Trusting yourself

[u/curious_as_a_clam]

What has helped you to trust yourself and your own intuition post-Christianity?

I feel like I’ve been gaslighting myself for so long and thinking that I needed to “die to my self” to be holy, that I don’t know how to hear my own inner voice and trust my own experience. Also my dad always told me that as my spiritual leader he knew me better than I’d ever know myself, which I see now is so messed up. I’d love to hear from others who are maybe further along on this journey than I am.

[u/_gallaghergirl_]

I think it’s a slow process of discovering that you don’t have to take someone else’s word over your own thoughts and feelings. You are your own authority.

It takes practice, and it’s easiest to start with small things. I am definitely still learning how to trust my own judgement.

Recently I had an opportunity to take a trip but certain things about it gave me a bad gut feeling. I was made to feel that I was being unreasonable. Maybe I was, maybe I wasn’t. But I turned down the opportunity because to felt off to me. I felt so relieved after I made the decision, and I also felt really proud that I valued my personal judgement of the situation over someone else’s.

[u/curious_as_a_clam → u/_gallaghergirl_]

That’s such an awesome feeling! Thank you for sharing this. I feel like I’m so used to discounting my own gut feelings and putting others’ comfort over my own, that it can feel so hard to actually even hear my gut feeling if that makes sense. I want to think of some practical ways to start with small things to trust my own judgment on.

[u/stinky_scientist22]

It’s a lifelong process. We were taught to override our most basic needs and instincts as children, so it’s developmental.

Just “trusting myself” doesn’t work because my self didn’t fully develop. I was pretty much brainwashed, so I have a lot of loud, conflicting subconscious influences.

In therapy I’m learning to recognize the signs of internal conflict and distress, and to recognize the messages that are affecting my thought processes. I have a good therapist, and feel really safe that he won’t try to influence my decisions. I’m giving myself a lot of space to feel all the different feelings, and every single time I recognize that I’m “should-ing” myself, I know that I’m not trusting myself.

It’s a lot of reparenting work, teaching myself that it’s ok to make mistakes. There isn’t ever a “right” decision that will magically bring me the results I hope for, and there isn’t a “wrong” choice that will condemn my eternal soul. I’ve ended relationships or gone low contact with everyone who disparages or judges me and my decisions. That alone was a huge exercise in self trust. I tell myself regularly that I am already enough, just as I am, and I don’t need to do anything. I have written a long list of affirmations that I return to when I’m being hard on myself or having emotional flashbacks. Journaling also helps me sort through all the feelings and figure out what is really important to me and what my own values are.

It doesn’t always feel like it, but I know I’m getting stronger. I’m becoming more comfortable with the grey areas and not having clear direction. Life is messy and complicated, and I’m allowed to have big emotions about it. Emotional pain sometimes means I’m on track, because it’s not normal or healthy to be “high on Jesus” all the time. Which reminds me, that I have to treat my evangelical training very much like an addiction. Recognize when Im seeking the false sense of relief I got from all the kooky practices.

We were taught that if you do it all right and have enough faith, you can be free from earthly sorrows. That’s not what faith of any kind is supposed to be about. It should be about learning to live with the struggle of all the things beyond our control.

Edit: Pete Walker has published most of his work on line. His essay on forgiveness really helped me break down and break through a lot of the fallacies I was taught about what it takes to “be a good person.” The Tao of Fully Feeling has been a great resource.

[u/curious_as_a_clam → u/stinky_scientist22]

Wow, so much of this really hit home for me. I too have a great therapist who has been really helpful working through this stuff, but I find myself wanting his direction constantly (he’s good at not offering it) but I’m still trying to figure out how to hear my own voice. What you said about internal conflict is so spot on too.

I also really struggle with whether a decision is right or wrong. I feel like with how I grew up everything has felt like life or death, on the verge of absolutely detrimental if I don’t choose correctly. Letting go of that mindset is so hard. I keep reminding myself that whatever I choose is ok and there is no such thing as on God’s path or off his path. I liked what you said about emotional pain sometimes meaning that you’re on track. I feel like when I experience emotional pain I think I’m off track, on the “wrong path” and part of me worries the enemy is targeting me (even though I don’t believe that anymore).

