Why Spirituality Is Hard After Leaving Religion

In this track, I start out with the experience of betrayal that many of us feel during and after leaving religion. After adjusting and integrating more into the world at large, we might develop an interest in spiritual practices or teachings. But, these are often strewn with language and traditions that can feel a lot like high control religion. Additionally, I share some practical tips on how to navigate other ideas and beliefs. I end with an invitation to use our former experiences of control to deepen our sense of freedom and expansion.

Transcript

Hi,

Everyone,

Thank you for joining me.

Today,

I'm going to talk a little bit about why spirituality can be challenging for those of us who have experienced a high control or fundamentalist religion.

So for myself and many others,

Embedded in this choice to leave religion is often a deep feeling of being betrayed.

Being part of that kind of church isn't just something you casually do on Sunday,

Or I was raised Seventh Day Adventist.

So in my case,

It was Saturday.

It wasn't just you go to church once a week.

It's not you go to Christmas and Easter mass and call it a year.

There's other days of the week that there is church,

There's children activities,

Children's activities,

There's church camp,

There's fundraisers,

There's summer camps.

It's not just something you do,

It becomes an entire way of life.

And being a part of an evangelical practice means that not only is it required for you to attend church,

You also have the responsibility of spreading that gospel to others.

And religion is more than just this small facet of your identity,

It becomes a way of life.

And you really,

Really invest yourself,

You really believe in it,

You give so much of your time and energy and even your money.

Certain sects like Mormons,

Adventists,

And others are expected to give 10% of their income to the church via tithe.

Churchgoers are sometimes expected to work for free.

So there is this huge,

For the people who attend this type of religion,

We have such a huge investment in it,

We pour so much of ourselves into it.

And we expect on some level for that to always be there for us when we need them.

But what happens when something in our lives puts us at odds with a part of that church ideology?

Maybe we have a severe illness or even a death in our family.

And if we go to church leadership,

We're given some sort of platitude about it all being a part of God's plan.

Maybe we have a kid who comes out as queer,

And we're told that we need to get them to change or deny them that part of that deny that part of themselves.

And we don't agree with that we actually believe that's harmful.

But we're told by our church,

That's what we should do.

Maybe we're a new parent learning everything possible about the best parenting you can give to your child.

And you realize that most of the church's parenting strategy is actually harmful or even considered abusive by a lot of psychologists.

Maybe your church started telling you that you have to vote for far right political ideology.

For most of us who have left something like this has happened to us where we come to a fundamental disagreement with our church with the religious teachings that we've been told our entire lives.

And when we start asking certain questions or challenging those beliefs in any way,

We're often received with a cold shoulder,

We're given more of those platitudes,

We're told to double down on prayer,

Offerings,

Confessions,

Whatever it is.

And after some amount of time,

We start to realize that none of those things are actually working.

They don't change our situation.

They don't take away our grief.

They don't cover up for the gaping holes and contradictions that are present in scripture or other doctrine.

And after a while,

It starts to feel like that doctrine is actually more important than our humanity,

Not to us,

But to our church.

We start to learn that that religion,

Maybe doesn't always care about us,

Maybe it doesn't have room for our individual situation or our personal beliefs or values.

And this can feel incredibly dehumanizing.

We can even be left in a state of shock.

And depending on how severe what we went through is,

We might even develop things later down along the line like PTSD.

And so this thing,

That church that we were told would always be there for you,

Now leaves us a little bit stranded.

It's almost like we're all alone in this quote,

Unquote,

Quote,

Bad world,

Filled with sinners and apostates and you know,

Whatever word of choice your religion used.

And we start to sort of feel that trusting outside of ourselves equals betrayal.

After all that's happened to us 100% of the time,

Why wouldn't we feel that way?

And so after we choose to leave religion,

There can be this adjustment period where we really start to find our place in the world.

We meet new people,

We feel more receptive to different ideas,

We might feel,

If you're anything like me,

You might have felt very judgmental about some of those ideas as well.

But really,

We start to become a new version of ourself,

We start to learn and grow in ways that we didn't or weren't able to when we were part of that religion.

And during that time,

We can also experience things like anger,

Loneliness,

Relief.

And during this deconstruction process,

We often learn a lot about what was quote,

Unquote,

Wrong with religion,

We become really aware of what didn't work for us,

Or even what was overtly harmful to us.

And over time,

We can even start to feel more complicated things like we don't want to go to church,

But we really miss the community that came along with that.

And we can start to really crave deeper meaning in our lives.

Maybe we sort of dip our toes into something like yoga or tarot.

Maybe someone tells you to meditate,

And you try it,

And you're like,

Well,

Actually,

This sounds a lot like prayer,

And that doesn't feel good to me.

Maybe there's some sort of spiritual teacher that you get connect with,

And they talk about the universe in a way that really resonates with you and feels very true.

But then they also this one time,

They,

They use God interchangeably with that,

And you have a really visceral reaction to it.

And you're like,

Well,

Maybe that's not someone I want to learn from.

Maybe you were involved in some sort of 12 step program,

And people are talking so much about this higher power.

