Reclaiming Curiosity After Religious Control
Restoring the quiet dignity of thinking and wondering for yourself.
TW/CW: Religious phrases used by high-control systems with reference to divine power, authority.
Have you ever gone to ask the religious leader a question, only to feel it die before it reached the air?
Maybe it was a doubt about a sermon, a doctrine, or a decision.
Before the thought could even form, something inside you shut down. Guilt. Fear.
The echo of familiar phrases:
“Don’t lean on your own understanding.”
“Pride comes before the fall.”
“Just have more faith.”
It registered in your nervous system as rebellion. What should have felt like curiosity and understanding felt like guild and shame.
Your confusion about something wasn’t a welcome or valid response.
They framed it as spiritual failure.
So you stayed quiet.
And a part of you learned that your own mind wasn’t a safe place to live.
If this feels familiar, hear me clearly: that self-censorship wasn’t yours.
It was finely crafted, fiercely defended, and forced upon you.
There’s a name for that invisible cage: loaded language and thought-stopping clichés.
Naming it is the first step toward dismantling it.
The Architecture of the Cage
In high-control religious systems, cryptic language is used for control. Words become walls. Religious jargon and spiritualized phrases are used to stop questions before they start.
I lived this. Recently in my ministry career, I was asked to build a leadership school in a large church.
Whenever I encouraged people to think deeply or ask hard questions, I was met with:
“Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.”
It sounded humble.
But in practice, it was an attempt to shutdown anything that challenged the status quo. It was a way of keeping curiosity from becoming change.
And, conveniently, it kept leadership in control.
It was often paired with the idea that our hearts were “deceptively wicked,” meaning our emotions and reasoning couldn’t be trusted.
That message does real damage.
It taught us that our intuition was dangerous and that “god’s will” (as defined by leadership) was the only safe path forward. That path usually was the one that required more unpaid hours, unquestioned loyalty, and attempts to violate our dignity.
These weren’t isolated moments. They’re part of a much bigger pattern.
A system that flattens our complex, beautiful reality into neat, pre-approved boxes.
It can look like:
Silencing questions about suffering or injustice with “god’s ways are not our ways.”
Protecting leaders from accountability by insisting “god anoints/appoints leaders.”
Bypassing pain with “Let go and let god” or “Take every thought captive.”
Labeling curiosity as pride, calling your intellect rebellion.
The Impact: An Internal Kill Switch
These phrases get under your skin. Over time, they become an internal kill switch that attempts to automatically silence your curiosity and questions.
This is the opposite of mindfulness.
True self-compassion invites you to observe your thoughts without judgment.
Thought-stoppers teach you to fear your internal dialogue or grow anxious trying to figure out which internal voice is divine and which one is a distraction.
Mystified language becomes the cage. You start avoiding nuance, complexity, contradiction, and yet that is where real growth happens.
Eventually, you can forget what it feels like to think freely, to wonder, to disagree with integrity.
Your questions were never the problem.
The system that felt threatened by them are the problem.
A Gentle Practice: Reclaiming One Thought
If this resonates with you and your experience, I am sorry. I grieve with you.
Your body might be remembering what it felt like to be silenced and diminished.
If it feels safe, let’s take one small step back toward freedom.
Ground yourself. Feel your feet on the floor. Notice the steadiness beneath you.
Soften your jaw. Let your tongue rest on the floor of your mouth—the place where unspoken words often live.
Welcome one thought. Whatever shows up—big or small—let it be there without judgment.
Say quietly: “This thought is allowed here.”
That’s it. You just practiced intellectual consent with yourself.
That is a quiet revolution.
The First Cracks of Light
Healing from thought control takes time. It is hard to overcome the feelings of guilt, shame, and rebellion. Trusting your intuition again is none of those things. It is liberation.
I hope you can find some space today to let yourself wonder again.
Perhaps you can start with small, honest questions. “I wonder what I really think about that.”
Notice your internal ‘no.’ When a phrase feels off, trust that sense.
Your body often knows before your mind can explain.
Consider reading what was once off-limits. Not as an act of rebellion, but to remember that you get to choose who teaches you. Perhaps reading this post is enough.
Be patient. Rebuilding trust with your own mind is slow work. Some days curiosity will feel thrilling. Other days, terrifying. Both are holy.
Your mind is not a liability; it’s a gift.
Your curiosity is not rebellion; it’s hardwired in you, and it is a damn good thing.
The system that taught you otherwise was too small to hold the magnificent, complex, thinking-and-feeling human you’ve always been.
You get to be in charge of your own thoughts.
At your pace. On your terms. In your language.
Your dignity matters—always.
To inquire, challenge, explore and create are sacred qualities of being human.
Yours is the voice we desperately need in the deconstruction community right now. Thank you for this!