A quick quiz. How many of these are true for you?
I am not sure I really know myself.
It is hard for me to appreciate myself.
I don't know what it would look like to love and celebrate myself.
I don't trust myself.
It is hard for me to actually feel my feelings.
I am uncomfortable with not knowing.
I rely on external mirrors and validation to understand and experience myself.
I struggle to create deep and meaningful relationships with myself and others.
I don't know how to feel a sense of community and belonging without religion.
I struggle to stay in the present.
I got a 10/10! A perfect score. They were all true for me. My religious conditioning made it really hard to see that all these experiences were founded in beliefs designed to control and limit me.
But what about you?
Do you have difficulty making decisions? Maybe you don’t know much about what you truly like, so it’s going to be hard to make decisions quickly that you feel good about?
Maybe you felt like you were “too much” for your parents, and that the only appropriate emotions were gratitude and submission, so you learned to shut down your feelings and numb out?
Maybe there were so many purity rules around sex and the women’s obligation to the man, that you have difficulty enjoying sex or sexual play and/or feel guilty saying no to your partner?
Maybe after being told that you were created a servant, your worth is tied up in doing, but you can never seem to do enough or do it well enough to feel good about yourself?
Maybe you were taught the world is a scary place and you don’t trust yourself to know how to keep yourself safe while trying something new, like a new job, relationship, etc.?
Maybe you were in an abusive relationship in your religion, and you only hear that person’s voice in your head criticizing you at every turn?
Maybe you were taught that your worth is tied up in how well you please others, so you keep seeking out a relationship in which that partner will be pleased with you…and to be alone feels like death?
Maybe you are something other than a cis-het female and you could never be who you really felt you were without being labeled bad and rejected?
Maybe you were taught that women’s only place is in the home or that the job you want has historically been given to a man, and you don’t feel like you deserve it or that it’s too late to be any good at it or you just shouldn’t have it?
We may have been told that white people are the more deserving race, that women are second-class citizens compared to men, that being queer in any capacity is a sin, that if you go against any ordinance you’ll wind up in hell, that there is a right way and a wrong way to do things, and the way you were brought up is the right way. You may have been taught that women are not allowed to enjoy sex, and they are responsible for a man’s pleasure or his wrong-doing if he has been tempted. You may have been taught that children should be seen and not heard, or that boys should be outspoken and rough, but that girls should be soft-spoken and deferential, but above all complete obedience is required. You may have been taught to deny and ignore your own needs and desires, and to shut-down any unpleasant feelings that may make God feel you’re not thankful or may be a burden to anyone else. You have most likely been taught that you are a sinner deserving of hell just by existing with the stain of original sin, and that you required a blood sacrifice to be accepted into heaven by the God who made you.
These are just some of the many beliefs that get instilled when it comes to how we are told to live our lives in the context of religion.
After coming out of a high-demand religion that taught me that:
I was a sinner, and deserving of hell apart from Christ;
my badness caused Jesus to have to be tortured and put to death;
as a woman, I was less than men;
and that as a human I was easily deceived and needed to trust in the doctrine, customs, and counsel of the church I happened to belong to.
I really struggled to have a healthy relationship with myself. But I learned that healing from religious conditioning had so much to do with having a healthy relationship with my true self. Only then would I have a healthy relationship with that which is greater, others, and the rest of creation/existence.
Giving myself permission to cultivate the relationship I have with myself and to live my life on my own terms has been the greatest gift I could have every hoped for.
I am living proof that it is possible to life a life of joy and peace, free from religious baggage. Don't give up hope.
Love & Light,
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