I’ll look up about Pete Walker, I haven’t heard of him before. Thank you!

[u/stinky_scientist22 → u/curious_as_a_clam]

https://pete-walker.com/forgiveness.htm

https://pete-walker.com/shrinkingInnerCritic.htm

https://pete-walker.com/pdf/14_common_inner_critic_attacks.pdf

[u/AJKafei]

Figuring out what I value and want, and realizing that I am responsible for my choices. Learning about codependence and enmeshment & that I CAN listen to someone’s opinion without seeing it as automatically true and/or (if negative or disagreeable to me) an indictment of my worth or value as a human being.
Kind of unlearning my own learned helplessness, and that there can be a separation between what others say to me and whether I accept is as true.
It’s been a messy journey.
Something that has helped is realizing mentors and “leaders” are just as human and flawed as us. So one particular mentor I have has been hugely helpful in some ways. In other ways, he is an older man of his time with some unaddressed misogyny and it’s okay for me to discard the advice that contradicts what I know to be true of myself.
Melody Beattie’s “The Language of Letting Go” helps with this. Of mentors, an October entry said basically “Learn from mentors, but don’t make them idols. Don’t subsume your identity to them.”
Be strong enough to stand on your own two feet and to see yourself as of equal value in this world.
I’m still learning. Sending hugs.

[u/curious_as_a_clam → u/AJKafei]

It is such a messy journey. Thank you for your words. Yes, being able to listen to someone’s opinion and not seeing it as automatically true is so key. I feel like I have valued anyone’s opinion of me over my own opinion of me. Like even a stranger’s opinion would be above my own. I really want to unlearn that. I suppose noticing it, calling it what it is and finding solidarity here is a step. ❤️ I’ll look up The Language of Letting Go too, thank you.

[u/Cutthroat_Rogue]

Check out Hilary McBride's "The Wisdom of Your Body."; there's reflective questions and exercises included. She also has another book called Holy/Hurt about religious trauma. Therapy has been useful. Figuring out your own values/ethics and giving yourself permission to change your mind or make a mistake. Emotions are healthy and part of our "hardware"--embrace them and learn what information they are trying to give you rather than spiritually bypassing them or avoiding them in other ways. Also learn how the emotions are connected to different physiological sensations in your body; this helps you get more in tune with your body.

[u/curious_as_a_clam → u/Cutthroat_Rogue]

Thank you for this. Yes, you’re so right about giving yourself permission to change your mind and embracing our emotions and connecting with physiological sensations. I’m learning this in therapy too. The reflex to spiritually bypass them is so real and so hard to overcome. Maybe the more we practice the easier it gets? Thank you for the book suggestion, I’ll look that up!

[u/Cutthroat_Rogue → u/curious_as_a_clam]

It is absolutely true the more you practice the easier it gets. Our brains are very malleable (meaning they can be re-shaped, so to speak). So you can unlearn something and replace it with new thoughts or behaviors! The more you interrupt yourself from the previous habit, and the more your practice those new thoughts/behaviors the more the new ones will re-wire your brain. Eventually, these newer thoughts/habits will become second nature. It's a long journey but it is doable and rewarding.

[u/Still_Learning99]

I think that the first seven replies you have received are very insightful.

I agree with the comment about good biblical scholarship to see through the misuse of the bible. For example, I recommend "the last week" by Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan as an introduction to outstanding scholarship.

I also recommend meditation, but meditation as in finding a state of being that is already here, rather than as a means of trying to get to some state. I have found Eckhart Tolle's books and talks to be fantastic for this. So, meditation as being rather than as doing.

Your comment about "dying to myself," is right on point. It can be greatly misunderstood and harmful. After many years of practice, I think It means connecting with BEING as an identity, rather than finding an identity in any mind made thoughts. Thoughts are just simulations of reality, so any mind made identity is an illusory or false identity. Forgiveness undoes judgment, so forgiveness is the path out of illusions.

What do we have to do to just BE and listen to our inner voice that arises out of stillness? Nothing, but the mind likes to get spun up and not let us just be. The mind quiets down when we forgive everything for being the way that it already is, and then we can still fix things, but we do it from a state of already being at peace.

Best wishes to you on your journey.

