If you could go back in time to re-live a particular stage in your life, not for the purpose of undoing past “mistakes” but purely for the joy of living that stage in life again, which would you choose? I once asked my wife and a friend that question and we all came to the same conclusion: our college years. As we thought out loud about why our college years were the most enjoyable, we concluded that the high amount of free time, independence, and hopefulness we had, combined with a low degree of responsibility and stress, were the optimal conditions for fun and enjoyment.
But we realized something else with the next question: If you could live your college years again, but at the cost of erasing all the life wisdom you’ve gained since then, would you do it? And again we came to the same conclusion: No, we wouldn’t. And I think we were all a bit surprised by our answer, because it made us realize that as much as we long for the days when we had more free time, less responsibility, and less stress, there is something we all value even more than fun: the wisdom of life experience.
As we continued our discussion, we came to a couple more conclusions: first, that we gained the most wisdom and grew in the most meaningful ways during the most difficult periods of our lives; and second, that as much as we value the wisdom we gained during those difficult years, we wouldn’t want to re-live them. And we laughed about our discovery of yet another of life’s paradoxes: we wouldn’t want to re-live our most enjoyable years at the cost of losing our wisdom, but we also wouldn’t want to re-live the difficult years that gave us that wisdom.
When I thought about that conversation again recently, it reminded me that fun and play make life enjoyable, but gaining wisdom gives life a sense of purpose and meaning.
Education & Miseducation
When I watch our one year-old toddle around our living room with his insatiable curiosity, trying to get his hands and/or mouth on literally everything, it reminds me that we humans are biologically wired to be learning machines. Starting in early childhood, we’re put into schools and churches to direct our learning. And whether by trust or coercion, we go along with the secular and religious education programs we’re given.
The quality of our education depends almost entirely on the quality of our teachers. The great teacher doesn’t just teach her students information; she teaches them how to think. Most importantly, the great teacher doesn’t teach her students to think just like her; she teaches them how to think for themselves. Like the good doctor whose goal is to cure his patient so completely that she no longer needs his treatment, the greatest teachers enable their students to become their own teachers, leading their students from dependence to independence.
Unfortunately, we don’t always have the great fortunate of having great teachers. Some teachers merely teach us to memorize and repeat, or to adopt the teacher’s own paradigm. Although those teachers probably have pure motives–they probably think they’re helping their students–they do little if anything to help their students achieve intellectual independence.
Losing Our Training Wheels
Vivekananda, the 19th Century Hindu reformer and proponent of Indian independence, once said to an American audience:
“[I]t is good to be born in a church, but it is bad to die there. It is good to be born a child, but bad to remain a child. Churches, ceremonies, and symbols are good for children, but when the child is grown he must burst the church or himself. We must not remain children forever.”
Vivekananda considered churches to be like training wheels: they help children avoid falling while learning to balance on their own, but they shouldn’t be permanent fixtures. At some point the training wheels need to come off.
Some of us intentionally remove our spiritual training wheels when we come to feel we’ve outgrown them; when we feel confident, independent, and ready to be our own spiritual guides in life. But it seems most of us get our spiritual training wheels knocked off through sudden disillusionment that we neither wanted nor expected. And that sudden disillusionment leaves us feeling disoriented because although the institution we’ve leaned on doesn’t seem dependable anymore, we don’t yet feel ready to be our own spiritual guides.
The disorientation we experience when we lose faith in our church is a symptom of our former dependency on it. And it’s worth recognizing that this dependency was not created by accident. Unfortunately, many churches intentionally instill a sense of dependency in their members through indoctrination; by requiring them to memorize and repeat the “right” answers; by prescribing the times, places, and methods of worship; by telling members what to read and not read; and by asserting control over their members’ social and family relationships.
When Vivekananda spread his message of spiritual independence throughout the U.S. in the late 1890s, his lectures were often picketed by the clergy of local churches who warned passersby to steer away from the lecture hall to avoid being corrupted. In one Texas town, Vivekananda was literally run out of town by horsemen brandishing pistols. Creating a sense of dependency in one’s flock is good for business; a message urging people to seek spiritual independence was the last thing those clergymen wanted their flocks to hear.
The Guru in the Mirror
Overcoming spiritual dependence always involves growing pains. It requires, in the first place, developing confidence in one’s own spiritual discernment. This can be particularly difficult for people who were taught from early childhood to defer to the spiritual discernment of religious authorities whenever it conflicted with their own. But we can see through the illusion of our spiritual dependence when we recognize that ultimately each of us is, always has been, and always will be, our own guru (teacher) in life.
