com

And finally, if you are a divorced Christian woman who wants to take back her life and get healthy, lose weight, have amazing relationships, get things done, build a business or career, and even find a good man (if you want one) - check out Flying Higher at https://joinflyinghigher.com

Celebrating the Holidays When Life Is Blowing Up - Part One [201] Dec 13, 2022

Show notes

The holiday season can be bittersweet, imbued with magic and pain in equal parts. For many people, it can be a very emotional time, with all the Christmassy sounds and smells unearthing memories from the depths of their childhoods. It’s important to be kind to ourselves during this time, and in this episode, we’re tackling some of the questions posed by our Flying Free community in order to equip you to make the most of the holidays! Tune in for advice on how to honor healing and pain while making space for joy, how to prepare your kids for new traditions amidst the changes in their lives, and how to remain unaffected by others’ bad humor, as well as how to manage loneliness, and more. If you’re at a loss about how to keep the Christmas spirit going for you and your family, we also share some examples of fun new Christmas traditions for you to try out. We hope you’ll join us today!

Key Points From This Episode:

The mixed emotions brought on by the holiday season.
Clean pain versus dirty pain.
How to honor clean pain or grief while making space for joy in the Christmas season.
Tips for remaining unaffected by the bad humor of those around you.
How to prepare the kids for their first Christmas post-divorce.
Examples of fun new Christmas traditions.
How to continue the process of healing in the midst of holiday stress.
The journey of healing.
How to make the most of your Christmas!
How to deal with feelings of loneliness during the holidays.
The key to healing core shame.
Tips for becoming a good friend to yourself.

Access the transcript, read the show notes, and/or ask Natalie a question here

If you are a Christian woman who thinks you may be in an emotionally destructive marriage, learn more at https://flyingfreenow.com

You can also find out about our online education and support program for women of faith at https://joinflyingfree.com

200th Episode Celebration: The State of the Christian Survivor and Advocate Community [200] Dec 06, 2022

Show notes

Is abuse more widespread than ever before or are we more aware of it? Are churches listening to the cries of abused women? Is anything getting better?

I’m joined by advocates Sarah McDugal, Ngina Otiende, and Gretchen Baskerville, and my former podcast sidekick Rachel Harden as we celebrate the 200th Flying Free podcast episode and discuss the incredible support and awareness that’s growing in the Christian survivor community.

We believe the tide is changing, and every single survivor is part of a growing wave of truth tellers, critical thinkers, and courageous voices.

Our take on the past decade:

What advocates are supposed to be doing (it ain’t “telling you what to do”)
Why civil wars are never started by the people in power
The real reason “theo bros” are running scared
How the data showing divorce saves lives is making a difference (even in conservative circles)
Why airing dirty laundry is a good thing (including getting rid of stinkiness)
The incredible things we’ve observed about younger generations
Why we have a lot of hope for the church, abused women, and the future

Access the transcript, read the show notes, and/or ask Natalie a question here

Related Resources:

Sarah McDugal is co-founder of Wilderness to WILD and the TraumaMAMAs mobile app.
Ngina Otiende is a certified marriage coach, author, and blogger. Check out her website at Intentional Today.
Gretchen Baskerville is a legend in the survivor community. Her book blows the lid off the lies most Christian women are told about divorce, and her website is a perpetual explosion of truth bombs. Check out The Life-Saving Divorce.
My newest book, All the Scary Little Gods, is a spiritual memoir about healing from religious trauma and toxic programming.
Are you wondering what is happening inside your own painful and confusing marriage? I wrote another book just for you called Is It Me? Making Sense of Your Confusing Marriage: A Christian Woman’s Guide to Hidden Emotional and Spiritual Abuse.
Flying Free is my online membership program designed for Christian women in emotionally abusive marriages. Whether you want to stay well in your marriage or leave, we want to equip and support you through this program.
Flying Higher is my online membership program for divorced Christian women. Come rebuild your life after divorce with women just like you!
Support the Flying Free podcast AND get in on monthly deep-dive discussions with podcast guests by joining the Flying Free Podcast Club for a $5 monthly donation HERE. (Members of Flying Free and Flying Higher can join these discussions FREE. Just reach out to me, natalie@flyingfreenow.com, and we'll get you set up!)

