The short version is: fifteen years inside evangelical Christianity, a marriage I stayed in longer than I should’ve, a company I built while slowly falling apart inside, forced hospitalizations I never saw coming, and a collection of haphazard psychiatric diagnoses that kept shifting depending on who I was sitting in front of that week.

What I want to talk about here is what actually happens inside a person when they spend years inside a fear-based belief system… and then try to find their way out of it.

Because I’ve now talked to enough people going through this to know that “the details” are different but the architecture is almost always the same.

And nobody is mapping that architecture out honestly.

So let’s do that.

First you have to understand what the religious framework actually installed into you.

Not the surface stuff like “I went to church and now I feel guilty sometimes.” I mean the deep structural stuff that got in before you were old enough to question it.

Evangelical Christianity, at its doctrinal core, teaches that you were born cosmically wrong.

Fundamentally, irreparably wrong. So wrong, in fact, that a perfectly loving God couldn’t even tolerate your existence without someone being violently executed sacrificed on your behalf first.

And even after the execution, even after you’ve accepted the “gift” of it, you’re still being watched. Your thoughts can be sinful. Your desires are suspect. Your heart is, as the scripture goes, deceitful above all things.

God loves you infinitely… but you deserve death. God forgives you, sure. But only because of the blood.

Washed in the blood. Covered by the blood. Saved by the blood of the lamb. (so. much. blood 🤢)

When you step outside of it for a second, start actually hearing what the words are saying and notice how violent and visceral it actually is.

The central story of the “faith” of Christianity is a brutal execution… an outpouring of blood that a loving God allegedly required in order to tolerate you. That’s the foundation that everything else is built on.

For a sensitive, perfectionistic person who takes things seriously and actually tries to be good, that foundation creates effectively zero peace. It just creates a gnarly thought-loop.

Guilt. Repentance. Temporary relief. Repeat.

What about the minor detail of I don’t want to be covered in blood?!

With the baseline always being you are not enough (and you never will be!) on your own.

That loop runs silently in the background for years. Decades sometimes. And because it’s been there since before you had the language to describe it, it stops feeling like fear and starts feeling like just… you. It’s just your “personality.” Like the way you are.

Joe Dispenza in his book Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself talks about how you become addicted to the emotions and state of being “you.” It’s familiar and it’s what we’re used to feeling.

But none of that default anxiety is actually the way you are!!! It’s just what got programmed in by religion.

The question that cracked it open for me was simple.

If God is love, and love keeps no record of wrongs, why would God require a blood payment for a debt he’s not keeping a record of?

(Unless it’s not actually God who’s demanding payment?)

I sat with that question for a long time before I let myself actually think freely about it. And once I did I couldn’t un-think it. The God I’d experienced didn’t match the God I’d been taught to fear at all.

That gap became impossible to close.

I want to be really clear here because I know how easy it is to misread what I’m saying. I’m not sitting here thinking everyone who believes this is wrong or deluded or damaged (although it’s definitely possible and even likely based on my experience). I believed it for over a decade. Most people inside it are sincere. Many find real comfort in the community and the structure. I understand why.

But the question that matters isn’t whether the people inside it are good people. Most of them are. The question is what the psychological structure of the doctrine itself does to the nervous system over time.

And the answer, for a lot of us, is: a lot. It does a lot.

Pssssst! The remainder of this essay is for paying subscribers.

The rest goes into the parts nobody talks about: what deconstruction actually feels like from the inside, why the grief hits harder than the anger, what the identity excavation really involves, and the practical roadmap for where to actually start when everything you were handed falls apart.

This is exactly the kind of conversation that belongs somewhere private.

Upgrading allows me to keep writing essays like these.

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They get into how fear of hell pulled Steven into evangelical Christianity after the military, how that framework quietly stunts your growth, his experience with hospitalization and being cycled through psychiatric medications, and the healing modalities that actually moved the needle for him.

They also talk about outgrowing your community after deconstruction, the grief that comes with it, and why pulling away from people who no longer resonate isn’t something to feel guilty about.

Want to hear what happened after we stopped recording? Members of Conscious Rebels Network got access to the full live Q&A with Steven, plus replays of every guest conversation we’ve ever had.

Contact Steven:
Email: healingrootsonup@gmail.com

Instagram: @HealingRootsOnUp

Books referenced + links:
[Steven’s book] From A**Hole to Alright: https://amzn.to/4bkCKX1

No Bad Parts (book on Internal Family Systems therapy modality): https://amzn.to/4rw9d2O
A Liberated Mind: https://amzn.to/47Gzggx

[Join Conscious Rebels Network]

And I’m not making it because it’s a trending topic or because I think it’ll do well on social media, but because I lived it – it almost took me out! – and because I know I’m not the only one.

I’ve been sitting with this project for a long time, turning it over, wondering if I was ready to “go there” publicly in this kind of format. A documentary means cameras and interviews. It means I can’t dance around the topic semi-vaguely anymore.

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I’ll be sharing other people’s stories alongside my own. But before I ask anyone else to show up and tell their truth, I want to tell mine.

I grew up inside evangelical Christianity, from age 13-28. And what that did, slowly and thoroughly and over a very long period of time, was convince me that I was fundamentally dangerous to myself.

My thoughts could be sinful and doubt was seen as rebellion or “falling away.” My heart, I was told, was deceitful above all things – and what I wanted to do with my life had to be some kind of wrong unless it was heading out on a mission trip overseas.

God was watching and Hell was real. And the only thing standing between me and annihilation was a perfect blood payment from someone else on my behalf.

Really think about what that does to a developing nervous system 😅it’s not good.