Just think of what it means to recognize truth. “Recognize” means to identify something from having encountered it before; to know again. We are able to re-know something is true because we already knew it to be true. And how did we already know it to be true? By our life experience.
For example, when I read Jesus’ admonition to refrain from judging others, to focus on the beams in our own eyes rather than singling out the motes in others’ eyes, that ethical principle rings true to me because it resonates with my life experience. I’ve been on the receiving end of being judged and it isn’t pleasant; likewise, I’ve experienced judging another person and later realizing that I too am guilty of the very same thing for which I was judging him/her.
No matter how disoriented you may feel during a faith transition, know that your moral compass is still very much intact because you always have your life experience to rely upon. The most simple yet profound ethical rule—do unto others as you would have others do unto you—calls on each of us to rely on our life experience to determine right from wrong behavior. For example, our life experience tells us that it’s wrong to kill, steal, lie, etc. because those actions hurt people, and as human beings, we know what it’s like to hurt. We also know by experience that being compassionate and charitable makes us feel good, deepens relationships, and helps others. And we know that because actions have consequences, we need to choose our actions wisely to create positive consequences and avoid negative consequences for ourselves and others.
Even if we make mistakes along the way, which we inevitably will, it will all ultimately inure to our benefit. As Vivekananda told a London audience in 1896:
“As for me, I am glad to have done something good and many things bad; glad I have done something right and committed many errors, because every one of them has been a great lesson. I, as I am now, am the result of all I have done, all I have thought. Every action and thought have had their effect, and these effects are the sum total of my progress.”
Whether you’re hiking in the woods or doing chores at home, sitting on your couch or on a meditation cushion, your greatest teacher is always within you.
“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.”
-Shakespeare
In hindsight, it’s easy to see the rise and falls in the plot of my life, but in the present time I don’t always know where on the roller coaster I am at any given moment. Am I heading up or coasting down? One of the best things for me to step back from the every day and view my life “big picture” is to go to the theater. There is something about watching actors portray the human condition that allows me to appreciate the challenges the characters have, the growth they must go through, and the results of the struggle in a way that I can relate and draw comparisons to in my own life.
There are many layers at a show that help me gain perspective. First, the struggle of the actors themselves. I love to peruse the biographies of the performers in the programs. It brings me empathy to understand the challenges of working in the world of theater. You can see their past performances and think about their career trajectories. Is tonight’s role part of their upward climb to stardom or a horizontal “holding space” until something better comes along? Which actor is having their first solo? or first leading part? I often envision what my single paragraph biography would read and how I want it to read in the future. Watching someone play a lead role and then reading of the many, many small roles they have played previously reminds me that every opportunity in life lays another building block into the construction of who I want to be.
And then there are the characters in the shows. They can come alive for you and help you understand new and different experiences. You might laugh with one character as you see his struggle while crying along with another. My heart is touched by the variety of new ideas, situations, perspectives, and paradigms that I am exposed to and I leave thinking about how the lessons portrayed in the plays can apply to me.
Find a local community theater, go big and subscribe to the touring broadway seasons, or attend a film festival. My suggestion is to subscribe for a season and attend every show in the series — not just the ones you “know” you’ll like, but allow yourself the variety that has been curated by someone else. There is a lot to learn from different sources.
I have rises in conflict and resolutions both comedic and tragic in my own life and learning to view them as part of a larger narrative brings me peace and comfort as time passes.
What shows, plays, and movies have given you new perspectives on life? Help me curate a list of things that are lovely and of good report in the comments for everyone’s benefit.
“It may be when we no longer know what to do, that we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey.” Wendell Berry
If there is one thing I am asked the most, it is IF I would be willing to share a bit of my story concerning our transition out of the LDS Church. I am private and introverted by nature. We all have stories that are equally real and valid. My story is no more important than yours. But I offer it to you today because so many of you have asked for it. It is simple (like me) and personal (argh), but it is yours to have.
I can still remember the moment vividly. John sat me down late one night, after the children were tucked in their beds for sleep. He spoke softly, with a tremble. He wanted me to know that he no longer thought the LDS Church was what he had once believed.
He felt alone and lied to. I had seen John’s pain spread over several months. It was tangible. I knew he was wrestling with the research he was doing with Church history and his seminary calling, but I was still slapped hard in my soul that night. Stricken. Stunned.
