Voyager - on getting rid of guilt and fear

[Willow]

Voyager,

I noticed your post to tke. I'm wondering how you have been able to silence the voices of guilt and fear?

Most of my struggle with guilt fear comes from my experience with the church, However the earliest seeds were planted through childhood abuses.

As early as age 7 I was involved with a fanatical bible teacher who scared me to death about hell and separation from my parents. At the same time I had a pedophile living next door (fill in the blanks). My behavior became quite odd after that... (i.e. letting children beat me up because Jesus said to turn the other cheek, and sleeping with my arms and legs wrapped around all 20 of my teddy bears in case the rapture came and my parents didn't go with me). My parents disallowed me to go back to the children's bible study when they saw how scared I was. Then we finally moved away from that neighborhood when I was 11. A brief foray into drugs and rebellion in my teen years... then I was right back to the extreme guilt and fear based religion... until 6 years ago when I left the ministry... and now have completely given up on trying to go to church. I do still try to find spiritual alternatives to church. The God Journey is my latest discovery thanks to "Church Happens".

So... how do you numb the voices?

Love ya bro
Amy

[Blake]

Amy,

Im shoving my oar in here..but TAKE YOUR TIME. Its not a nice background youve come from and Jesus totally understands. I tell kids on the ex gay board that the damage didnt appear in one day and wont go away in one day.

So for you,. realsie that god has SO MUCH grace for you in the things you are doing. He loves you and will work day by day with you. You will be able to go back to church, but take it all ion bite sized chunmks. You get rid of the voices, by bieng at peace that in spite of all that yopu are dealing with..His love for you will not change or alter at all. You are loved......completely.

[Blake]

And god is furious about what happened to you. He NEVER wanted this for you. And He loves you so much.

[Willow]

Hi Blake... I am glad you stuck your oar in... thanks :)
I posted up here because I didn't want to steal the topic from below... yet wanted Voyager to know I was responding to his words. So... am open to everyone's responses. Hope that clarifies.

Blake, I don't know if you realize... just coming back and all. My mother suicided in late January. I'm set back a bit from that... still reeling. Having a local spiritual family would be nice about now... yet... I don't want church...

I'm not as certain as you are that I'll go back to church. Although... alternate forms of community are starting to show on the horizon. I just wish more of them were local to me and I could see faces and feel human touch, etc. The local bikers are pretty good about that, but only the safe ones. Some of them are not safe.

I'm glad you are out there ministering. I hope you can help those kids. Having adult gay male friends who tried and tried to work things out... and seeing how sad they are at not being able to after so much counseling and ministry... well... it saddens me.

[Voyager]

My method is not really a popular one. I have basically placed religion in a category of being something manmade instead of God-made. I believe that the deas of hell and punishment by God were imagined by barbaric religious scholars at a time when burning people to the stake was acceptable.

Most of the shame, guilt, and fear in my life came from religion. After I left my former church, I felt totally abandoned by God. However, my idea of God was a room full of people shouting down the hallelujiah chorus with a controlling dictator at the helm. It took me years to figure out that modern day religion has very little if anything to do with God.

Religion basically wrecked my life worse than it already was, so why do I need it? I don't. After getting away from it by going "cold turkey" when the church abandoned me, I learned to live without religion. Now I have no need to go back to it. The religious guilt, shame, and fear are now gone. I look at God as someone who loves and cares for me, not as someone who is ready to off my head at the slightest commandment breach. I really don't know much about God, because I think that all of the books written about Him are completely wrong about His character. Would God command His people to murder gays, non-virgins, fortune tellers, disobedient children, and people of different religions? I don't think so, but that's what the Bible says He did.

Anyway, the main reason I don't post around here anymore is because this belief system of mine doesn't go over very well here. It seems like 80% of the people here still hang onto the idea of church and religion as being necessities and requirements to having a relationship with God. I respect their opinions, and do not wish to debate about the topic.

