Ep. 2: Layers of Healing | Soul Retreat ReflectionsEp. 2: Layers of Healing | Soul Retreat Reflections
From Hurt To Healed
Yuri Huntington reflects on her 2023 “soul retreat”, sharing journal entries about spiritual abuse, church search, boundaries at work, and brain health. She ties together faith, therapy, and practical journaling tools to show how layers of healing can unfold over time.
51:49•28 Mar 2026
Layers of Healing: Church Hurt, Brain Health and Boundaries
Episode Overview
- Long exposure to critical, performance-based church leadership can distort beliefs about authority, worth, and “excellence.”
- Returning to church can become a fresh layer of healing when pastors and worship teams are allowed to be human instead of perfect.
- Being called rude does not automatically mean you are rude; calmly saying “not right now” can be a healthy professional boundary.
- Understanding brain function, such as an overactive thalamus on a SPECT scan, can reshape how prayer, stress and emotional reactions are approached.
- Daily journaling, including two-handed writing exercises, can reveal patterns, release emotion, and create space to hear wiser, faith-filled responses.
“I’ve not arrived, but I have arrived in this new state of being.”
What can we learn from those who have battled addiction, church hurt, and people-pleasing all at once? Here, Yuri Huntington shares her ongoing “soul retreat” from 2023, reading straight from her journal and letting you peek into the mental exercises she used to move from spiritual abuse towards healthier faith and everyday life.
You’ll hear her unpack raw moments, like panicking over parking in a disabled bay at a new church, only to realise the anxiety came from years of being trained to treat pastors like royalty. As she says, “We were just the trained ones… we had the spirit of excellence. Everybody else needed to be taught.” Her reflections gently challenge anyone who’s been shaped by controlling or critical church cultures.
The conversation shifts to the workplace too, where Yuri talks about being labelled “rude” for saying a simple, calm “Not right now” to a chatty colleague. With help from her therapist, she learns the difference between being rude and being professional, offering reassurance to anyone who struggles with boundaries and fears being seen as unkind. There’s a strong brain-health thread running through the talk.
Yuri describes a SPECT brain scan showing an overactive thalamus and connects it to years of constant spiritual warfare-style prayer. She experiments with calmer, shorter prayers like, “It’s in your hands, God,” and wrestles with the fear that not weeping and wailing means she doesn’t care.
Throughout, she keeps things practical: journaling every day, re-reading her year like a third person, and even using two different coloured pens to write questions with her non-dominant hand and “God’s responses” with her dominant one. It’s honest, faith-filled, and especially helpful if you’re healing from church trauma while trying to stay sober, stable, and spiritually grounded. Maybe it’s time to grab a notebook and ask: what patterns in your own story are finally ready for a fresh rewrite?
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