I cried. I asked questions. Cried some more. Asked more questions. I asked to see a bit of what John was talking about — to read a bit of what he had read. And this is when John and I began to engage in an honest and sincere conversation about spirituality…one that continues to this day.
I did not know it then, but that moment–that jarring, painful evening–gave birth to a new spiritual landscape for me. I experienced an inner shift. It is said that we often can’t decide what wakes us up–only how we respond to it. It was like I spent years building a huge tower of blocks — principles taught by the LDS Church. I had followed the directions I had been given. I placed certain blocks in the foundation, built it to an impressive height, and it was all in order. It was a good-looking tower. It seemed solid. But after that evening with John, and as I began to open myself up to my life, the blocks began to fall. Hard. One after another. Some fell immediately, others took a little more time.
I felt a number of emotions–
- perpetual panic (I am a total planner. I love structure. I eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner!)
- bouts of anger (At John, the church, the ward, myself.)
- overwhelmed (It felt like too much to process at one time. So many emotions. So many things to consider–none of which were straight forward)
- confused (What was the right thing to do in this moment? What about our children? There were times when I felt in the middle–trying to consider John’s needs, but also the children’s needs. Wait, don’t I have needs too? We did not always match up.)
- unstable (We were IN the church, OUT of the church, exploring new churches, trying home church, back IN the church again?)
- tremendous sadness (I felt like I was losing my past and my future. The present was unknown. Was there anything this loss did not touch?)
My experience is that this stage is not a destination. It is not meant to last forever (thankfully). With any loss, the key is movement. Feel what you feel. Allow it to flow. Over time, the pain should lessen. Get better. Moments of pleasure or joy should return. If life doesn’t improve over time, you might be stuck. Stuck to me means that there may be deeper issues at hand. There may be other losses or pain that have not been fully processed in your life that may be getting in the way. Or you may simply have too much all at once to sift through. Having compassion for ourselves amidst this stage of crisis is so important. A good therapist can be helpful but should be carefully considered.
Amidst this time, a remarkable thing happened. As most of the blocks were falling down around me, I noticed that some blocks or truths remained. The stripping away of one foundation had left another (more basic) one in its stead. So clarifying. Some of these blocks for me were: honesty, compassion, connection, family, openness, curiosity, the value of listening, a commitment to growth, the power of forgiveness, a belief in the importance of doing my own work as a person, a reconnection to the belief that “life is wise.”
I experienced a subtle internal shift as I began to heal. I slowly began to connect to my spiritual life from the inside out. I just followed what I resonated with. Over time, I began to experience a change. Truth, joy and beauty were no longer found in a religion box on Sundays at 11am but EVERYWHERE, ALL THE TIME.
I thought I would share with you a few of the places that I have found healing. They are the pillars of my new spiritual practice. They aren’t for everyone. They aren’t outside my life either–they are part of how I choose to live. They reflect me wholly.
My sharing is not meant to be prescriptive in any way. That defeats the idea that we are fully equipped to make this journey for ourselves, which we are. What I am hoping for is that by sharing a bit of what inspires me, that you will all feel comfortable sharing a bit of what has been healing to you. What makes you feel more loving? What inspires you? How do you incorporate these rituals/ practices into your every day? This is where the journey gets good.
- Yoga/meditation/exercise/healthy living–when I was in crisis stage, my anxiety kicked up quite a bit. My mind felt like it was exploding. John and I now do meditation for 10 minutes each day. Science backs up numerous benefits to meditation. I use the guided form as it helps focus me a bit more. Yoga works like meditation with movement for me. While running saved my life (another story), I feel like yoga has given me a life. I do it at home. I don’t love gurus. Just the practice, pure and simple. Running burns off excess anxiety too. I think it is key to pick an exercise you enjoy. Hiking is a favorite of mine now as I can add a little nature–and I am one soothed girl. Eating well is grounding. It feels great, and is the ultimate form of self-care, really. Whole foods. Simply prepared. Lots of plants. Ease into any changes you make– with compassion being the nest where you lay your head.
- Reading/Exposing myself to new ideas–I am an avid reader. This was a crucial part of restructuring my brain a bit. What suits you is of course, deeply personal. I started by exposing myself to a lot of different books. Some scientific, others based on experience. Parenting books. Relationship books. Journey books. TED talks. On Being podcasts. I am a big fan of the well-written memoir.