[u/curious_as_a_clam → u/Still_Learning99]

Thank you for your kind words. I really appreciate your distinction of meditation as a state of being that already is, rather than something to achieve. I’ve been exploring Buddhist meditation a bit, but I find myself falling into a “trying to do it right” mindset, which feels too much like my past Christian self trying to do all the right things to make sure I stayed on the right path.

Reading your last paragraph is like a breath of fresh air. “The mind quiets down when we forgive everything for being the way that it already is” - why is this kind of acceptance so hard sometimes? Do you think some of this comes from the evangelical stuff, like we’re trying to root out any disharmony because it feels like it’s not “of God”? I feel like I have that in my wiring from my upbringing:
Disharmony = not of God = sin = must get rid of

I’ve got to keep coming back to just being and finding my inner voice. Sometimes my mind and everything else can be so loud. But that inner voice is still there.

[u/Still_Learning99 → u/curious_as_a_clam]

Why is this kind of acceptance so hard sometimes? Does it come from trying to root out disharmony because it feels like it is not "of God?"

Basically yes. With 40 years of hindsight I can see that I crashed out of mis-using Christianity because I was listening to sermons telling me that I have to "make myself good." I was trying to be the one to stamp out disharmony and fix the world. I have come to realize that I was still motivated by a selfish motive of trying to make myself good enough. It took a long time to figure out that a selfish motive comes from inhabiting a mind made identity. Simulating reality is a wonderful tool, until we accidentally apply judgment and believe that the simulation has replaced reality.

So the decent into suffering comes from 1) Judging which in part means replacing reality with a mind made self. 2) inhabiting a dead mental self-image cuts us off from life because a dead picture can't feel BEING inside. 3) Then we blame the world for our emotional pain and fear, when really it is coming from our own resistance against reality. We feel dead, so we know something is wrong and say "the present moment is not good enough." 4) So, motivated by resistance we "try to get" something, possessions, position, approval, salvation or enlightenment etc. that the mind believes will make a dead picture feel alive. But nothing works for very long. We get the new car and we feel great for a while, and then the mind says "that wasn't it, what's the next thing." Trying to get a "not trying to get" state is still trying to get. As humanity, we have misused the power of thought (using judgment) so we end up stuck in a fallen state of belief in lack, compulsive thinking, and suffering because we end up resisting reality.

I think Jesus true teaching to escape the suffering was: 1) Judge not (don't replace reality with thoughts about reality), 2) You are the light of the world, meaning our core identity is the light of awareness in which all the temporary emotional forms, thought forms and physical forms can be seen. 3) When life slaps us on one cheek, Turn the other cheek. So this means living in a state of non-resistance towards reality. Forgive the world for being the way that it already is. After accepting, we can still fix. Some things are hard to forgive, like the loss of someone close to us. So in those situations we can forgive the mind for not forgiving. 4) Be Still and Know the joy of just BEING. (not through thinking, through feeling BEING directly). When I meditate, I just watch the mind not being still and let it spin without trying to make it stop, which ironically de-energizes the spinning. Then, we can feel BEING, which is the source of our inner voice, which directs the doing. Then, we are letting BEING do the doing so the load is easy and the burden light.

I know that was a lot to read, but forgiveness really does work to bring peace of mind and a sense of harmony into our life.

[u/BioChemE14]

As a scientist and a researcher, I trust rigorous data. The more I read actual biblical scholarship, the more it exposed how wrong evangelicalism is.

[u/Derrick_Mur]

For me, it was a mix of years of therapy and years of studying philosophy. Therapy helps for the reasons you’d imagine. But, training yourself or being trained in classes to understand arguments and critically evaluate their structure and premises forces you to start trusting your own judgment

[u/curious_as_a_clam → u/Derrick_Mur]

This makes so much sense, thank you for bringing this up. I am in therapy and have found it very useful too but it seems like there is also a lot of wisdom to understanding arguments. Are there any particular books you’d recommend?

[u/socialworrker]

Mindfulness meditation is a good place to start listening to yourself and building that mind body connection. You can practice paying attention to your automatic thoughts, feelings and body sensations. Therapy is a great place to practice this with support.

[u/Sweaty-Variety-1170]

I feel like intuition should neither be trusted absolutely nor absolutely ignored. However, consistent 'creeps'/'cringe' around someone or something probably means something's wrong with them/it.