How Many Years Does a Christian Wife Owe Her Abusive Husband? [199] Nov 29, 2022

Show notes

Would you play a card game with a cheater? Once maybe, right? Then, it’s a solid H-E-double-hockey-stick no.

What about for a month? A year? Five years? Twenty?

Would you tell your daughter to play with a cheater? Your best friend?

I’m gonna guess the answer is “abso-freaking-lutely not!”

So why do we think we “owe” a husband who has shown himself to be abusive any more of our precious time?

In this episode, I answer listener questions:

Should you give more time to an abusive husband if you “knew better” (you were married to an abuser before and thought you’d chosen better this time)?
Should you give more time to an abusive husband if you realized what he was shortly after getting married?
What are some really covert emotional abuse tactics that may not be obvious in a short-term relationship?
Which person do you need to be in love with once you start dating/considering marriage again? (It’s not the person with a wiener.)
Why is self-love stupid, selfish, and unbiblical? (Risks of believing this include but are not limited to getting run over again and again by other people until you’re almost dead and spending years of your life feeling miserable)
When and why should you share your “side of the story” with others?

Access the transcript, read the show notes, and/or ask Natalie a question here

If you are a Christian woman who thinks you may be in an emotionally destructive marriage, learn more at https://flyingfreenow.com

You can also find out about our online education and support program for women of faith at https://joinflyingfree.com

Why Don't I Feel Close to God? [198] Nov 22, 2022

Show notes

Learning about emotional and spiritual abuse is dangerous.

You start to see patterns in your marriage, your family, your friendships, your church…and your faith. You start to understand why God often doesn’t feel safe. Why you feel like a constant disappointment. A regular failure. A busted, broken, rejection-worthy woman.

You were taught that God is love…

And that God wants (and demands) perfection. That he loves you IN SPITE of you. That he has to look at Jesus to accept you. That negative emotions are a sign you’re in sin. And a high self-esteem (not hating yourself) is a sign you’re in other sin. That you deserve punishment even when you’re giving 100% to please him.

There’s no winning…

…Until we explore the core of how we approach EVERY relationship in our lives: through attachment style.

Krispin Mayfield and I explore healing our attachment to God:

Why your faith struggles are likely not a lack of character but a result of poor theology (that you had no choice in learning)
What attachment theory is and the three types of attachment
How the three attachment types play out (with examples)
A horrifying experiment that explains a lot of our freak-outs
The connection between self-loathing and pleasing God (in most Christian communities)
What’s so magical about getting things right only 30% of the time
Resources for healing your attachment to God (see below)

Access the transcript, read the show notes, and/or ask Natalie a question here

Krispin’s amazing book that I couldn’t put down: Attached to God: A Practical Guide to Deeper Spiritual Experience.
Krispin’s podcast: Prophetic Imagination Station.
My newest book, All the Scary Little Gods, is a spiritual memoir about healing from religious trauma and toxic programming.
Are you wondering what is happening inside your own painful and confusing marriage? I wrote another book just for you called Is It Me? Making Sense of Your Confusing Marriage: A Christian Woman’s Guide to Hidden Emotional and Spiritual Abuse.
Flying Free is my online membership program designed for Christian women in emotionally abusive marriages. Whether you want to stay well in your marriage or leave, we want to equip and support you through this program.
Flying Higher is my online membership program for divorced Christian women. Come rebuild your life after divorce with women just like you!
Support the Flying Free podcast AND get in on monthly deep-dive discussions with podcast guests by joining the Flying Free Podcast Club for a $5 monthly donation HERE. (Members of Flying Free and Flying Higher can join these discussions FREE. Just reach out to me, natalie@flyingfreenow.com, and we'll get you set up!)

Krispin Mayfield is a licensed professional counselor and author of Attached to God. He co-hosts the podcast The Prophetic Imagination Station with his wife, D.L. Mayfield, where they dissect evangelical media from the 80’s and 90’s.

A Story About a Family, a Bus, and a Food Fight [197] Nov 15, 2022

Show notes

I'd like to introduce you to my friend Myrtle. She's a backseat driver. The kind you can't ignore.

She's MY backseat driver. And yours. Myrtle thinks she's the help-iest thing ever.

