Self-Trust as Spiritual Practice: Exvangelical Confidence-Building
A story from therapy . . .
For exvangelicals, self-trust, that backbone of confidence, often seems out of reach. I am no exception.
How do you develop self-trust when you are told that the core of your being “is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9, KJV)?
That’s why therapy has been so helpful for me.
My therapist and I have been working on self-trust and confidence. They reminded me that whenever I feel a lack of self-trust, I am operating from a younger version of myself; in other words, my brain is following an old pathway from my cult days, operating in response to past threats as opposed to anything in the present.
But what about confidence itself?
My therapist gave me a list of sensations and instructed me to choose some to describe what confidence would feel like to me.
I chose buoyant.
After that, my therapist had me close my eyes, and they told me a story about that confident human (me), creating an image for my mind to remember, focusing on buoyancy.
And now, when I’m feeling a lack of self-trust and confidence, I imagine myself as they described me. As a whole person and adult in the present, buoyant in whatever situation I am in, glowing with ability and focus and a sense of my own worth.
It’s a small step, but I’m already seeing improvements. And that sense of connecting to confidence helps me feel connected to all who have confidence or who have struggled to find it, a magickal/transformative intersection of hope, love, and encouragement.
Because I still do believe Love holds me—and the universe—up. And that Love—for myself, for others, and from others—is where I see the spiritual and the divine in my secular-ish way.
In Wonder and Resistance,
Ivy Zeller (she/they)
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Learning to trust myself has been equal(ish) parts terrifying and delightful. 🌸
This was one of the first things I started deconstructing after I left the church. It is so difficult to be removed from your intuition and self-trust from childhood and to have to rediscover it as an adult. I have made MANY mistakes trying to find it again. All worthwhile to me 💕