Amy, you may have more issues that don't pertain to religion that bother you. Namely your childhood. The more I study about guilt, depression, and compulsions, the more I learn that 90% of it is a result of childhood traumas, childhood attachment issues, and/or abandonment as a child. Adoption is a big trauma for kids, and most adoptees end up with all kinds of psychological issues. I'm still trying to figure out how to work through my childhood issues. They tend to drive me to compulsive behavior. When harnessed, this "driven" behavior has made me very successful. When left to itself, it tends to go the wrong way. The only remedy that I can seem to find for this so far is 12-step programs. They work if you work them.

:cool:

[SpinningHead]

sleeping with my arms and legs wrapped around all 20 of my teddy bears in case the rapture came and my parents didn't go with me

At the AoG church I grew up in, we had to see these rapture movies about what would happen if we were left behind. (terrifying!) We were also told that you wouldn't be raptured if you had any kind of sin in your life. Then we were told that we had hidden sin. Then, if you showed any kind of fear, then that meant you were hiding from sin and you'd be sit down and "prayed" with - more like interrogated about everything you do, say, think, thought, ever thought before, sin you weren' "really" sorry for...:eek:

So I have hidden sin, that I'm not aware of but it will keep me from going to heaven or being raptured....that's a lot of pressure for an 8 year old! (Ummm, what's sin again??)

[Willow]

SH, I saw all of those movies too... through a COG church and the lady that so generously evangelized all the children in the neighborhood :confused:

It truly is a terror to children when religious biggots throw the book at them. How can a small child possibly filter all of that kind of proposterous information?

[Willow]

Hi Voyager... thanks for the message. :)

I'm somewhat on the same page as you are re: religion. I still look for a community in which I can share the core of my being with though. Sounds like you've found that in the 12 step world. KUDOS! I haven't taken the plunge there yet, but will keep it in mind. 12-step meetings triggered me by the rituals they use. Some may not use those rituals... but the action of holding hands in a circle and saying the same words at the same time triggered me to no end.

Far as childhood abuse is concerned... I have had some counseling. I'm sure I've not nearly touched the tip of the iceberg, but work on it when things are calmer in my life than they have been lately.

I'd like there to be room here for everyone... no matter what approach works. I think your input here is valuable because of your unique path and approach. Glad you are still peeking in.

HUGS
Amy

[Roberta]

Hi Voyager... thanks for the message. :)

I'm somewhat on the same page as you are re: religion. I still look for a community in which I can share the core of my being with though. Sounds like you've found that in the 12 step world. KUDOS! I haven't taken the plunge there yet, but will keep it in mind. 12-step meetings triggered me by the rituals they use. Some may not use those rituals... but the action of holding hands in a circle and saying the same words at the same time triggered me to no end.


That is very different from my 12-step program.

Right now there are only 3 of us meeting on a regular basis, but there have been times where there have been many more. We don't have any rituals.

We chat for a few minutes, then open the meeting in prayer. Sometimes we don't get any work done in our book, sometimes we get two or three pages done.

As far as the other issues, I didn't grow up in church so I can't say that I went through that. I'm glad the Lord spared me of all of that.
I used to teach Sunday School and youth group to kids of various age groups up to the 5th grade- depending on which group the church needed help with. Most of the time I worked with 1-3 grades. I can't even begin to imagine teaching them some of the things that have been mentioned in this thread.

[Willow]

Hi Roberta. Is this your first time here? Good to meet you.
I suppose there are as many styles of meeting as there are 12 step groups. I should take that into consideration. I've been to about 5 different groups as a visitor. One was quite churchy and replaced the 12 steps with their own set of steps. Others used the 12 steps and recited them at the beginning of the meeting and closed with a circle holding hands saying the serenity prayer and something about it works if you work it.

[www.cbcrecovery.com]

Amy, you are deeply loved by God. What you went through was not in any way demonstration of God's love.