When you grow up believing your own mind is a deceiver, you don’t learn to trust yourself. You learn to police yourself and perform goodness. People please. You learn to interpret your own suffering as the consequences of spiritual failure. And you get very, very good at endurance because endurance is what God requires of you.

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It happens to the best of ‘em, right?

That was the operating system I was running on by the time I hit my twenties.

I got married inside that framework 🤢I stayed in it longer than I should’ve, not because anyone was holding a gun to my head but because the voice inside my own head was doing a thorough enough job on its own.

God hates divorce. Marriage is a CoVeNanT. A good wife never leaves, especially if she promised she never would. Just pray and lean on your faith when things get hard.

So I “leaned in” and I endured. And I kept building my company on the outside while silently falling apart on the inside, because that’s what you do when you’ve been taught that struggle is sanctified… and rest is laziness.

The burnout didn’t show up all at once. It crept in the way it always does, slowly at first and then all at once. But by the time I couldn’t ignore it anymore, I wasn’t just burned out. I was also in a marriage that wasn’t working, deconstructing a faith that had been my entire framework for reality, and watching the version of myself I had performed for years start to crack in ways I couldn’t hide anymore, even if I wanted to.

Everything collapsed and/or exploded at the same time… because everything had been held together by the same thing.

That’s when the hospitalizations started…

I was admitted more than once. Always against my will, since no one around me recognized what was actually happening – and I lacked the language and awareness to explain it. Every single time I came out with a new label to add to the collection. Major depressive disorder. Generalized anxiety. Bipolar disorder. OCD. CPTSD… just to name a few.. The diagnoses shifted depending on who I was sitting in front of, which I now understand tells you more about the limits of the framework of a “science” called “psychiatry” than it does about what was actually going on with me.

What nobody in any of those rooms ever asked me…

… is about the belief system I’d been living inside since childhood.

Nobody asked about the shame that had been instilled in me before I was old enough to question it.

Nobody asked what it does to a person to spend years forcing yourself into a life that doesn’t fit because “God” said so.

Nobody asked about the burnout or the nervous system or what happens when a high-achieving, perfectionistic person runs on adrenaline and spiritual obligation for a decade straight.

Nope. They just subjectively looked at my symptoms and decided on a label. And then they told me this was probably just who I was now.

Adjust your expectations for your life, they said.

I was in my early thirties, and I was being told to make peace with being broken for the rest of my life.

I refused to accept that. The shift happened gradually.

It started with one question I was almost afraid to ask: what if I’m not broken? What if everything that happened to me was actually my body and brain’s completely predictable response to a stressful environment… and an impossible amount of internal pressure? 🤯

That question changed everything.

Because when I looked at my life through that lens, the hospitalizations didn’t look like proof of a permanently defective brain anymore. They looked like the inevitable outcome of chronic burnout layered on top of spiritual terror layered on top of an identity built entirely on performance and obligation and the fear of divine punishment.

My system didn’t malfunction. It had collapsed under the weight of what it had been carrying.

That’s not a mental disorder. That’s just a human being who was never given permission to just… be a human being.

I want to be really clear about something because I know how easy it is to misread what I’m saying here.

I am not saying Christianity destroys everyone who touches it. I’m not demonizing the mental health industry as a whole. That is not what this documentary is about.

What I am saying is that fear-based theology is psychologically volatile. Especially for sensitive, high-achieving, perfectionistic people who internalize everything and perform their way through life because that’s what they were taught “God” required of them. And when that person eventually breaks down (and they will break down) the current system isn’t set up to ask the right questions. It’s set up to name the symptoms and manage them.

The root cause stays buried. And the person stays stuck.

That’s the conversation I want to have on camera.

I’m looking for a small number of people who’ve also lived at this intersection. Who grew up inside evangelical culture and came out of it with a diagnosis (and possibly a prescription or two)… but no real answers. Who were told their suffering was either a lack of faith or a “chemical imbalance,” and who eventually started wondering if the real answer was somewhere neither of those systems was willing to look.

I want to sit across from those people and let them tell the truth. The whole truth. Not the version that’s been edited down to protect other people’s feelings or avoid controversy.

This film isn’t about revenge and it isn’t about tearing anything down. It’s about finally having a conversation that is honest enough to actually help someone.

If that someone is you, or if you know someone whose story belongs in this film, the casting call is open. It takes about twenty to thirty minutes to complete. There are no right answers. Just your story, told as honestly as you can tell it.

I can’t wait to see who shows up. 🙏

Apply here

I’m about to say something that’ll irritate almost everyone on every “side.”

Arguing online isn’t changing the world. It feels like it is. It looks like it is. It gives you that dopamine rush that fools you into believing you’re “doing something.”

But most of what passes for “activism” right now is performance inside a machine that was literally built to harvest your attention. And attention is currency.

The loudest people online think they’re resisting corruption. In reality, though, they’re feeding the very same system they claim to oppose.

Let’s talk about why, shall we?

The Outrage Economy

Social media doesn’t reward nuance, deep thought, or peace. It rewards anger.

Why is that?

Because anger, fear, and division spread much faster than love and unity… which grow slower but stronger. More like a mighty oak tree than a thick patch of parasitic weeds.

The algorithm just amplifies whatever keeps you hooked. If we’re enraged, then we keep scrolling. When we’re fearful, then we’ll keep checking for updates. If we’re arguing, then we’ll stay on the app and keep commenting.

Every reaction is engagement. All engagement is data. And all that data? That’s what gets monetized.

The machine doesn’t care which “side” we’re on. It cares that we’re emotionally activated… because that’s what generates what they want: money.

