HeyJaredLeslie Nease
Welcome to this space for fellow travelers walking through life & faith transitions. Here, we ask honest questions, share observations, and explore the path of deconstruction together. My hope is that you’ll find encouragement, connection, and community.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 18
- Latest publication
- Sep 29, 2026
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- Earliest in this view
- Aug 24, 2026
Latest issues
“You’ve Heard It Said” (opens the original)
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Hello, friends! This is the book I’ve been quietly working on for the past year or so. I was going to try to publish it but I recently decided to go ahead and share it here, with my readers on Substack. Please feel free to share it. I will share a chapter every week on Tuesdays for the next 10 weeks or so. Please engage in the comments, let me know your thoughts! -Leslie :)INTRODUCTIONThe One Thing That Wouldn’t Let Me GoWhen I began deconstructing my religious beliefs, I expected to lose everyt
Religion & The Brain (opens the original)
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What happens in our bodies when the beliefs we grew up with begin to unravel? In this episode of Honoring the Journey, I talk with Dr. Shaleen Kendrick, author of Your Three Brains, about her experience growing up as a megachurch pastor’s daughter and how understanding the brain and nervous system helped her make sense of religious trauma. We explore fear, curiosity, and what it can look like to find wholeness as we make room for a new story.Find out more about Shaleen and her work on her
Religious Trauma & The Nervous System (opens the original)
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On today’s Honoring the Journey, I have a deep conversation with Kallie Klug, a somatic practitioner, yoga instructor, and author of Tired of Being Good, to explore the concept of “fawning” as a biological stress response rooted in people-pleasing. We discuss how growing up in religious environments can wire the nervous system for chronic fawning by coupling goodness with salvation and stigmatizing anger as sinful. Kallie breaks down the physiology behind the fawn response and how it layers free
A Master and a Hound (opens the original)
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For the past, I don’t know, ten years or so—throughout my deconstruction—I have gravitated toward the song Master and a Hound by my favorite artist of all time, Gregory Alan Isakov. I mean, I could listen to this song on repeat (and sometimes I do) and never get sick of it. He remade this song with the Colorado Symphony and that version of the song does something deep in my soul that I could never explain.Until today.Today I got quiet and let the lyrics fall over me.Why does it touch me so deepl
I’m Not Going to Abandon Myself Again (opens the original)
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I have spent the past ten years of my life taking apart and putting back together nearly everything I once believed about God, faith, church, and myself, and it has been an incredible journey.For the past three years, I have brought that journey into public view with podcasting, writing, videos, and content on social media. I trained as a coach and spiritual director so I could help others through the wilderness of deconstruction. It helped me so much to grow in empathy, compassion and gave me t
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