- Relationships–are some of our biggest teachers around. Largely because they are unavoidable. Relationships have the potential to heal us. I really like this idea. We can remain largely unaware/unconscious and do a great deal of harm. But in general, our relationships are where the rubber meets the road. It is harder to hide. In time, our spouse and children tend to shine light on our wounds of life. How? What we react to (get upset about), usually points to our own pain and suffering from past relationships and experiences (Harville Hendrix idea). We often marry a person who most triggers our pain, so that we can truly heal it. It has helped me to get curious. Be present about what triggers me. Listen. Seek to understand. Go deeper than just the immediate situation at hand. Healthy relationships are such a wonderful space in which to offer meaningful service in this life due to the deep connections that are forged. I think it helps to find loving people. Surround yourself with them. Let them assert your wholeness and worthiness again and again. Minimize those in your life who reinforce the lie that you must earn their love.
- Connection to Nature–As a young girl, I would spend most days in the forest of our back yard. We had a creek that I would walk beside, freely dipping my toes in the water. I would climb trees. I imagined all day. It soothed me. My dad would often swim in our pool with us late at night. We would lie on our backs and gaze up at the stars. I have always felt peaceful out in nature. I just lost that for a while. And now, years later–I feel that I have come back to myself. Nature calls us to be present. We listen, smell, and feel in a way that is difficult to replicate anywhere else. I make time each day to get outside, for whatever time I can.
- Try to be as present/grateful as I can–In our home, at any given time, we have gratitude journals going. They are a common ritual. The way we do it is that at the end of each day, we list five things we are grateful for. It sounds hokey, I know. But our brains are evolutionary in nature. We are designed to think for survival, which often means that we are critical as to point out what is amiss–this used to save our lives. But it may not be the best recipe for contentment. A gratitude journal works to reverse this inherent tendency. It has you look for things in your day that went well…or made you feel good. It is a gentle rewiring. Amazingly, what we pay attention to–grows.Here are some items that are always making it on my gratitude lists.
- hot drinks in the morning
- a hot bath at the end of the day
- reading myself to sleep
- hikes with John
- really looking into my children’s eyes when they are speaking to me
- bedtime musings with the children
- yoga time
- reading a book out loud to the children before bed
- my memories (my dad is suffering from late stage Alzheimers/Parkinson’s disease so this has become more and more precious to me these last few years)
This blog post is much longer than I had planned. My hope is that we don’t suffer alone. And that if someone is amidst the messy part of transitioning, that they will carry inside them a small seed of hope that things will get better soon. The hard won’t last forever. Let’s rally. And share what has helped heal and inspire us forward. I feel like in most moments, we are asked to grow (love bigger) or die (shrink and tighten). We make the decision, whether we are aware of that or not. We are ON a “spiritual” journey no matter what. We are alive now. We are breathing. I say we embrace it. Let’s make it the adventure of our lives. We may not be able to choose what wakes us up–but we can decide what to do with it. Let’s make it a masterpiece that best reflects us. Yes?
So, tell me. When things fell apart for you, what helped you? What makes you feel more loving? What inspires you? How do you incorporate these rituals/ practices into your every day?
Eastern spiritual traditions revere the lotus flower, which grows on lily pads in murky ponds, as a symbolic reminder that beauty can arise from ugly circumstances. And for me the lotus seems an appropriate symbol for the new spirituality that has arisen within me since my disillusionment with, and resignation from, the LDS church.
My exit from the LDS church in 2011 left a bad taste in my mouth for all-things religious, including the idea of “spirituality”. But over the past four years, I have found myself drawn toward a certain spirituality—not a spirituality in the same sense I had as a Mormon—but a spirituality re-discovered and re-defined.
My “faith crisis”, which I have come to view as an awakening, brought total destruction to all my religious beliefs, including my belief in a personal God like that of Mormonism. No longer trusting religious authorities or ancient scriptures to give me the answers to life’s big questions, I became increasingly interested in what science has to tell us about the Universe and our place in it.
One of my major takeaways from reading scientific authors was that, in the words of Richard Dawkins, “The truth is more magical – in the best and most exciting sense of the word – than any myth or made-up mystery or miracle. Science has its own magic: the magic of reality.” The more I learned about nature and the cosmos, the more I came to understand what Dawkins was referring to: reality is so incredible, so mind-blowing, so seemingly-miraculous that it seems even magical. And learning about that filled me with awe, wonder, reverence, and gratitude—states of mind and feelings one might describe as “spiritual”. As Carl Sagan put it: “Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.”
