Post-Congregational Healing: On Belonging, Therapy, and Whatever We’re Calling Community Now w/ Chris Curia

What happens when the spaces that once held us stop holding?This week on The Tampon Aisle, I sit down with Chris Curia (he/they), a therapist, educator, and community organizer who has spent years asking what it means to heal when the system itself is sick.We talk about life after church - not the loss of belief, but the reimagining of it. Why healing is never just about the self, and how liberation begins in the smallest, most relational ways.It’s part therapy, part theology, part reckoning with what happens when your community dissolves and you have to build one again - out of your neighbors, your nervous system, and whoever’s still showing up on your doorstep.This one’s about healing as resistance, belonging as practice, and the quiet revolution of learning to hold each other well.See you in the aisle,Olivia 🤍✨ Meet the GuestChris Curia (he/they) is a psychotherapist, educator, and community leader based in Seattle, WA. Chris holds graduate degrees in counseling psychology and community development from The Seattle School, a small, psychoanalytic graduate institution where Chris works as a member of the Instructional Staff. Chris’s graduate research explored strategies for more equitable mental health outcomes through trauma-informed, community-centered care models and innovative civic partnerships. In a similar spirit, Chris serves as an appointed member of Seattle’s LGBTQ Commission, advising public officials and city departments on issues and policies affecting LGBTQ+ Seattleites. Beyond these roles, Chris is an accomplished speaker and writer who resides in the Pioneer Square neighborhood.✨ Meet your HostOlivia Lehman (she/her) is a therapist, writer, and host of The Tampon Aisle, where she explores the intersections of embodiment, healing, and creative expression. Through her private practice and community platform, Rhythmós, she offers 1:1 therapy and somatic-based intensives that help people reconnect to the intelligence of the body and rediscover a more grounded, relational way of being.The algorithm’s not gonna heal itself — share this one.🎧 Listen to this episode of The Tampon Aisle on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Get full access to Inner Signal at thetamponaisle.substack.com/subscribe