Faith Transitions
I participated in a Women’s Circle last week and during it my profession came up in the discussion. When asked about my specialties, I listed them off and upon mentioning religious trauma, the whole room let out an audible “oof.” It was clear that many of the women present had experienced a taste of the mental and emotional wrestle that takes place when analyzing your religious beliefs. They asked follow up questions and hadn’t understood this experience as something that could be brought to therapy. As with anything, this experience exists on a spectrum, however, it’s common to underestimate the amount of depth that can lie in a faith transition. Let’s start by talking about the many ways that a faith transition can show up in your life.
When you are raised with a specific set of beliefs, you are given a lens through with you see the world. Depending on how demanding the religion is that you were dealing with, there are often consequences that follow tampering with said lenses. An example of tampering might be to read secular literature, befriend people outside the faith, or bend the rules around dress code. These are all things punishable either within the doctrine itself or socially within the culture of the religion, which might further the temptation to buck the system and continue to shed those expectations. There is another way, a much more common way that a faith transition happens for people which might be a situation where your lenses are cracked or bumped by an external force. Examples of this might be for a loved one to leave the faith and realizing that you don’t want to reduce them down to being damned the way the church does. Maybe your lenses are fogged up by the education you are getting at school which provides a convincing argument for how the world works and makes it hard to leave room for the doctrine that used to explain the same things. It’s possible that your lenses simply crack under the pressure you feel from the church to be perfect. Regardless of how a faith transition enters your life, you are left feeling angry, betrayed, isolated, fearful, and grieving.
Because a religious institution informs essentially every aspect of life, the deconstruction process is a labor of love that can span a lifetime. Often your religion prescribes to you how each phase of your life ought to look like, which can feel overwhelming to let go of the life you envisioned. It requires self-compassion, new experiences, supportive relationships, and in some cases the help of a therapist to process the betrayal of a belief system that failed you. It will be important to learn how to consistently integrate new perspectives as you move through the future rather than relying on the scripts you learned in church. It’s normal at any point to feel like you’ve shed all of the layers of religion and are keeping up with the normal world only to be faced with a memory, song or old relationship that sends you back in time. Being given such a specific lens to view the world through often shelters and infantilizes people, so leaving and building a new life for yourself can feel like being a child in an adult body.
Before you close this tab and slip back into denial out of fear of the unknown, understand that the rewards of deconstructing harmful religious beliefs can and will make the pain worth it. Thinking critically about your beliefs can result in deep feelings of gratitude, a strong sense of trust with yourself, exhilarating new experiences and wildly meaningful relationships. There are parts of religion that are beautiful and perhaps you continue in your religious practice or you take a break and come back. The relationship that you build with yourself by enduring with a faith transition will be invaluable whether you land inside or outside the walls of a church.
Regardless of whether you end up being mad at religion and God forever, you find a way to access spirituality outside of religion or you return to religion at some point, it’s important to allow yourself to feel all the emotions associated with your experience. They won’t stay forever. The word emotion itself is derived from the latin word emovere, which means to move through. Your emotions are the vehicle through which you will get through to the next chapter of your faith story. The good ones always come back and the hard ones aren’t permanent. Liberation, authenticity, and community can be found in your future storyline.
If this is a conversation that you resonate with, please reach out to someone who you trust will listen without judgement. If you don’t have anyone that qualifies as that, reach out to a professional counselor who specializes in religious trauma, or faith transitions/crises. If none of these are an option, here are some resources that will give voice to what you might be feeling.
-Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I’ve Loved by Kate Bowler
-Educated by Tara Westover
-Rooted by Lyanda Lynn Haupt
-Untamed by Glennon Doyle
-The Truman Show movie
-Life on Purpose podcast
If you would like more posts on this topic, let me know by email or through the Contact tab on my website.
Wishing you Wellness!
Janessa