In this conversation, Dani sits with Pamela Merritt, a therapist based in Georgia who describes herself as a daughter, friend, wife, auntie, and someone who is self-discovering. Together, they explore faith, resilience, and the courage to reconstruct belief with honesty and grace. They reflect on how community can feel like belonging and pressure at the same time, why some teachings become weaponized, and what healthy spirituality feels like in the body. Pamela shares why she still claims parts of Christianity for the sake of lineage, even as she releases harmful interpretations, and how her work around religious trauma grew from her own deconstruction journey.
The episode opens with a creative game that sets a reflective tone. Pamela picks a two-minute timer, the topic of religion, and an opposite-outcome response, then walks through how people justify harmful behavior online and what it would mean to choose another path. Her reflections keep returning to inner honesty, context, and the limits of forcing confessions from others who have not yet admitted truth to themselves.
From there, Pamela traces her Pentecostal-adjacent upbringing, the strict rulebooks, and the difference between church culture and the compassionate space her parents created at home. She shares how losing her mother at 18 pushed her to decide what she truly believed and how trying to live by rules exhausted her connection with God. That season led to deconstruction, new communities, and a confident faith that no longer tears people down. Her guideposts are relationship with God, room to ask questions, and a commitment to liberating rather than controlling others.
Pamela also offers practical markers for discernment: notice fear-based messages that trigger anxiety and “or else” thinking, pay attention to how scripture gets lifted out of context, ask who funds the platform or school behind a voice, use curiosity and community to navigate deconstruction, and above all, give yourself grace in the back-and-forth of leaving and returning while you learn to trust your own sense of safety with God.
Questions explored in this episode include:
Why do so many of us feel torn between community and conscience when faith becomes rule-heavy?
How do you honor family faith without inheriting harmful interpretations?
What does healthy spirituality feel like in your body, and how do you recognize fear-based teaching?
Who funds the voices shaping your beliefs, and why does that matter?
How can grace become a daily practice while you reconstruct trust in God and yourself?
About the Creator
Pamela Merritt
Website: therapist.com/clinician/pamela-merritt
Instagram: @TFCATL
Podcast: Holy Smokes Podcast
Affiliation: The Faith Community, Atlanta