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.

So many capable, gifted Christian women are living a double life that is impressive in public, but diminished in private, and they don't even have words for what's happening to them. This episode will change that.

🔑 Key Takeaways:

• There's a specific kind of loneliness that has nothing to do with being sad, and it's far more common among high-functioning Christian women
• The reason you can run a business, lead a ministry, and hold everything together but still feel like no one actually knows you
• Why the very things people praise you for might be the things that are slowly killing you
• What's really happening in your body when you live this way, and why it's not a spiritual problem

Get Today’s Free Resource:

🧐 I wrote a book just for high functioning Christian women 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 one of my favorite interviews! Today I’m talking with my friend, Dr. Tiffany Yecke Brooks, author of Gaslighted by God, Holy Ghosted, and her brand-new book, To Rebehold the Stars: Reimagining Faith After Deconstruction.

If you've walked through the painful process of deconstructing the toxic theology you inherited, this conversation is going to knock your socks off.

Drawing from Dante's Inferno (I know, right?!), classical literature, and deep theological study, Tiffany shows you how to create a new spiritual lexicon that actually reflects the heart of God.

(Listen to find out what that even is!)

This isn't about burning it all down. It's about holding up each piece to the light and deciding: Does this stay or go?

🔑 Key Takeaways:

• The one thing fundamentalism can't tolerate (and why that's actually your doorway to freedom)
• What Dante's Inferno has to do with your faith journey, and why the final line matters so much
• The Greek word that completely reframes what forgiveness actually means
• Why the images you were given for God might be keeping you stuck in an outdated script
• What happens when you stop trying to be perfect and start focusing on being good

Resources mentioned:

📰 Tiffany’s Substack Newsletter (but only if you like to laugh - otherwise stay away)

📚 Her new book: To Rebehold the Stars: Reimagining Faith After Deconstruction.

🎧 Her OTHER interviews with me (all AMAZEBALLS):

1. Confronting Religious Trauma
2. Overcoming Spiritual Anxiety

👹 The book Dr. Brooks copy-edited for me AND that is a perfect illustration of what her book Holy Ghosted is talking about: All the Scary Little Gods

🆓 And hey - listen to my book FREE by going to scarylittlegods.com!

Tiffany Yecke Brooks is the lead or contributing writer on more than two dozen books, including multiple New York Times bestsellers. She is the coauthor of Fear Is a Choice: Tackling Life’s Challenges With Dignity, Faith, and Determination (with NFL running back James Conner), Limitless: The Power of Hope and Resilience to Overcome Circumstance (with Paralympic gold-medalist Mallory Weggemann), and the narrative nonfiction historical thriller Espionage and Enslavement in the Revolution: The True Story of Robert Townsend and Elizabeth (with historian Claire Bellerjeau). Her newest book, To Rebehold the Stars: Reimagining Faith After Deconstruction, was released in March 2026 by Eerdmans. She has also published articles in peer-reviewed journals and the Smithsonian. Tiffany holds a PhD from Florida State University, where her dissertation covered, in part, cultural adaptations of stories from the book of Genesis, and an MA from the University of Bristol in the UK, where her thesis examined cultural influences and literary techniques in the Gospel of Luke. A popular speaker for student groups, faith conferences, and academic lectureships, Tiffany has taught literature and writing at Abilene Christian University, McMurry University, and the University of South Carolina – Beaufort.

What happens when seeing your ex derails all your progress? And why do your friends think he's such a great guy when you know the truth?

🔑 Key Takeaways:

• Why seeing your ex after months can feel like all your progress disappeared (it didn't)
• What trauma bonding actually does to your memory of the relationship
• Why emotionally abusive people seem so great to everyone else
• The false equivalency that keeps people from believing abuse survivors
• How to know if you're lonely for him or for something else entirely

🎁 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.

In this episode we tackle three questions: What happens when the abuser is the one who leaves? How do you live with the fear of post-separation or post-divorce revenge? And what do you do when your friends just don't get it?

🔑 Key Takeaways:

• Why some abusers discard their victims (and what it reveals about your progress)
• The difference between fear you should listen to and fear that steals your peace
• What actually helps kids navigate their father leaving
• The one question to ask yourself when trying to help someone understand your experience
• Why chasing validation from people who don't get it creates unnecessary suffering

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.

This isn't my typical podcast episode. Today I get personal, sharing why I’ve decided to pursue graduate studies in theology after experiencing profound spiritual abuse throughout my entire life. If you've read All the Scary Little Gods, you know my story, and you might be wondering why I’d ever step back into that world.

I invite you into my journey of healing, my commitment to simplicity in 2026, and the real reason I keep this podcast free.

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.

In Episode 369 of the Flying Free Podcast, you’ll learn a term that's more accurate than "narcissistic abuse,” and it's actually being recognized in courts of law. This is part four of The Narcissism Trap Series, and it shifts everything from trying to diagnose your partner to recognizing what's really happening to you.

If you've been stuck wondering whether he meets the clinical criteria for narcissism or whether therapy could change him, this episode will free you from that trap. Natalie breaks down coercive control—what sociologist Evan Stark calls a "liberty crime"—and why understanding this pattern matters more than any personality disorder diagnosis ever could.

🔑 Key Takeaways:

• Why sociologist Evan Stark calls coercive control a "liberty crime" (and what that means for you)
• The calculated reason behind those "small" controlling acts that don't seem like abuse
• What happens in your brain when you start to self-police your own thoughts and feelings
• Why England made this a criminal offense in 2015 (and which U.S. states are following)
• The internal checkpoint questions that reveal if you're living in coercive control right now

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.