Think about it:

If the media actually wanted resolution, they wouldn’t structure every story purposely to inflame us. They’d slow it down. Present multiple perspectives (calmly). Maybe encourage critical thinking instead of emotional reaction.

But outrage is profitable. Peaceful self-control isn’t.

You ARE Being Played (from Every Angle)

Left. Right. Red. Blue. Conservative. Progressive. Donkey. Elephant.

None of it actually matters 😅

As long as we’re glued to our screens reacting to headlines, we’re pawns on the board.

Corporate media survives on advertising revenue. Advertising revenue requires viewership. Viewership thrives on emotional intensity.

So what do they sell to get more of what pays? Crisis.

Every week there’s a new catastrophe. Every day a new villain. Every hour a new “thing” you’re supposed to be just furious about. And if you zoom out for even a millisecond, you’ll notice something…

Most of these “emergencies” silently disappear as soon as the next one drops. Because again… the goal isn’t resolution. It’s rotation. It’s to make sure we never stop spinning and arguing… and to make sure we stay divided.

All while the same institutions expand their power, print money, consolidate their control, and rewrite the rules (to later gaslight us on) in the background. You’re busy fighting your neighbor while they’re busy redesigning the board.

Why “Speaking Up” Can Become a Trap

Before anyone misquotes me, let’s clarify something. Truth matters. Speaking truth matters even more.

But just screaming into a digital void designed to fragment consciousness is not the same thing as embodied leadership. There’s a difference between reactive outrage and grounded conviction. One is impulsive. The other is integrated.

It’s why I started the Conscious Rebels Network as a place to respond (and expand ourselves) instead of react (and exhaust ourselves).

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Chris shares his personal story, how he got into this work, and what most people misunderstand about taxpayer status in the first place. They discuss the difference between what people assume is mandatory versus what is actually elected, how enforcement typically unfolds, and why so many people comply without ever examining the structure they’re participating in.

If you’ve ever felt confused about “tacos”, forced contributions, or whether participation is truly voluntary, this episode will give you a new lens to look through.

The second half of this conversation includes an extended Q&A that is available exclusively inside Conscious Rebels Network.

If you want access to the full replay and future live calls, you can join here:👉 https://consciousrebelsnetwork.com/crn-membership

To learn more about Freedom Law Group and Chris Hughes, visit: https://freedomlawgroup.us/

As always, this episode is for educational and informational purposes only. Do your own research. Ask better questions. Stay grounded.

And decide consciously.

This is something I don’t talk about lightly. I don’t even like talking about it 😅

There was a period in my life where I made money faster than my nervous system could register it. My business took off. The numbers climbed. From the outside, it looked like success… but on the inside, I was unraveling.

I worked myself into the ground, telling myself it was all temporary. I told myself this is what ambition and hustling look like. I told myself rest could come later. By the time I bought the house, the cars, the clothes, the beauty upgrades (all the proof that I had “made it”) I was more miserable than I had ever been in my life.

I had so much money and zero capacity to actually enjoy it.

My marriage fell apart, which was actually a blessing in disguise, but the divorce process wiped me out both emotionally and financially. I lost way more than assets. I lost pieces of myself I didn’t even realize I had handed over to the grind.

Eventually, I sold the business and everything stopped. And then I did something I had never done before.

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One of the most frustrating things I hear from people goes something like this: “I did everything I was supposed to do, so why does money still feel so hard?”

This question matters because it pokes at a lie a lot of us were raised with. The idea that intelligence, education, and effort automatically lead to an easy financial life. They don’t. And when they don’t, people usually start to blame themselves. They assume something must be “wrong” with them.

Intelligence doesn’t override conditioning

You can be the smartest, most educated, emotionally intelligent, and highly capable kid on the block and still struggle with money. Why? Because decisions about money are rarely made from logic alone. They are made from identity, nervous system wiring, and subconscious beliefs that were formed waaay before you ever chose a career or opened a bank account.

This is why someone can understand money intellectually… yet still avoid looking at their finances. It’s also why someone can be a high earner but feel constant anxiety, or why someone can work nonstop and still feel constantly behind.

The brain doesn’t default to what’s logical. It defaults to what feels familiar. So if your system learned early on that money = stress, instability, control, or pressure, then your behavior will reflect that… even when you “know better.”

Doing everything right doesn’t mean the system works for you

There’s another piece here that seldom gets acknowledged. The “system” isn’t designed to create financial freedom for the average bear like you and me. It’s designed to create compliance, dependency, and predictability… and keep power in the hands of the few.

You can:
• go to the “best” college
• get the “right” degree
• follow the “rules”
• be a hard worker
• stay loyal to your employer for decades
• avoid risk entirely…

And still struggle.

That doesn’t mean you failed, though. All it means is the path you were taught to travel was never built with sovereignty in mind. That’s why so many of us feel like we’re running as fast as we can and not really getting anywhere, like there’s invisible chains keeping us from gaining any real ground. The system rewards your participation, not independence. Most of us play by the rules because we’re afraid of what’ll happen if we don’t.

Understanding this isn’t about blaming the system, yourself, or other people. It’s just about awareness.

The #1 belief that blocks progress

Most people aren’t blocked because they lack skill. They’re blocked by an invisible belief they’ve never questioned.

Some common ones:
• “People like me don’t make real money.”
• “If it were possible, I’d already be doing it.”
• “I’m not the kind of person who spots opportunities.”
• “Money comes from jobs, not creativity.”
• “I have to choose between security and freedom.”