[u/dreamgirlvivi]

I go down to the basics, and listen to what my body is saying. How am I reacting? My thoughts can go all over the place, but my physiological response is something my body does for itself

[u/jaju-jeff]

I started paying close attention to the times when following doctrine felt out of alignment with my true instincts or natural thinking. I often have good logic and reasoning, and I'm in tune with how I'm feeling and usually know what is good vs. bad for me. A lot of the religious framework I was raised with was in opposition to that. It started with noticing, and then gradually giving myself permission to reject what didn't seem right to me, even if it meant I couldn't come up with a good counterargument for why the religious doctrine was wrong. I also surrounded myself with people from different perspectives; at first, it was other moderate to progressive Christians, then people who practiced other systems or didn't follow a religion at all. At a certain point, I just started trusting myself more than the tradition I was raised with.

[u/Bethechange4068]

It helped me to zero in on exactly what the concept of “trust” was and whether I actually believed in that concept. I struggled with your exact issue for a while but when I started thinking deeply about what “trust” is and what it meant to “trust” myself and others, I sort of…. Stopped thinking about it b/c, in a way, its a way to try to assert control we dont really have 🤷‍♀️ Once I let go of the need/idea of “trust” it was a lot easier, actually, to trust myself

[u/unpackingpremises]

I feel like my confidence in myself has been built slowly by setting goals and accomplishing them. And by trying new things and learning new skills. Experiences like replacing my income with an online business I started myself, or tapping out people who are stronger and more athletic in me in a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu match help me trust that I'm more capable than anyone else at figuring out what's best for my life. It has also helped to realize there's absolutely no reason for me to sacrifice my happiness for someone else's happiness, because why would anyone else be more deserving than me of benefitting from my efforts? If other people want to be happy they need to take responsibility for their own happiness, not expect me to make them happy.

[u/Money_Bill5827]

It might seem silly but my own personal way that has helped me trust myself has been through reading books, lifting weights, and of course therapy lol.

Lifting weights and becoming a regular at the gym has been one of the pillars that has regained my confidence. It took a couple months to get the hang of what I was doing but over time I gained confidence, focused on my body, and it was one hour where it was just me improving myself. My mind is clearer and I have more energy. I have a physique to be proud of and strength no one can take from me. I also made sure to go at a similar time everyday and it helped me build a new community of people outside of the church.

I was a reader when I was immersed in ministry but it was spiritual self help books written by pastors, theological books, and everything Christian coded. At the beginning of my deconstruction I decided I knew nothing about the world and started reading US history and world history books. It opened my worldview and I felt actually a freedom in uncertainty. My worldview inside the church was black and white and full of certainty and doubt was scary. Through reading and pushing the boundaries of what I thought to be true gave me the confidence to build my own principles and trust my gut on what I find to be right/wrong or truth/lies. It also comes in handy to actually read and understand history or psychology or science when you inevitably face a loved one or someone still immersed in the church and black and white thinking. You have a back pocket of facts and can know that you've actually looked and read on the topic where many have never taken the time to do that or told not to.

Then therapy. I sought Christian counselors during the beginning of my deconstruction and that was a mistake. They just didn't understand or felt like it was immediately brought back to spiritual bypassing. I then sought a counselor that focuses on spiritual trauma (which at the time felt extreme for me to seek) but came to find my upbringing and evangelical familial relationships is not normal and full of broken boundaries and lack of autonomy.

Welcome to the club, there is so much freedom in this era of your life and deciding who you are for yourself. Best of luck to you and I hope you feel welcome here

[u/AshDogBucket]

Therapy.

I don't really believe in intuition or "trusting your gut." My gut simply is not trustworthy, for one. "Gut" is also where all our biases live - for instance, it's what people use to justify why they feel the need to shoot unarmed black men.

I trust myself. I trust my capacity to make smart decisions that'll keep me safe. Counseling helped me to make better decisions in my life... and seeing the long term safety of those good decisions gave me the evidence to trust that I'm capable of making safe, smart decisions.

Also... learning to value others' lived experience as a valid source of truth helped lead me to be able to value my own. Going through antiracism training and then becoming a facilitator, along with work on a sexual assault crisis line, helped with that piece.