She’s a big reason behind many of our behavior patterns. The places and ways we're stuck. Our self-sabotage. Myrtle is the explanation for a lot of our recurrent fears. She’s loud, proud, and she never shuts up. She provides the same old thoughts that plague us, day after day, year after year.

What do we do with Myrtle? (Not to mention the bus full of other backseat drivers, in this case, younger versions of yourself.)

It starts with realizing there are “no bad parts” in us, including Myrtle. I’ll tell you all about it in this episode, one of five upcoming sessions featured in the Flying Free program.

The breakthroughs:

Who Mad Mama is (and why she’s trying to protect me and you)
Why I decided to become my own mother (sounds crazy, huh?)
How to “drive your car” in a different direction when you have a freak-out session
The thought exercise I did to heal from the trauma of losing my relationship with my mother
A better approach to losing your relationship with your older/adult kids (a common heartbreaking occurrence for divorced women of faith)
A definition of trauma (it’s different for everybody)
What firefighters and “I’d like to speak to the manager” have to do with each other
Why trying to deal with multiple thoughts at a time doesn’t work (and that’s okay!)

Access the transcript, read the show notes, and/or ask Natalie a question here

If you are a Christian woman who thinks you may be in an emotionally destructive marriage, learn more at https://flyingfreenow.com

You can also find out about our online education and support program for women of faith at https://joinflyingfree.com

How Far Should I Go to Give My Emotionally Abusive Husband a Chance to Change? [196] Nov 08, 2022

Show notes

I remember thinking that if I could just hit on the right inflection in my voice maybe or the correct tone or the perfect combination of words or the right attitude — you know, one of subservience and humility so as not to trigger his fragile ego and bring down his wrath — I’d finally get through. He’d finally get it. The wall would come crumbling down.

Nope.

When I finally filed for divorce, he suddenly said he’d seen the light. He’s willing to go to counseling. If I don’t give him this “final” chance (there have been so many “final” chances), I’ll feel like I didn’t do enough.

Is this you?

This episode defines “enough”:

What a 10-year-old kid and an iPad have to do with an abusive husband and therapy
Why there’s not much hope for abusers
The reason your body’s “ick” reaction to your husband’s Hail Mary shows it’s wiser than your mental second-guessing
How many chances I gave my ex-husband, and how mad it made God when I stopped (Spoiler Alert: It didn’t make God mad)
Why feeling conflicted in your emotionally abusive marriage is COMPLETELY NORMAL
What DARVO is (and what it has to do with cats and ducks)
Why you’re asking the wrong questions

Access the transcript, read the show notes, and/or ask Natalie a question here

If you are a Christian woman who thinks you may be in an emotionally destructive marriage, learn more at https://flyingfreenow.com

You can also find out about our online education and support program for women of faith at https://joinflyingfree.com

My Abusive Husband Says I’m Unbiblical Unless I Reconcile with Him [195] Nov 01, 2022

Show notes

“Unless you forgive and come back to me, you’re disobeying God and the Bible!”

If I were your abusive husband, I’d say the same thing. Why? Cause then I’d get what I want. Woohoo! Isn’t that what the Bible is all about?

Oh, begging your pardon. I was basing my opinion off how I see most church leaders and many legalistic Christians approach the Bible.

Which means that if you’re looking for advice on whether you should reconcile with your abusive husband — and what reconciliation really means — you’re going to get a whole charcuterie board of different answers. From biased people. Trying to interpret text that doesn’t give a full answer on… basically anything.

Consider this alternative: Ask a different question and provide your own answer.

Sound heretical? Then keep reading (and listening).

In this episode, I spill some tasty tea on:

3 thoughts I have about about a husband who demands reconciliation (one involves an ax)
Why people who accuse others of being unbiblical are actually doing exactly what they’re accusing others of doing (whew, that was a mouthful)
The limitations of the Bible
How to use the Bible to make a case for anything (genocide, slavery, rape, misogyny, political ideologies, etc.)
The danger of worshiping the Bible
Why relying on the Bible for all the answers means you’re going to be constantly confused, shoved in different directions, and easily manipulated
What we have that’s much better than the Bible
What the size of God has to do with the questions like “Do I have to go back?” and “Do I have grounds for divorce?"