These beliefs feel like facts because they’ve been reinforced over time. But they are assumptions… and assumptions shape the things you notice, the things you dismiss, and the things you never even consider. If your mind is trained to look for limits (why something isn’t possible), it’ll miss opportunities every time. You’ll never find what you’re not looking for.

Shifting from survival to value

One of the most important mindset shifts around money is moving from “How do I make more?” to “How do I create value?” Value isn’t reserved just for entrepreneurs or influencers or people with fancy resumes.

You have value.

Most people don’t struggle because they lack value, they struggle because they were trained to trade time for security instead of developing leverage, creativity, and awareness of opportunity.

You won’t magically be able to quit your job tomorrow, BUT if you want to start shifting your financial reality, you must change how you see yourself, money, and the world.

One thing you can do right now

Ask yourself this and write down the answer.

“If I stopped trying to survive, what would I actually notice?”

Opportunities aren’t hiding from you. They’re just filtered out by your belief. When your identity shifts from “I follow the path” to “I look for possibilities,” the world starts to look veeeerrrry different.

That shift isn’t instant, but it is learnable.

Where this work goes deeper

I’m teaching a money masterclass!!! It’s happening next week, Monday January 26th.

In it, I’m not teaching you to hustle harder. Or pretending the system is fair. Or bypassing reality with positive thinking.

I’m helping smart, capable people untangle the beliefs, conditioning, and identity patterns that keep them stuck even when they’re “doing everything right.”

If you’re ready to stop assuming the problem is you and start building a relationship with money that actually supports your life, this is where that begins.

Join the FREE Money Awareness Masterclass.

See you in there? <3

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For a long time, I believed the solution to my money stress was simple: make more money.

And to be fair, making more money does help. Bills get paid. Pressure lets up. Options expand.

But here’s what surprised me, and what I see over and over again with clients and students.

More money does not automatically create ease. More money does not automatically create safety. And more money does not automatically change your relationship with money.

In fact, for a lot of people, nothing really changes at all 😅

They get a raise, land a better client, hit a new income level. And somehow, a few months later, they’re right back where they started. The cushion is gone. The stress is back. The feeling of “why does it always feel this way?” creeps in again.

Your brain cares more about familiarity than wealth

Most people think money problems are external issues. Not enough income. Bad timing. Rising costs. A broken system. And some of that is true, but it’s not the whole picture. Your brain is wired for familiarity, not abundance.

If your nervous system is used to stress, urgency, or barely keeping up, it’ll unconsciously recreate that same experience over and over again, even when circumstances improve.

This is why someone gets more money and suddenly:
• a “surprise” expense appears
• spending increases without noticing
• lifestyle creep sneaks in
• financial decisions get rushed
• the extra disappears

It looks like bad luck. It feels unfair. But often, it’s the subconscious pulling things back to what feels normal. More money can feel unfamiliar. Unfamiliar can feel unsafe. So the system corrects. It’s not your fault, either, because you were conditioned to be this way from a very young age.

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Money alone does not change money patterns

This is why strategy by itself doesn’t work long term.

You can learn how to budget, invest, negotiate, or earn more. Those things matter. But if your internal response to money is still anxiety, avoidance, shame, or urgency, the behavior will eventually follow that internal state.

People assume they need more discipline. But what they usually need is better awareness. Until you see how you actually relate to money in real time, nothing sticks.

What awareness actually looks like

Awareness isn’t positive thinking. It isn’t affirmations. It isn’t pretending you feel abundant when you don’t. Awareness is noticing what happens inside you when money comes and goes from your life.

Here’s a simple exercise that’ll start shifting things immediately:

For the next week, don’t try to fix your money habits. Don’t cut spending or create new “rules.” Instead, observe.

Every time money comes in or goes out, pause for a second and just notice:
• what you feel in your body
• what thought shows up automatically
• what action(s) you feel pulled toward

That’s it. No judgment or correction. Just pure and simple observation.

You might notice things like:
“I avoid looking at my bank account.”
“I rush financial decisions when I feel external pressure.”
“I tense up even when there’s enough.”

This is where change actually begins. When you bring awareness to the internal pattern, the nervous system starts to relax. The urgency dissipates. The reaction softens up. You create space between the trigger and the behavior.

That space is where new choices become possible.

This is why money feels so personal

Money is not just math.
It is memory.
It is emotion.
It is identity.
It is safety.
It is worth.
It is fear.
It is freedom.

If your past taught you that money disappears, creates conflict, controls people, or determines your value, those beliefs live in your body, not just your mind. Until you work with that layer, more money just magnifies what is already there 😬

This is why some people make more and feel calmer, while others make more and feel more stressed than ever. The difference isn’t income but relationship.

If you want this to actually change…

This work is exactly why I’m teaching Transform Your Money this year.

Not to teach hustle/grind culture or gimmicky shortcuts. Not to sell some “do this and you’ll be rich” formula. But to help people understand and shift the internal patterns that decide whether money supports your life or controls it. It’s practical work – and it works, if you do it.

Transform Your Money is a live workshop series that begins January 29 and will be taught inside the Conscious Rebels Network mentorship community.

If you want more money to actually stick, feel usable, and support your freedom instead of running your nervous system ragged, this is where the real work happens. You can learn more and join CRN before the price increases here.

Transforming your relationship with money isn’t about becoming someone else. It’s about shedding all the layers of beliefs that aren’t you… and finally working in harmony with money, the way you were always meant to.

See you in class! 🙌

I want to talk about something that keeps coming up in the comments on my money videos.

Any time I talk about money, value, or building financial support, there are a few responses that always appear. They usually sound something like this:

• “Being wealthy isn’t Christ-like.”

• “God doesn’t want us focused on money.”

