What a long time it can take for a person to become the one they have always been.
At one time or another, all of us have worn other people’s beliefs and personalities. Being ourselves is so much more demanding than attempting to become someone else. Yet because of resounding truthfulness, inner harmony and peace, being uniquely who we are is vastly more enlightened and rewarding. Sometime during your repressive Christian lifestyle, perhaps to your dismay, you found yourself living someone else’s life. Their values and beliefs were directing your behavior, your choices, and your perceptions about yourself, others, and the world —your entire life.
More than likely, the more you struggled to achieve the life of another, it never quite felt right, even though no other alternative seemed to exist. Even when you achieved the acceptance and praise of others, you secretly felt fraudulent. Repeatedly, you experienced a rebellion of your soul, the desire for your soul’s emergence, an overthrow of your religiously prescribed understanding of self, spirituality and the world. Eventually, you were, or you will, be unable to ignore and refuse the demanding invitation to live more consciously, more lovingly and more authentically. But first comes the fear, the confusing consciousness and contradictions. You were pulled or, more accurately, thrown from your familiar environment into the darkness. Like the poet Dante, you descended and, upon waking, found yourself in the figurative underworld, having lost your way.
All of us, whether we are ex-fundamentalist or not and despite our best intentions, commonly find ourselves, at different stages in life, lost in the underworld. No amount of good intentions, intelligence, forethought, planning, prayer or adherence to a so-called biblical blueprint can spare any of us from these periodic encounters with confusion, uncertainty, depression or disappointment with ourselves and others and the subsequent ending of the blueprints, beliefs and stratagems that once seemed to work but now are obsolete, misguided and ultimately no longer work in our lives.
What can this apparently self-directed process, which challenges us to overthrow our old ways of thinking, feeling and responding to life mean, and how can we grow from such upsetting disruptive encounters with the darkness of our underworlds?
Growing up, I had a complete lack of an ability to act, or contain my emotions and opinions. I credit those attributes for my quick exit from the religion I was raised in. Thank you for this.
Hi Steven, Thank you for commenting. As you already know… you’re not alone in your experiences. Many people have (are) experiencing similar psychological and emotional set backs, most are not able to step back and examine their situation to the extent you did (much respect for doing so) and realize the source of their suffering. For many they believe that “I’ve left that organization, so I’m free” but really they’re not. Leaving this unconscious debris unadressed keeps them, many times, in a repetitive cycle of self diminishment. Often because they simply have no where to turn for support and understanding. Cheers to your freedom of mind and spirit!