[Long] I Think Acknowledging That I Have A Spiritual Side Is Helping Me Heal

[austere]

I just wanted to share and talk about how I feel regarding spirituality now, and my journey towards that feeling.

 

I hated the idea of spirituality when I first deconverted three years ago. I was scared of anything related to it because to me, if I let myself believe that anything supernatural or spiritual existed,  then God must have existed too. That train of thought didn't make sense to me from the logical angle, so why should I let it take root in me from an emotional angle? At the same time, I hated the idea of letting something that wasn't true become part of my belief structure. It felt like, in the game of life, that would mean I could no longer win.

 

I not only hated it, I was *terrified* of it. I was so anti-spirituality, so quick to dismiss it, just as hardline Christians are to tell us that we're wrong. I believed that people who 'believed in something because it made them feel better' were weak, and unable to face the truth.

 

I took the hardline atheist/skeptic/i know better than you stance.

 

I have a lot of issues related to power and gender roles in the church, and a lot of issues with control, being broken and remade, letting myself be 'broken in'. Releasing my newly found control over myself in some area would be a sign of weakness, not to others but to myself. I had to do anything but believe I was weak, or everyone who said that I was weak because I was a woman and thus naturally submissive would be right.

 

In the past six or eight months, I've relaxed somewhat. Though I still have issues surrounding power relations and exchanges, I no longer believe that spirituality is a sign of weakness.

 

I fought with this for a long time, feeling hollow without it, yet believing that giving in to having some spirituality would mean I was no better than everyone said, in every way.

 

Finally, something gave way in me. I used to live in a house where I experienced the worst depression of my life. At the time I thought it was my inability to set boundaries with my housemate. But there were weird things going on in that house that I ignored at the time, or didn't want to know about when my partner alluded to them. As soon as I left that house, I began to feel better.

 

He recently went back to visit my ex-housemate (I won't go in the house and wouldn't talk to my ex-housemate until the start of this year, a full year and a half after I moved out), and found out several things that began to change my mind.

 

1. That house is built on an old Aboriginal burial ground.

 

For those of you not familiar with Australian history, when the British came and colonised Australia, there were already people living here, in a manner similar to Amazonian tribes I suppose. Hunter-gatherers and wanderers, with a deep spiritual connection to the land. We massacred them and enslaved them and treated them like animals and curiosities, and between the 1930s and the 1960s we took any Aboriginal children with white blood away from their families and raised them on 'missions'. The repercussions of this Stolen Generation are still being felt today.

 

Anyway, there was a massacre near here, and a mass grave was placed on the land where the house now is.

 

2. When my partner was housesitting for me while I lived there, he had seen several shadowy figures in the backyard, staring in at him. He didn't tell me this until a few months ago.

 

Now, my partner believes that there are lines of energy connecting everyone, and a whole heap of woo that I think is a little silly and that is superstition in scientific clothing. But if he tells me he's actually seen something, I believe him. He's not a liar and he values integrity above all else.

 

3. When he left the house that night, there were some palm branches and things on the ground being casually tossed around. It was not a windy night. He said, 'come on guys, you're better than this', and it stopped.

 

4. When he got in the car to go home, he got onto the phone to me and told me the above. He later told me that when he hung up, in the mirror, he could see someone sitting in the back seat. He said something to the effect of 'come on, mate, get out of the car. you're better than this' and it disappeared.

 

In addition to this, I had had several experiences at the house:

 

5. Every single person who has lived with my housemate in that house has come out very much worse for wear, including me. She's never been able to keep a housemate for more than two months before they go psycho or abusive or depressed.

 

The only reason I can think of why she's okay living there is that she's had such a bad past (I'm talking sold into prostitution at age four) that she must be able to co-exist with the ghosts there. That's what she thinks anyway. She told my partner, and later me, that she negotiates with them on her own terms--but sometimes they throw things around and slam doors anyway.

 

6. While I was living there, my mother (xtian) visited. When she left, my housemate said to me, 'is your mother the kind of person to bless things?' I was like, 'no'. my housemate said, 'are you sure? cause there's a cross on the door. it looks like it was done in water.'. I looked. There was a small cross on the door. It looked like it had been made by someone dipping their finger in water and making the shape of a cross, about the proportions of a large matchbox. I have never asked my mother about it as I didn't want to hear her say she hadn't put the cross on the door. But she isn't the kind of person to do that. Since I haven't asked her about it, I can't put it down as actual evidence. It's just something to think about.

 

So with all that to process, I did the only thing that would calm my shit down. I took a leaf out of my ex-housemate's book and decided to pre-emptively negotiate. I lit a candle in my room and said words to the effect of  'I don't know if anything or anyone is here, but I want you to enjoy this candle flame as a gift, and I'm going to try and light one for you every so often. Please forgive me if I forget. I hope we can co-exist peacefully. Thank you for positive experiences in this house so far. I can tell this is a place of peace.'

 

Doing that calmed me right down. And that was the first night I let myself show any aspect of spirituality--to keep away the night terrors, basically. To make sure I was safe in my own home. To stand up for myself. I was not going to go as deeply depressed as I was during that time in that house. Not ever again.