• “If you were really spiritual, you wouldn’t care about making money at all.”

I understand why people say this. Most of us were taught some version of it. I was too.

But this belief causes more harm than people realize, especially for people who genuinely want to live with integrity, faith, and freedom.

So let’s slow down and actually look at it.

The core assumption underneath those comments

The real belief hiding under all of those statements is this:

Wanting money is morally or spiritually wrong.

Once that idea gets lodged in your system, it sneakily shapes everything you do with money.

You might say you want more ease, more support, or more freedom, but another part of you feels conflicted as soon as money starts to come in. You hesitate, downplay your value, or somehow pull back without even realizing you’re doing it.

That is NOT God blocking abundance.

That is your internal resistance.

You can’t build something you believe you aren’t supposed to have.

Why this belief doesn’t actually hold up

Jesus talked about provision constantly.

He talked about stewardship, responsibility, and using what you have wisely. He talked about not being dependent on systems or rulers for survival. He talked about multiplication, not lack.

What he warned against was attachment, fear, and our identity getting tangled up in money. NOT money itself.

Lack was never the goal.

Poverty was never the ideal to emulate.

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How this assumption keeps people stuck

When someone believes that wanting money is wrong, it often shows up like this:

• They undercharge or avoid asking for fair compensation

• They avoid learning new skills because it feels “selfish”

• They stay in situations that drain them and believe it’s humility

• They feel guilty for wanting ease or support

• They wait for someone to rescue them instead of expanding their capacity for abundance

All of this is self-abandonment… not faith or virtue.

Other common money assumptions that keep people broke

These come up all the time, and you mistake them as facts:

• “I’m just not good with money.”

• “I don’t have anything valuable to offer.”

• “Only certain people can make real money.”

• “If I make more, I’ll become greedy.”

• “Money changes people for the worse.”

• “I should be grateful and stop wanting more.”

These are not facts. They are inherited beliefs.

And beliefs run behavior.

A simple shift you can make right now

Instead of asking, “How do I make more money?”

Try asking this:

What value am I already providing that I’ve been taught to overlook?

If you have ever:

• Written an email

• Organized information

• Solved a problem

• Raised a child

• Managed a household

• Edited, researched, taught, built, planned, or supported others

You have marketable (sellable, VALUABLE!) skills.

They are just so familiar to you that you probably don’t see them as valuable.

Money does not come from worthiness… it comes from value exchange and awareness.

And awareness can be learned.

This is exactly what we’ll work on during the LIVE Transform Your Money program

Not about hustling harder or “manifesting” checks out of thin air. And it’s definitely not about shaming yourself into “better habits.”

Transform Your Money begins January 29, and it’s a brand new program included inside Conscious Rebels Network.

This work is about:

• Identifying the assumptions running in the background of your financial life

• Untangling spirituality from scarcity

• Learning how money actually works (when fear isn’t steering)

• Seeing your value clearly instead of minimizing it

• Building support in your life without burning yourself out

This is the work I’ve done personally.
It’s the work I’ve done privately with clients.
And it’s the work I’ve wanted to teach publicly for a long time (I had to wait for the non-compete with my former company to expire before I started teaching about making money again 🤓).

If money never seems to stick around for you, it’s usually not because you’re irresponsible, lazy, or “not disciplined enough.”

It’s because your nervous system, beliefs, and identity were trained in an environment where wanting more felt unsafe or wrong.

That can be changed.

If this post rustled up something inside you, don’t ignore it!!

If you felt relief reading this, or a little discomfort, or a quiet “oh… heh… that’s me,” that’s your sign, my friend.

Transform Your Money starts January 29 inside Conscious Rebels Network.

When you join CRN, you get access to the full program plus the entire library of conversations, calls, on-demand courses, and the vibrant community already inside the network.

This is deep, practical work.
It’s also very human work… and you don’t have to figure it out alone anymore.

If you’re ready to stop fighting money and start understanding it, this is your invitation.

You don’t need to become someone else to change your financial reality. You just need to stop believing the things that were never true in the first place 🙌

New Year’s Eve always puts me in a reflective mood.

It’s like a quiet pause before the calendar flips. That strange moment where you can still feel the year you’re leaving, but you haven’t stepped into the next one yet.

I just wanted to say hi.

And thank you for being here.

Whether you’ve been reading along for a while or you just found your way here recently, I don’t take that for granted. I talk about some big, uncomfortable things. Money. Beliefs. Conditioning. Power. Freedom. And the fact that you’re willing to sit with those conversations means a lot to me.

As we head into January, I want to let you know what I’m focusing on here next.

All of January’s Substack posts will be free, and the theme for the month is money.

Not in a loud, flashy, hustle-y way. Not advice you’ve heard a thousand times before. And definitely not shame-based.

I want to talk about money the way it actually shows up in our lives. The emotions tied to it. The stories we learned about it. The assumptions we’ve been carrying around without realizing it. The ways it can feel heavy, stressful, confusing, or charged, even when the numbers look “fine.”

So many people think their money problems are about discipline or intelligence or effort. In my experience, they’re almost never about that.

They’re about awareness.

January will be about slowing down and looking honestly at our relationship with money. Where it came from. How it’s shaped us. And how changing the way we see money can quietly change everything else.

No pressure. No resolutions required. Just conversations that I think matter.

For today, though, you don’t need to fix anything.

Let the year land.
Let yourself rest.
And step into the next one a little more awake than before.

Happy New Year.
I’m really glad you’re here.

Caitlin

I grew up hearing a line that every Christian seems to have memorized: “The greatest lie Satan ever told was that he doesn’t exist.”

