Holy Hell - with Elise Heerde

Episode 106: Elise Heerde (she/her) is author of the recently published book "Holy Hell: Saved so hard I needed therapy" . In this conversation we talk about Elise's experience of growing up within a high-demand/high-control pentecostal megachurch, her journey toward becoming a leader and staff member, through to the ways in which it all fell apart. Elise has now gone on to work in the space of helping people recover from religious trauma, and so we talk about red flags and warning signs of an unhealthy spirituality, we discuss "sin journals" and spiritual gaslighting, methods of control and manipulation, as well as dive into the kind of work she does to help people work through these experiences and find healing. Elise is a Certified Coach in Melbourne, Australia, who helps people recover from religious trauma and cultic systems. Her work is grounded in lived experience, professional training, and a passion for creating safe, judgment-free spaces with a splash of sarcasm. You can find out more about her work here . She is also a co-founder of The Religious Trauma Collective (Australia/New Zealand) You can support the work of In the Shift via Patreon . Get in touch via email: feedback@intheshift.com . In this episode I also mention fundraising for an album of progressively-inclined worship music by my faith community, Edge Kingsland. You can support that project here .

You can listen to Holy Hell - with Elise Heerde online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Holy Hell - with Elise Heerde is an episode from In the Shift by Michael Frost.

This episode is 83:43 long.

This episode was published on Aug 28, 2025.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from In the Shift when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.