Hi, I’m Ayo and this is my story.
In my early 20s, I was a trained social worker and my work regularly spilled out into the evenings and weekends.
I also served on a number of different teams at church 3-4 nights a week. I served 6 or so hours on a Sunday and frequent Saturday mornings for leadership meetings. I gave a lot of time and energy and I loved parts of it. But I was soon burnt out.
Mental health wasn’t really something that was talked about at that time, especially not in church and so I got the message that I lacked faith or that something was wrong with me for not being able to keep up like others did.
At my worst point, I remember being so burnt out that I didn’t know what year it was. I genuinely felt like I was on the verge of a breakdown. I quit my job without another one lined up & I got really ill soon after. I knew things had to change but I had no idea where to start.
The small but mighty shifts that started to change it all
After some rest, recovery and a career break. I started a discipleship programme for worship leaders in 2017. It was an 18 month journey that would change the course of my life. The most impactful thing was hearing leaders agree to disagree on theology. It made me realise that the environments I was used to didn’t really allow for theological differences, especially not big ones!
In this programme, I was also encouraged to consider:
💫Sexism in church (and how deeply rooted it was in the Evangelical/Pentecostal world I was in)
💫Black Theology and other theologies that seriously considered power (and these were white guys mind you!)
💫Personality, trauma, and the ways our unique wounds can show up in how we relate to others. I was introduced to frameworks like the Enneagram that helped me to understand my core wounds.
💫Harmful theologies that made God seem angry and out to get me (and how these mimicked my early childhood wounds!)
💫Silence, solitude and stillness as spiritual practices (which was music to my ears as an introverted being tormented in the extrovert world of Evangelicalism lol!)
💫 Lament as a useful spiritual practice (this was such a relief because I had noticed that my church world seemed to really be allergic to anything mildly resembling melancholy even when they were actually the most appropriate responses!)
After the programme, I started to read about other ideas that challenged the norms and critically considered power, emotional and mental health, overfunctioning, hustle culture, capitalism, patriarchy, race, queerness, ableism, and how these issues show up in church cultures.
By this time I had started going to therapy for the first time too, which deepened my journey and gave me some space to focus on myself in a meaningful and directed way.
I honoured my limits and honed in on my unique gifts
I started to take my introversion seriously. I respected it and honoured it. I saw my limits as gifts not walls to blast through “by faith”. Becoming a mum in this season also meant I couldn’t use my old survival mechanisms of “pushing through” or overfunctioning to “ keep the peace” or avoid anxiety anymore.
But I wanted more…
I had known for a while that I wanted to change careers when I became a parent, and for ages I had no clue what that would be until I was doing some career coaching exercises and it all clicked. It was then that I decided to retrain as a therapist. I was fortunate to train and work in the NHS and I have never been more happy to go to work!
Fast forward to today
I love what I do and my lived experience brings a real depth of understanding and compassion to my work.
I wish I could go back and tell 2015 Ayo: “It gets so much better! We have stopped overfunctioning to the point of burnout, we have boundaries now, we notice and respect our limits. We can feel pain, sadness and a multitude of other emotions without shame, and we have found a fulfilling career”.
I don’t fit in and I’m learning to be okay with that
To be honest, I don’t feel I fully fit in a lot of deconstruction spaces because I still believe in God. And I don’t fit in most church spaces now because my views have radically changed.
I don’t think people have to give up their faith completely to deconstruct and I genuinely do not think I would have survived this far without God. I don’t simply think my faith was a figment of my imagination or that it was a crutch as some people might explain it.
But I’m not dogmatic in my views anymore and practice curiosity over convincing others!
I am still a student in many of the topics mentioned above and am continually humbled as I learn. I’m still learning to embrace my misfit identity and have to give a shout out to one of my favourite podcasts that helped me through this process: “Sunday School for Misfits” by Dr Selina Stone.
And I’m definitely not “fully healed”, motherhood has stretched and (continues to stretch me!)
But what I do have now is:
🌟A faith that isn’t rooted in fear or controlling others
🌟Friendships that are reciprocal and fulfilling
🌟The ability to be in and listen to my body and its wisdom
🌟Self-compassion where self-criticism and perfectionism used to dominate
🌟Courage and curiosity where certainty used to reign
My work as a therapist
And this is what I teach and support clients with everyday, so they can learn self-compassion, curiosity and courage for their own journeys.
In my private practice, I specialise in overfunctioning, burnout and anxiety. And I love to support “good church girls” and “strong ones” to re-write their rules.
Of course, I can’t promise that you will have all the same outcomes as I did. I respect your unique journey and will support you to find your own path.
If you’d like to work with me via therapy, book a free intro call here.
Thank you for being here, reading, and connecting with me.
I know there is more to you than the role you have learned to play, and those parts are precious and worthy of care, even if you may not see it yet.