This is one of those phrases church people love because it feels so clever and mysterious, like they know something the rest of the world doesn’t.

But the older I got, the more I realized something wasn’t adding up. The biggest lie was not that Satan hid himself. It was that he disguised himself as God.

And I don’t mean that metaphorically. I mean it historically, psychologically, and spiritually.

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When I started deconstructing a few years ago, this idea kept tugging at me. Why did the God of the Old Testament behave like every abusive authority figure I had ever escaped from? Why did the God I met in prayer feel like love, peace, and expansion, but the God I grew up fearing felt like a dictator? Why did the version of God taught in most churches look more like a jealous king demanding tribute than the infinite Source of creation?

It made no sense. Not until I started studying the history behind it all.

Here’s the thing about deception… a conman would never introduce himself as a conman. He shows up wearing a suit and a friendly smile. He says, “Trust me with your money,” and then he drains your account dry. You never suspect him because he blends in with the people who seem trustworthy.

And if you look at the evolution of religion, you see the exact same pattern. Power doesn’t always show up as evil. It often shows up claiming to protect you. It tells you to fear the right things, obey the right rules, submit to the right authority. It tells you you’re sinful, broken, unworthy, powerless, and that your only hope is devotion to the very system that made you feel small in the first place.

That is how control works. It’s how it has always worked.

When Christianity became an institution under Rome, the image of God shifted dramatically. Suddenly God needed sacrifice. Suddenly God required obedience. Suddenly God demanded worship or punishment. Suddenly God was less like a loving creator and more like an emperor with cosmic authority.

But that is not who God is. That is who empire is.

And as someone who spent most of her life terrified of hell, terrified of disappointing God, terrified my thoughts could send me into eternal torment, I understand how effective this lie has been. Fear was my first religion. Shame was my second. I obeyed long before I ever learned how to love.

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Lisa spent over twenty years working deep inside Washington DC alongside major democratic leaders, agencies, and nonprofits. She wasn’t on the outside throwing stones. She was fully inside the machine. And then something shifted.

This conversation explores the quiet unraveling that happens when intuition starts speaking louder than institutional narratives. Not through debate or opposition, but through an internal knowing that something no longer adds up.

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There are certain insults Christians love to throw at me. “Heretic.” “False teacher.” “Dangerous.” “Deceived.”

I used to flinch when I heard those words. They triggered the old childhood fear that anything outside the narrow Christian box would land me in hell. I spent years being terrified of even thinking the wrong thoughts, let alone speaking them out loud.

But now? When someone calls me a heretic, I smile a little. Not because I’m trying to be edgy, but because I finally understand where that word came from and what it originally meant. And spoiler alert, it did not mean “evil” or “rebellious” or “misleading people away from God.”

It meant choice.

That is literally what the original Greek word hairesis meant: choice, opinion, school of thought. Nothing sinister or demonic. It was just the freedom to choose what you believed.

In ancient Greece, people followed different haireses the same way we follow different thinkers or authors today. One teacher emphasized virtue, another emphasized reason, while another emphasized the soul. Everyone thought for themselves and no one was threatened by the diversity of ideas.

Heresy only became a problem when Christianity became a system. Heresy is a social construct. It’s an entirely manmade concept!

What comes next is for paid subscribers.

Not because I want to hide anything. If I could publish every truth I know on the front page of the internet, I would. But I have been censored, flagged, shadowbanned, and threatened enough times to know I cannot share everything publicly. Platforms are not neutral. They are controlled. And the people who control them do not want these conversations happening out loud.

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There’s a line Christians love to throw around, and if you grew up like I did, you’ve heard it more times than you can count.

“Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me.”

It’s treated like this sacred badge of honor, the verse that proves you should suffer quietly, shrink yourself, abandon your desires, and call it holiness. It’s been used to guilt people into staying in toxic marriages, to convince people to tolerate abuse, even to shame people for wanting joy, freedom, or autonomy.

It’s wild how fast religion can weaponize a sentence.

But here’s the thing. That is not what Jesus meant. Not even close.

This became clearer to me when I started deconstructing Christianity. At first, I was terrified. I had spent my entire life afraid of disappointing God, of making a wrong move, of ending up in hell because I questioned (or rejected, or ignored!) the wrong verse. When the fear began unraveling, I wasn’t just spiritually confused, I was mentally spiraling. I had been told so often that doubting anything made me “backslidden” or “rebellious” that when my faith in the “Christian” version of God started disassembling itself, so did my sense of identity.

And that was the moment I realized something big. My entire spiritual life had been built on fear, not truth.

That realization caused me to ask better questions. Historical questions. Contextual questions. Real questions I never felt allowed to ask before. And one of the first teachings I revisited was this one.

What comes next is for paid subscribers.

Not because I want to hide anything. If I could publish every truth I know on the front page of the internet, I would. But I have been censored, flagged, shadowbanned, and threatened enough times to know I cannot share everything publicly. Platforms are not neutral. They are controlled. And the people who control them do not want these conversations happening out loud.

Paid Substack allows me to go deeper without worrying about trolls, censorship, or automated systems deciding what you are “allowed” to hear. If you are a paid subscriber, keep reading. If not, you can upgrade and unlock the rest instantly.

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Let’s talk about something I wish someone had said to me years ago, back when I was still terrified to question a single line in “scripture.”

A lot of Christians believe that if you don’t accept every word of the Bible as literal, perfect, untouchable truth, then you’ve basically decided to live like the devil. No morals, no compass, no accountability. Just… chaos, debauchery, and maybe some extra cursing.