But at first I wasn’t ready to think in terms of “spirit” and “spirituality” again; those words still carried too much religious baggage for me. I didn’t think those words applied to me because I no longer believed in things like immortal “spirit bodies”.
That changed when I listened to William James’ lectures on “The Varieties of Religious Experience”. James helped me recognize that the word “spirit” has long held more meanings than just the idea of an immortal ghost. “Spirit” can also refer to a person’s emotions or mood (“she’s in good spirits”), thoughts or intentions (“they brought a spirit of good will to the negotiations), or character (“he’ll overcome this; he has a fighting spirit”). With those broader meanings of “spirit” in mind, I was now able to think of spirituality in a completely different sense—one grounded in science and psychology.
The World Without & The World Within
“It is a strange and magical fact to be here, walking around in a body, to have a whole world within you and a world at your fingertips outside you.”
–John Donohue
Each of us inhabits two worlds: an external world (Earth), and an internal world of thoughts and feelings. One of the funny things about life is that it sometimes seems we spend more time living in our heads than living on Earth. Our minds wander or go on auto-pilot, and we get lost in our thoughts, tuning out everything and everyone around us. Whether we’re sitting in a meeting, driving home from work, washing dishes, or doing whatever, there’s a good chance we’re focused on the world that exists only in our heads.
Even when we consciously focus our attention on the external world, our perception of it is filtered through the subjective lens of our internal world of thoughts and feelings: we project motives and intentions onto others; we analyze, interpret, and form judgments about what we hear and observe; and we paint a mental and emotional picture of reality that we often mistake as being reality itself.
The condition of our internal world—the types of thoughts and feelings within us—greatly colors our perception of the external world. For example, if our internal world is dark and depressed, the external world will seem dark and depressing. The condition of our internal world also impacts what we bring into the external world. For example, when our internal world is full of love and compassion, we bring love and compassion into the external world with our words and deeds.
“Ye Are Gods”: Consciously Creating Our Internal World
All of that being the case, we owe it to ourselves, and to others, to create and sustain the type of internal world of thoughts and feelings that we want to live in. Unfortunately, too often we allow external circumstances and other people to dictate the living conditions in our internal world—filling us with anger, sadness, or hopelessness. It is natural, of course, that we sometimes feel angry or sad as a result of what others have done or said to us. That’s just part of being human. But we can choose whether to allow those thoughts and feelings to take up permanent residence within us, to debilitate us, and consume us.
Our “spiritual development” begins when we recognize that we alone are the rightful sovereign ruler—the god or goddess—of our own internal world of thoughts and feelings. Nobody else can experience our internal world; nobody else can interpret or control what we think and how we feel. And each of us can make a conscious, consistent effort to create type of internal world we want to live in.
What “spiritual practice” means to me now is a conscious, consistent effort to create and sustain the type of internal world I want to live in. I don’t want to live in an internal world of anger, sadness, dissatisfaction, unrest, loneliness, etc. I want to live in an internal world filled with love, happiness, contentment, peace, and connectedness. I know I am powerless to change the external world, but I do have the power to change my internal world. And so I make a conscious effort to consistently do the things that create and sustain the type of internal world I want to live in.
We can also be vigilant in discerning the ways in which our perception of the external world is warped by the subjective lens through which we perceive it. We can make a habit of trying to distinguish between reality and the illusion of reality that we create in our heads. I’m continually surprised how many of my “problems” can be solved this way.
I look forward to sharing with you in the coming weeks the elements of “spiritual practice” that I’ve found to be effective for me, and to hear about those you’ve discovered as well. And if you’re still uncomfortable with the word “spiritual”, I completely understand; that word comes with a lot of theistic baggage. Conversely, if you prefer to think of spirituality in more theistic terms, let me be clear that I don’t consider my personal approach to be the “one true” version of spirituality by any means.
My aim here is to facilitate a discussion that everyone can find beneficial, wherever each of us falls on the belief spectrum. As I hope you can see by now, there are plenty of other labels you could just as easily attach to what I’m describing here. Call it “positive psychology”, “self-improvement”, or “personal development”. It’s about discovering and realizing our fullest potential by taking ownership of our internal world and asserting control over it, charting our course, and transforming from within.
We may never succeed in making the external world a paradise. But each of us is already the god or goddess of a unique internal world that can be as glorious and beautiful as we make it.
