- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
I’ve been reading the information and posts on this site for a while now, but just today actually registered because I am having a hard time and I am looking for some support. More and more I find myself doubting the good and fearing the bad. I think I would like to leave the Church because I don’t believe so many things… but I tell fear the punishments that come with taking off my garments or having a cup of tea. It’s so stupid, because if I didn’t have any faith, then I shouldn’t fear these things… but if I fear them, then doesn’t that mean I really do believe the teachings of the Church? It’s just one long, horrible cycle and I don’t know what it means or if anyone else out there has ever felt the same way. Please, if you have some insight let me know. Hi Ofeelia9, For what it’s worth, I feel for you and your situation. I think many of us are familiar with that turmoil to some degree or another. Hang in there!
Here’s what comes to mind. There’s no rush. You’ve probably spent years slowly getting to where you are now, to this crossroads. Change takes time. We change and evolve, and you seem to be deep in a phase where the paradoxes of life, of religious culture and our human nature are becoming very prominent as your perspective shifts. What was once so simple, we realize as complex with many facets.
Something that works good for me is to detach and just examine, like from the outside looking in, what I am thinking and feeling. What do you mean by doubting “the good?” Can you be more specific? If something is good, if you enjoy it and it makes you feel good about yourself, helps you connect spiritually with the divine and people around you, it is good. If it doesn’t do that for you … well then it doesn’t really matter does it? I find a lot of “the good” in my association with the Church still, but not in the ways I used to understand that.
As for taking off garments or drinking tea specifically as examples, the decision is yours. You can make that decision, whatever it is you want to do. What are the consequences? Think through this in your mind and in your heart. Accept what you are feeling. We tell ourselves what we should do on a deep level this way. It isn’t that some terrible punishment awaits the smallest misstep. For me, I just do the best I can with what God is giving me. I really made peace with this for the most part. God isn’t out to trick me. He never was.
Unfortunately once you go down this path, nobody else can tell you the new right answer. That’s the whole point of reaching this stage. You become the master of your destiny. Many people decide to continue wearing garments for example. I do. Some don’t. That’s ok. But I don’t feel fear about it. It’s a decision I made and I know the reasons. I make other decisions differently.
People here don’t do everything the same, but overall work on what I call “reconciliation strategies” together. Whatever gets us to the point of peace, happiness and enlightenment is what we need to do.
Boy, bad stuff verses the good stuff. I feel for your conflict. I know the rocky path and it’s not rose colored, I can tell you. Last Sunday I was approached by a sister who attends my family history class. She was the third member of my class to share a secret with me. She said she’d been approached by our bishop, who told her to learn from me regarding genealogy, but to not listen to other beliefs I offered up (bad stuff I guess). It made me feel I was being pointed to the door. It mattered but little I was a really good family history specialist (referred to as a “gold mine” by some). The fact I was less than sure about claims of the church were enough to stamp me as a possible ‘apostate’, and someone to be very cautious around. I have spent fifty years in the church, raised 4 out of 5 children to go on missions and marry in the temple, had sixteen grandchildren born to our family (plus six spouses who I also love). But, I’m not worthy to remain, I’m a danger in the church, because I question things. For what it’s worth Ofeelia9, go slow and say little, until you choose the trail you will follow. Consider before you speak to church leadership. The bad stuff could get worse… Sorry you are feeling sad. I have faith in things that I don’t hold up to Church standards. The spirit of the law is much more important than the letter of the law, imo .. I’ve heard that over and over again and it’s important to think about. My fear stage was short lived .. so I don’t have a lott of advice!
The forum is a great place for support. Good to have you. If you are looking for advice or wanting to learn from the experiences of others it would probably be helpful to post with a little more information. From what you wrote it seems like you are wanting to rebel against the institution that betrayed you. It just seems like that is where you are right now. If you were to satisfy some rebellious inclinations, I don’t think that it would make feel better. It would probably make you feel worse. It would probably be best to wait until you are feeling more stable and certain that you want to drink tea or remove your garments or whatever.
In dealing with your cycle of disbelief, fear and faith. I have found it immensely helpful to explore and figure out what it is I do believe. My first step was to go through the Articles of Faith and see how I would rewrite them for myself. After a year I am still realizing different things that I believe and don’t believe and what I’m not sure about. Also, I would encourage you to be pretty liberal with the stuff that you aren’t sure about.
If you don’t have anybody to talk to about the things that are bothering you, you should probably try to find somebody. The forum is great but it isn’t the same as having real people to talk to. If you don’t have anyone that you can be completely honest with then use the forum and post liberally. It’s important to feel connected. Good luck.
ofeelia9 wrote:It’s so stupid, because if I didn’t have any faith, then I shouldn’t fear these things… but if I fear them, then doesn’t that mean I really do believe the teachings of the Church.