For years, I believed that too. Not because it made sense, but because I was trained to believe it. I was taught that morality starts and ends with one authoritative book. If you wandered outside of it, even for a second, you’re opening the floodgates to depravity.

But the more honest I became with myself about how I actually felt about the Bible, the harder that was to reconcile. Because the Bible is not the gold standard of morality. Not even close.

And if you actually read it without flinching, without skipping the messy parts, without spiritualizing everything to make God look better than the text itself portrays him, you start to see the cracks.

Let’s walk through a few.

According to the morality of the Bible, genocide is fine as long as God commands it. Entire nations wiped out. Men, women, children, animals. And if the so-called chosen people are the ones doing it, it’s not just acceptable, it’s righteous.

Slavery? Not only condoned but regulated. As long as you follow the rules, it’s moral. Did you know that the Bible goes into more detail about how to own people than it does about how to love people?

Women? Silent and submissive. Basically, they’re property. Not spiritual equals, not teachers, not leaders. Just helpers. Extras. Background characters in a male-dominated story.

And if your kid mouths off or disobeys? Stone them to death. Literally kill them. That is in the Bible.

These are the “absolute truths” Christians claim we’re morally lost without. Some claim that “context” is important or that “that was part of the old covenant.” Wait… I thought God was the same yesterday, today, and forever…? Regardless… this is (or was) the standard we’re told is higher than all human reason, empathy, or conscience.

Yet most Christians ignore these parts entirely. They don’t preach them. They don’t post them on Instagram with a cute sunset background. They skip right over them because they didn’t, then they’d be forced to admit that these verses do not reflect love, wisdom, or divine truth. They reflect the brutality of the era they were written in and nothing more.

But the second I say, “I don’t think Paul’s private letters to Timothy are the literal words of God,” suddenly I’m the one cherry-picking?

The mental gymnastics required for that level of cognitive dissonance should qualify as an Olympic sport.

And we haven’t even gotten to the biggest mind-twist of them all: the belief that you were born evil. Before you ever take your first breath, you are already considered depraved, corrupt, and destined for hell. You arrive in the world guilty. Condemned.

That’s supposed to be morality? Sounds like psychological abuse dripping in authoritative, religious language. It is a crafty system designed to break your self-esteem, then sell you the cure for the wound it created. It is classic top-down control.

The truth I didn’t learn until much later is that morality does not come from fear. It does not come from obedience. It does not come from being told you are broken and only a book can fix you.

Morality comes from consciousness.

It comes from connection, compassion, intuition, and awareness. It comes from the part of you that knows what love feels like and recognizes harm even when a “sacred” text tells you it’s holy.

Rejecting the Bible as an absolute moral authority doesn’t mean you have no compass. It means you get to adopt a moral framework rooted in actual love rather than ancient brutality. Which is… like… such an exhale compared to the typical Christian way, right?!

It means you get to value women as equals because it is obvious that they are. It means you get to reject slavery because it is inhumane, no matter who allowed it. It means you get to say genocide is wrong, even if someone claims God commanded it.

And maybe most importantly, it means you no longer have to hate yourself in order to stay “faithful.” You no longer have to believe you were born a problem. You get to grow. You get to heal. You get to become a full and free human being.

That is morality. That is spirituality. That is truth.

Once you see this, it becomes almost impossible to go back to the old framework. You can’t unsee the contradictions. You can’t “unknow” the harm. You can’t pretend that fear and obedience are the same thing as love.

And if you’re in that deconstruction space right now, where everything feels shaky and confusing and you’re wondering who you’ll be on the other side of this, I want you to know something:

You are not losing your faith.
You are expanding it, allowing it to breathe and grow. You are waking up to a bigger, wider, deeper spirituality than anything all that reverence fear could ever contain.

You are remembering what love actually feels like…nd that is the beginning of real morality.

If you like these conversations and want to chat live with like-minded people, you should consider joining my private community Conscious Rebels Network.

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Most Christians are taught to fear the devil, but I was more afraid of God. Not the loving presence I know now, but the version handed to me: the one keeping a ledger, waiting for me to fail, demanding my devotion while threatening eternal torture if I didn’t get it right.

And Christians love to repeat the line, “The greatest lie Satan ever told was that he doesn’t exist.”

But the longer I’ve deconstructed, the more I realize that isn’t the greatest lie at all.

The greatest lie he ever told was that he was God.

When you grow up inside a belief system where fear has been rebranded as “reverence,” it’s almost impossible to question it. You don’t poke at the foundation. You don’t ask who built the house or why the architecture feels so claustrophobic. You just accept it because the cost of doubt feels too high (plus, all the adults in the room who know better than you believe it, so it must be right!).

But eventually, the cracks start to show.

A Conman Never Introduces Himself as a Conman

When I first started questioning things, I didn’t even know I was deconstructing. I just felt nauseous every time someone told me God “demanded” something. It reminded me of manipulative relationships I had been in. The kind where love and fear get tangled together until you cannot tell one from the other.

No abusive partner ever says, “Hey, here’s the truth. I’m here to control you.”
They say, “I’m doing this because I love you.”
“Don’t question me.”
“You’d be lost without me.”

(And the amount of times I heard “God desires your worship” from a pastor… just… ew.)

And one day it hit me: if a conman walked into a bank, he wouldn’t walk up to the teller and say, “Hi, I’m here to empty your accounts.”

He would say, “Trust me. I know what I’m doing.”

What comes next is for paid subscribers.

Not because I want to hide anything. If I could publish every truth I know on the front page of the internet, I would. But I have been censored, flagged, shadowbanned, and threatened enough times to know I cannot share everything publicly. Platforms are not neutral. They are controlled. And the people who control them do not want these conversations happening out loud.