And you're like,

Well,

That higher power,

It really sounds an awful lot like God.

So when we sort of dip our toes into these things that are spiritual,

Or even spiritual adjacent,

We can start to develop this question,

Like,

Is this whole realm of spirituality,

You know,

Meditation,

Universe,

Higher power,

Is this all just God in a trench coat?

And that can leave us in this predicament.

So what do we do if we're in this place where we've left religion,

We're drawn to deeper meaning,

But we really struggle with it as well.

There's a lot of language that doesn't feel good.

And we really feel kind of uncertain,

What do we do when we're in that space?

So first of all,

I would say we should find a guide,

A mentor,

A friend who really understands the damage that religion can do to us.

Some people view religion as unilaterally a good thing.

And I think it's really beautiful that some people have experienced that way.

It also it's not my experience.

If you're listening to this,

It is probably also not your experience.

So please do yourself a favor and go to people who will who will validate your lived experience and who can also add to it.

If you look for professional help,

This might look like a therapist who's trained in religious trauma,

Or a coach who has who also has lived experience of leaving religion.

I also want to talk about the ways that being raised evangelical can shape our view of beliefs.

So if you were raised as evangelical,

Like I was,

You might see different beliefs as incompatible.

It's really important for us to keep in mind that someone talking about their beliefs doesn't undo or replace ours.

We were told that our church,

Our religion has this one truth,

And it was our job to share that with the world around us.

So really,

Of us,

This requires unlearning of that really early programming.

And please keep coming back to this reminder as often as you need.

Someone believing someone,

Someone having a different belief isn't a threat to yours.

It is that person and just like you,

That person has their own autonomy and their own right to believe what they want to.

Another thing that we struggle with is anything that feels like God or prayer or any sort of directive can be difficult for us.

So you if you've never heard this before,

You have full permission to engage with things only as much as you want to.

From my years in trauma healing circles,

We would say take the best,

Leave the rest.

So take the parts of it that work for you.

And you don't have to take everything.

If part of that meditation doesn't work for you,

Skip it and rejoin when they're done with it.

You can also ask other people what God means to them.

Some of them actually might look a lot like your definition of whatever your higher power is,

Even though you would never use the word God for it.

And once you start to engage with other people's ideas of meaning in the world,

In the world,

I would also encourage you to find your word for whatever it is you believe in outside of yourself.

What is the name you give to whatever gives meaning in your life?

I would encourage you to define that for yourself.

Another thing ex-religious folks can do is we can focus so much on the religion that we left.

I think that can be really important,

Especially in the deconstruction phase.

But while we're focusing on the things that we don't like about religion,

It's almost like that belief system still has a hold over us in a way that church is still getting your time,

Your effort,

Your energy,

Your focus,

And you might still be interacting a lot with people from that core religion.

And I'd like to question is that really serving you?

And for some of you the answer might be yes,

That it is part of your purpose and your meaning to really question that belief system and to dig into it and maybe provide a little bit of an even an opening to people who are still in it.

That might be the case for you.

It also might not be you might also question that and say,

You know,

I do really want to move on in my life.

And I don't want to focus so much on this religion that I left that I wish never had my time,

Energy,

Attention in the first place.

And always remember that you don't have to follow someone else's rules or practice.

You are your own highest authority.

And moving forward in your life,

You're the one who gets to choose how you make meaning of this world and what you do in this lifetime.

You might resonate with parts of others work,

But no one else can define for you what is meaningful to you.

And as you explore more in this realm,

As you start to learn more about different possibilities,

You can start to give yourself more permission to decide what does or doesn't work for you.

And along that process,

You'll start to trust yourself more,

You can start to feel a greater sense of ease,

And you can really relax in into your own avenues into deeper meaning.

And you'll be less activated by others beliefs as well.

So to sort of wrap up here,

The way I see this is that religion works from the outside in,

There's this external structure that someone created usually a couple hundred years ago,

Or several hundred years ago.

And they say,

You as individuals have to follow these rules someone else made.

My view of spirituality is the inverse of that.

So it works from the inside out,

You get to define what your values are,

What is morality for you?

How do you want to spend your time?

How do you make meaning of your life?

That is your choice.

And you are your own best teacher,

You're your own best guide.

And you can take this often difficult experience of control and betrayal that you had with religion,

And you can really turn it on its head and really deepen into these experiences of freedom and trust.

So I'll end a bit with my perspective.

And like always,

Please view this as an invitation,

Not a directive for what you should believe.

But I view us so you listening myself,

All of us,

Everyone around me,

As a fractal of the earth,

And the earth is a fractal of our universe.

And this beautiful universe that we lived in is filled with so many possibilities.

So many unknowns,

There are effectively infinite variations of matter and energy.

So the last thing we need to do is limit ourselves,

I believe we're really here to explore and play,

And connect and grow.

So I would hope that instead of feeling confined by the ways that we are harmed by religion,

We can really take that as an invitation to become even more expansive.

So thank you so much for listening today.

I really enjoyed sharing this with you.

I hope you're able to find a little bit more expansiveness in your day and in the rest of your week.

Thank you so much for listening.

Have a great rest of your day.

Bye