I, too, can feel where you are coming from. These ideals that we set up in our head are an important part of letting go. As brian said, detaching. It’s not that you need to leave the church necessarily, it’s more that you are able to “release” the church. Let it go. Let go of the expectations. Let go of the guilt. Let go of the uncertainty. Just let it all go.
When you can see what works for you and what doesn’t, you can approach those things for what they are: helps for you along your own personal journey. It’s your life and your journey. No one has to take this on but you. So, don’t let them. Don’t let others tell you what you “should” do. You know what’s right. Embrace that part of you that recognizes the good and let everything else go. Let somebody else figure it all out. For you, you just need to be honest and loving to yourself.
Try doubting both the good and the bad. Try fearing both the good and the bad. After all both the “good” and the “bad” are probably on a continuum. There’s no such thing as black & white in a human organization, even in each of us as individuals. Doubt and fear are both important emotions, but so are hope and love. Deliberately challenge your assumptions, both the negative ones and the positive ones. I remember the time I became fearful of the things I had always enjoyed. I feared my fears would effect my performance at work. Sure enough at the end of the school year I was called into the Principal’s office and told to get get myself together over the summer or else. The long and short of it was that I had gone into menopause and needed to have some hormones regulated. that was not the end of my problems but, it gave me the courage to look honesty at several issues. I needed some professional help as well. I know it sounds rather pedantic but any time one seems to be having major emotional changes in attitude that don’t end in a reasonable amount of time a Physical Exam is in order.
This will not make your fears go away but with time you will understand the causes and what you need to do. If you are comfortable asking for a blessing, it may prove helpful as well.
I hope this of some help. I certainly offer my support these things can be tough. Sorry about the run-on sentences.
K K
We are not always rational. That’s not fun to confront, and it’s not fun to admit. But it is true. You have deep seated fears and pains that are going to keep manifesting themselves until the issues are resolved somehow.
Some of us feel the best place to live, love, and resolve is within the church. That doesn’t make the church all-powerful. It doesn’t make the church True. And it doesn’t make the church right. It just makes it our home and our “work and glory”.
ofeelia9 wrote:It’s so stupid, because if I didn’t have any faith, then I shouldn’t fear these things… but if I fear them, then doesn’t that mean I really do believe the teachings of the Church.
Like others said, go slow, relax, and tell yourself it is ok to feel what you are going through and you are not alone. So many of us go through these same emotions, and those are just the ones that know about this site, and the ones that feel like they want to share their thoughts and post. Think of how many others out there go through the same questions that we don’t know about … and so we are not alone. There is some comfort in that, but that doesn’t provide the answers.
The answers come by working through them and seeking out what you can learn from it. You can’t learn new things if you limit yourself to how you think you “should” be or how you “should” feel or what faith you “should” have. Avoid the shoulds. Seek the ability to accept the way it is, and move forward from there. I found studying Buddhism helped me start to see some things this way more than any LDS scriptures I studied (but that is just me and what I needed).
Check out something new, like Joseph Campbells dialogue with Bill Moyer in the book, “The Power of Myth”. This did not replace my faith and beliefs in God, they enhanced them and added to my LDS faith.
I think it is ok to still believe the teachings of the Church that have meaning to me, despite all the things I disagree with or think is wrong in the church or think is just culture or traditions of our fathers that I think are silly. There may be a lot of that stuff that doesn’t feel right to me, but there is still so much I love about the church, having grown up in it all my life. So why not let both exist inside you, the “good” and the “bad” and learn to maybe see them differently and accept them? Not as “right” and “wrong” but as things that inspire you and things that don’t…and learn new experiences of having to live with the paradox of life that has both opposites at the same time, and how that can enrich your life by realizing it? That is what the church teaches, “there must needs be opposition in all things”.
Just some of my thoughts. I know you can get through it. I hope we can help and we can learn from your experience as you share it with us!
Fear is a hard thing to overcome. When I was a child I was afraid of the dark. Then I remember vividly one day saying to myself this is irrational. I now choose not to be afraid. From that point on I no longer feared what I could not see. So it is with the church and me. I made the decision to take the good that worked for me and discard the irrational. Those things that I can not make sense of such as for me it is work for the dead I choose not to worry about. If at some point in the future I suffer Godly punishment my only defense will be I did the best I could with the information I had at hand. I am willing to live with the consequences of my rational thought processes.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.