Access the transcript, read the show notes, and/or ask Natalie a question here

If you are a Christian woman who thinks you may be in an emotionally destructive marriage, learn more at https://flyingfreenow.com

You can also find out about our online education and support program for women of faith at https://joinflyingfree.com

What Role Does Fear Play in Our Religion and Our Relationships? [194] Oct 25, 2022

Show notes

“You don’t know God,” the elder leaned forward and said to me. He knew I was preparing to divorce my emotionally abusive husband.

My body began to tremble. My voice shook.

I realized later that he was right. His god was vindictive and cruel, like a mythological Zeus.

The God I know — deeply, intimately, since I was a child — is gentle and kind and leads me away from fear and control.

That was the first church meeting I ever walked out of. And the last one I ever had with those elders.

It’s also when I realized that I could fly free. So can you.

In this episode with licensed marriage and family therapist Naomi Norton, we discuss:

11 dominant fears the Christian community uses to influence (CONTROL) women
Why being connected to the physical (your body, emotions) is so important
How to prioritize, process, and honor fear
What the church usually says about fear (and why their perspective is SO DANGEROUS)
How being aware of fear (the types, the ways they surface) can HELP US PROTECT ourselves
Why moving toward fear is often NOT a good or godly response
The reason you love God but you’re afraid of him (and how to get rid of that fear)
How to respond to people (often church people) who USE FEAR TO CONTROL US

Access the transcript, read the show notes, and/or ask Natalie a question here

Related Resources:

Naomi’s Facebook page is like a 5-course banquet for emotional and spiritual abuse survivors. You’ll gobble it up!
If you live in or near Kansas City and you’re looking for a therapist, check out Naomi’s website.
If you are a Christian woman who thinks you may be in an emotionally destructive marriage, learn more at https://flyingfreenow.com
I'll send you (free!) the first chapter of my book, Is It Me? Making Sense of Your Confusing Marriage, which has an assessment to help you figure out if your relationship is abusive or not. All you have to do is hop on my mailing list at https://flyingfreesisterhood.com/free-download
You can also find out about our online education and support program for women of faith at https://joinflyingfree.com
And finally, if you are a divorced Christian woman who wants to take back her life and get healthy, lose weight, have amazing relationships, get things done, build a business or career, and even find a good man (if you want one) - check out Flying Higher at https://joinflyinghigher.com

Naomi Norton is a licensed marriage and family therapist. She’s been in private practice for eight years. She has a passion for working with marginalized communities and people who’ve suffered religious trauma. Naomi is in the final stages of completing her Ph.D. in family therapy at North Central University. Her dissertation research focuses on the evangelical Christian community’s perspective on mental health.

Stop Waiting for Your Husband to Die so You Can Live [193] Oct 18, 2022

Show notes

If marriage is for life, then the only way out is death. Right?

I’ve been asked that question, or a variation of it, many times. I used to wonder that question myself.

Marriage IS for life, but not in the way you’ve been told. It’s for the sake of bringing life TO you. And when it’s destroying you instead, THERE IS A WAY OUT.

But the very Bible verses written to bring protection to abused women and rebuke to abusive men have been twisted and turned on their heads…until the words “for life” are a curse and death seems like the only escape (whether his or yours).

Allow me to right these warped words and help you fly free from your despair.

In this episode:

Why you might reconsider telling church leaders about your husband’s abusive behavior
The four reasons women consider “telling on” their husbands to church leaders (and the problems with each)
The four possible responses you can expect when you report your abusive husband’s behavior to church leaders (helping the victim is the rarest)
Why the “God hates divorce” verse is COMPLETELY WRONG and what it really says
The 8 things you don’t owe ANYONE (at church or otherwise) when it comes to leaving your marriage
The only two things you absolutely need to get out of your marriage (and they’re available no matter your circumstances)
Why wishing your abusive husband were dead doesn’t mean you’re an evil person
How I went from lying on a bathroom floor wishing for death to flying free, remarried, with a new home, a new family, and an amazing job (and my story isn’t unique among Flying Free and Flying Higher survivors)

Access the transcript, read the show notes, and/or ask Natalie a question here

If you are a Christian woman who thinks you may be in an emotionally destructive marriage, learn more at https://flyingfreenow.com

You can also find out about our online education and support program for women of faith at https://joinflyingfree.com

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