Paid Substack allows me to go deeper without worrying about trolls, censorship, or automated systems deciding what you are “allowed” to hear. If you are a paid subscriber, keep reading. If not, you can upgrade and unlock the rest instantly.

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This conversation blends history, spirituality, and personal insight in a way that will challenge you, soften you, and expand you all at once.

If you want to watch the full uncut video replay, including audience Q&A, or join future roundtable conversations live, you can become part of Conscious Rebels Network, Caitlin’s private community where these discussions happen freely and uncensored.

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There was a time in my life when staying quiet felt like the only safe option. After years of being misdiagnosed, medicated, hospitalized, labeled, and dismissed, I learned that telling the truth could cost me everything. And for a long time, it did. I learned to bite my tongue because speaking openly made people uncomfortable. But over time the cost of silence became bigger than the cost of honesty.

Silence chipped away at my mental health. Silence made me physically sick. Silence shut down my intuition and made me doubt myself. And the more I tried to suppress what I knew, the worse I felt. Back then I believed the pain meant something was wrong with me.

Today I understand the pain was coming from the world I was finally starting to see clearly.

People see me now, driving a van across the country with my fiancé, running my businesses, talking about sovereignty, consciousness, and freedom. They see ease and clarity and calm. What they do not see is what came before all of that. The unraveling. The collapse. The absolute psychological and spiritual free fall that forced me to question every belief system I ever belonged to.

My religious deconstruction collided with burnout, divorce, and the mental health crisis that almost swallowed me whole. I was hospitalized four times against my will between 2018 and 2020. I was handed diagnoses that made no sense and pills that flatlined my spirit. I was told I was broken. I was told I had a lifelong disease. I was told I would need medication until I died.

Nobody asked about trauma. Nobody asked about nutrition or toxins or burnout. Nobody asked about the overwhelming cognitive dissonance of believing a loving God would torture you forever for asking the “wrong” questions. Nobody cared that the fear of hell was eating me alive. And nobody, not once, asked, “Are you sure this isn’t an awakening?”

It turns out that is exactly what it was.

Everything began to shift when I started questioning the structures around me. Religion. Money. Government. Medicine. Food. Science. Every institution we are told to trust. Every topic we are told not to touch. Every place where curiosity is treated like rebellion. What I found behind each curtain was the same thing. Control.

The more I deconstructed Christianity, the more I saw how deeply fear had been woven into its teachings. Fear of hell. Fear of sin. Fear of disappointing God. Fear of questioning doctrine. And then I learned about the Roman Empire and the role it played in rewriting Jesus’ message into something more useful for controlling an empire. That discovery alone could take up an entire book.

Before we go deeper, this is where I pause and tell you something important.

What comes next is for paid subscribers.

Not because I want to hide anything. If I could publish every truth I know on the front page of the internet, I would. But I have been censored, flagged, shadowbanned, and threatened enough times to know I cannot share everything publicly. Platforms are not neutral. They are controlled. And the people who control them do not want these conversations happening out loud.

Paid Substack allows me to go deeper without worrying about trolls, censorship, or automated systems deciding what you are “allowed” to hear. If you are a paid subscriber, keep reading. If not, you can upgrade and unlock the rest instantly.

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This is the kind of honest, uncensored conversation you cannot have on social media without getting flagged or misunderstood. Which is exactly why it’s happening here.

If you want to watch the full unedited version, including the live Q&A with Caitlin and Paul, you can access the complete recording inside Conscious Rebels Network. And if you want to be part of conversations like this live, CRN is where we go deep without censorship.

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I get messages all the time that say, “I want to start deconstructing, but I don’t even know where to begin.”

I get it. When you first start questioning things you were taught to never question, it can feel like your whole identity is cracking open. It’s confusing, lonely, and sometimes terrifying. Especially when everything you thought was “holy” starts to feel like it was just another layer of control.

My own journey didn’t start as a rebellion. It started as survival. I was exhausted, burned out, and terrified I was going to hell just for having doubts. I did everything I was told to do (prayed harder, studied more, obeyed completely) and still felt empty. That’s when I started asking real questions.

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Questions like:
What if I’m not broken?
What if God isn’t angry?
What if everything I was taught about sin and suffering was about control, not love?

That’s when everything began to shift.

When you start pulling on one thread, the whole tapestry of belief begins to unravel. At first, it feels like destruction. But it’s not. It’s rebuilding. It’s learning how to trust your own inner compass again.

You don’t have to do it perfectly. You don’t even have to know where it will lead. Deconstruction isn’t about finding a new belief system to replace the old one. It’s about discovering what’s true for you beneath all the noise.

So if you’re at the start of your own unlearning, here are a few gentle ways to begin:

1. Ask your own questions, even if they scare you. Curiosity is not sin. It’s sacred.

2. Read things you were told not to. There’s wisdom in the forbidden.

3. Listen more than you defend. You don’t have to win arguments, you’re exploring.

4. Notice how your body feels when you hear truth. It’s usually calm, peaceful, and expansive.

5. Find community. People who aren’t afraid to have honest conversations will help you stay grounded when everything feels uncertain.

For me, this journey led far beyond religion. It opened up my health, my relationships, my work, and my sense of freedom. When you wake up in one area of your life, you start waking up in all of them.

That’s why I created Curated Heresy. A collection of the books, podcasts, and resources that helped me begin. It’s not about telling you what to believe. It’s about giving you starting points to think, feel, and explore for yourself.

If you’re ready to start your own journey, you can grab it here.

Just remember: questioning isn’t betrayal. It’s how you find truth.