 

And that night, I concluded three things:

 

1. I definitely thought that the evidence for god wasn't even good enough to be called evidence, and

 

2. there is weird shit that happens in the world. Maybe we can't explain it with science now but it doesn't mean we can't explain it later, and

 

3. even if this weird shit wasn't real, if a primal part of my brain thinks its there or can't explain it away, I'd better fucking learn to negotiate it now rather than give up and not assert some control over the situation. I'm not going to be passive again.

 

Maybe I didn't have to believe in god to acknowledge that there is weird shit out there that can't currently be explained.

 

Actually being 'forced' into a place where I had to do something about it or stay scared shitless all night helped me to clarify this. And after that, I began to embrace the idea of less crisis-oriented spiritual practice as well. I began to connect some logical dots:

 

1. we very likely evolved to need religion or spirituality. A common religion does a lot to bring people together, and keep them together. So if there is a part of me that needs spirituality, that doesn't necessarily mean a god put it there. Evolution doesn't discriminate.

 

2. Meanwhile, I believe that I have had a run-in with unexplained beings, forces, energy residues, or something. I also think they can someday be explained with science, which means they are natural, not supernatural. Heck, Nikola Tesla basically did wizardry with electricity that we can't recreate out today, yet he swore it was all down to theorems and science. So why is developing a method to rationally explain ghosts so hard to swallow? At the same time, I'm aware that all experiences are subjective in nature, but I acknowledge that. I don't dismiss it or ignore it.

 

3. Thus, if I need to practise some spirituality to keep myself happy and my wellbeing high, and my practice is not hurting anybody else or putting me in danger... then as long as I remain aware that there is currently no legitimate or solid body of proper evidence for the things I have seen or experienced, and do not take it too seriously, it's okay for me to acknowledge my spiritual side.

 

I don't need to be ashamed of myself or deem myself weak for having some spiritual needs. I am a mind inside a body, which is also influenced by that body. And maybe some bits that I connected don't quite line up, or rely on other assumptions. Here, that's okay. It's not a life or death matter, like the 'choice' to believe in Christianity or not. I don't need to be completely right about everything. And in cases like this, I now think skeptics are actually too close-minded. My gut feeling is that they have to disbelieve because all the famous atheist men do, so if they were open-minded about it, they'd look bad. (I don't think I would say that so bluntly anywhere else on these forums. Everyone has their own method of ex-Christianity, but sometimes I feel like skeptics get a bit too harsh on mine.)

 

And since then, I've begun to heal. I've let myself acknowledge parts of myself I had to hide before. I've felt like I'm more settled in the present, and in the universe. Cheesy as that sounds.

 

A month ago, when I walked into a house that made me feel really uneasy, I was able to step back, find a private moment to duck into another room and talk to it, and state my intentions in being in that house--and it was like a weight lifted off my shoulders. Every time I go back to that house now, I say hello to it and touch its fence or its brickwork. And every time I go back to that house, I'm fine.

 

It might be a placebo effect, it might not. But I feel like I'm taking control back over myself, instead of believing that I was powerless against 'evil spirits' in the world on my own, and had to hide behind Jesus and get him to do everything for me. Now I negotiate those situations for myself.

 

***

You're all welcome to discuss my story, to question what I've said, ask me for more details, or flat-out disbelieve me. Thank you for reading.

[florduh]

I never really made the assumption that if any form of woo can be demonstrated to exist, then there must be a god of some sort. I do understand how people make that connection, though.

 

I find it interesting that most who have an NDE, for example, are completely transformed after the experience and become quite "spiritual" but not religious. Religion is the natural enemy of spirituality, it would seem. 

[Ellinas]

Religion and spirituality strike me as diametrically opposed.

 

Whatever the cause, whatever the expression, if spirituality is something that appeals to a given individual, it is liable to do no harm and may do some good to act upon it.  Denying a part of oneself seems to me rarely beneficial

[BeyondReligiosity]

I just wanted to share and talk about how I feel regarding spirituality now, and my journey towards that feeling.

 

 

austere - so glad you shared! I appreciate your openness, objectivity and process of analyzing your experience both in rational and healthy ways. I've never encountered anything I could perceive as paranormal activity, but I think it would be a great adventure! You seem to have your head on straight. Why not explore the possibilities with your reason intact as you are doing?

 

Another cool thing I notice about your experience is that you enacted a ritual. Studies show rituals can be beneficial to those who perform them. They use a wide variety of examples from those athletes perform before competing to job interview preparations to grieving loss of different types. If you're interested, you can find more information on it here: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-rituals-work/ .

 

I agree with your thought that skeptics often appear closed-minded. I think it may have something to do with certainty, which leads to what William James refers to "a gated community of the mind." If one believes with certainty they've "arrived" at the answer, what else is there to learn? What room for personal growth is left? I was burned badly by my deconversion and have a firm unwillingness to invest myself so fully in anything again. It's just not healthy to be so fixated. That being said, many healthy-minded people are moderately spiritual and find their faith therapeutic and practical.

 

I think you're a forerunner among former Christians and I was so excited to see your post. Keep exploring and healing! I hope to hear more about your journey.