No child should have to go through that kind of experience. I know what it is like to live with guilt and pain through many years. If you have any extra teddy bears send them my way, okay? ;)

Nick

[Willow]

Awwwww.... I got tons of teddies. I call them stuffies. I'll send one down the pipeline to you.

I still hold on tight to a stuffie when I need a hug.

Thanks Nick! Yer a sweetie!
Amy

[Forsaken]

Dear Willow,

I read alot of your posts here and wanted to let you know, that way over the other side of the world, is someone (me) who thinks of you and prays often for your well-being.:)

Without a doubt your doing it very tough at the moment, but I am always amazed that through your current struggles, you continue to fight back and your kindness to others here on the forum reaches out and blesses us.

I wanted to present something to you for thought.

Imagine that you live alone in a desolate country, with the burden of feeding four sick children. You own a small plot of land with a shack upon it. Each day you struggle to grow food in poor soil and the little water you find is often polluted.

One day a man approaches you and says, "I have found these little stones near your house and would like to keep them. Can I trade them for this large basket of fresh food."

You are overjoyed!

You agree to the bargain and tell him that if he provides more food, he can return and take all of the stones. After all, the little stones contribute to the poor soil quality.

The man returns to his country, and sell the little stones (uncut diamonds) for billions. Some people hear about him and how he got the stones, and laugh at your foolish error. With that sort of money you could of saved your whole country from poverty. You could of established schools, hospitals, and brought about critical social change.

Why didn't you recognise the value of the stones and sell them for more money? Some people are amazed that you did this, they feel a bit sorry that you were ignorant of their value, but shrug their shoulders. You should of known their true value. After all, didn't you have free will?

***************

Well obviously you didn't KNOW their value and you probably never would. You were never educated in stones or diamonds. There are no schools, in fact there is hardly a developed languaged. In that life, the most important struggles were finding food for your family day to day. The only way you can be wiser about the stones, is by learning about them. But how do you do that, when there is no opportunity for you to learn? How do you know, that you even need to learn, when you are ignorant to the fact that you are uneducated?

Bleh, my story analogy sucks!!

*******

Anyway, I guess what I am trying to say, is that you fear and have guilt because you have been taught these things. Not just taught from a christian educational point of view. Our culture has been deeply established within the western christian philosophy for centuries.. It invades our education, politics and social culture on every level. We have also been told that we have free-will. So when we make mistakes, a typical person may say, it was our own *free will* that did it!! Or, to a christian, it was our vulnerability to satan, who lead us astray because we are not right with God.. etc.

Free will however can only extend to what we know. How do we make the correct choices if we are ignorant to what our choices are? How do we change our thinking when we are taught to think a certain way?

*********

Bluntly put.. and this I understand, that as my journey with God, is possibly only *my journey.* When I believed the bible was the only divine word of God, I lived in terrible fear of hell, death, sin etc.. and like you also mentioned.. separation from my family. I had panic attacks at the very idea of entering *sinful* environments.

How to resolve this fear..? I had to destroy my belief in the *divine bible* and learn to be loved by God from many sources. But none so important as God itself.

Having said this, I DO NOT think the bible is worthless. I love the bible, it is an extraordinary book of faith and love, but I hate it also.. not only because of the fundamentalism and evil it has created. But there are some individual passages that I feel although maybe divinely inspired at the time of their author, are no longer relevent to a faith that has evolved quite evilly in 2000 years.

A final note. Just because I didn't find God within church, doesn't mean other people can't. Alot of people obviously do, or they wouldn't be there.

[Willow]

Hi Forsaken, Your words are so gentle and comforting... thank you. I loved the story too!!!! Wow! What an eye opener! I guess I'm in process of doing something similar to what you did... destroying the old and making room for the new. I have to do it very slowly or else it upsets my system. Over the course of 6 years I've come a long way... I'm still working through a lot of bad inner beliefs though. I"m going to read over your post again when I get off work... more carefully and prayerfully. There is a lot of wisdom there for me... and comfort.