Common Experiences Of Deconstruction - Part 3
Let’s dig into the third and final article outlining some common experiences of deconstructing your faith. Here are the links for part one and part two.
In those first two articles, I spent a lot of time advocating for you to get to know yourself. In his book, The Gift of Being Yourself, David Benner says: “Jesus puts it this way: ‘If you’re content with simply being yourself, you will become more than yourself’ (Luke 18:14 The Message). Before we can become our self we must accept our self, just as we are. Self-acceptance always precedes genuine self-surrender and self-transformation.”
My friend, you will fall into the same toxic systems wearing different shades of lipstick if you don’t do the work to truly understand who you are at your core. You might be afraid of self-discovery and self-awareness because you’re afraid of who you will find underneath all these years of striving and fitting in.
Here’s something I deeply believe: you are good. You are worthy of love, even at your deepest core. The person you are is wonderful - a masterpiece even. All these years of struggle, abuse, discouragement, disillusionment, and pain didn’t ruin you. The truest version of yourself is good. It is worth searching for, discovering, recovering, and restoring.
The work is difficult. It can feel overwhelming. It can be painful. It can feel lonely. But it is so worth it. And as you embark on this journey, know that there are so many of us doing this work too. And there are many of us who are here to support you as you walk this road - you’ll find us!
As you uncover who you truly are and embrace your personal values, the next step is purposefully adjusting how you live. Here are a few questions you may encounter at this stage:
How should I live?
Chances are you spent a lot of years being told what a good life looks like. Married (hetro only!) with 2.5 kids, a dog, and a cat. You volunteer and tithe. You go to church every week. You are “in but not of the world.” Don’t swear. Don’t watch that. The list goes on and on. Now you’ve stepped back from all of this and your body is probably carrying around a ton of stress because of all the things you still feel like you “should” be doing or not doing. Reorienting your day-to-day life after deconstructing can be a long, stressful process. Especially when people confront you to advocate for your old life and old habits out of concern for you backsliding or drifting.
What practices are important?
When I left my ministry job and hit another round of deconstruction, I decided to quit every “spiritual practice” I had carried most of my life. No regular Bible reading. No prayer habit. No church attendance. No tithing. No serving. I put a hard stop on all of it. Why? Because I recognized my motivation for doing these things wasn’t desire, it was often guilt or a sense of obligation. Ick. Did I stop seeking to understand God or my faith when I dropped these habits? Nope. I found myself discovering new ways or being surprised by a practice that naturally emerged from my day-to-day routine.
Truthfully, we humans need practices to keep us grounded and growing. But what you need may not be what was prescribed to you in your past faith communities. Expanding your view of a spiritual practice helps. Or simply embracing the importance of healthy-to-you practices can become the catalyst to living a life aligned with who you truly are.
How do I keep growing?
Sometimes the answer to this question is obvious. Or you’ve got a fresh and freeing understanding of what growth looks like for you from your enneagram learning and practice. But sometimes this question can be triggering and confusing. After all, there is so much emphasis on “denying your flesh,” “shedding your sin nature,” and “becoming more like Jesus” in the church that thinking about growth can feel like too much pressure.
Sometimes the earliest stages of growth look like embracing yourself as you are now. Embracing who you were before. And embracing change as a companion.
What community fits?
This is a big one. When I stepped away from ministry, I had a sinking feeling in my gut that my life wouldn’t look the same at all. I ignored that inclination when I didn’t have the facts to back it up at first. But guess what? My gut was right. My community life totally changed when we began sharing we wouldn’t be back as church members. It was difficult. Disorienting. Painful. And surprising, but also not so much. After all, I had let people walk out of my life when they decided to walk out of my church in the past too.
I wish I could say my experience was unique to me, but it isn’t. In fact, I spent an entire week in January listening to stories of church hurt, abuse, and loss of community. There are lots of sociological and psychological reasons we do this as people, but the bottom line is that it sucks.
Deciding it’s time to rebuild your community can be wildly intimidating, anxiety inducing, and straight up triggering. If you find yourself in this category, be kind to yourself and remember it’s not a race. At the 2024 Broken to Beloved Summit, Heather Gargis said “The slower you go, the faster you heal.” May that sentiment be as freeing for you as it was for me.
How do I learn more about God without falling for the same traps?
Is traps too harsh a word? When I look back at some of the ways I felt about God in my past, I feel straight up duped. My view of God now has changed so much and I find myself sometimes wanting to protect the view of God I have now from outside influences. But guess what, if my view of God becomes more important than continuing to discover God, I am right back where I started. Once a fundamentalist, means it’s easy to become a different kind of fundamentalist, y’all. The sooner you are aware of this, the sooner you can avoid it.
Asking this question is important work. It is deep work. It takes another level of self-awareness and willingness to objectively evaluate where you stand on a regular basis. Stay gentle with yourself. Keep bitterness and anger from festering and turning into a closed-mind and control. Keep your palms up. Cultivate curiosity and get comfortable with uncertainty. You can do this when you’re ready.
This wraps up my series outlining a few common experiences of deconstructing your faith. If you find yourself in one of the areas listed here in part 3, I’ve got another coaching offering for you and it comes in a few flavors.
Reconstructing Life Rhythms is focused on helping you build a rhythm of life that supports who you are and what you value in your current stage of life. I offer this teaching and practice as a group class or as individual coaching sessions. The class incorporates a bit of Biblical teaching (of course without any fundamentalist spin), but if you choose individual coaching you get to decide if we incorporate the Bible or not.
The next group class is launching February 15, 2024 and we will meet for 7 Thursdays at 1pm Eastern Standard Time online. The class is set up as a pay-what-you-can model valued at $85. Anyone who pays $85 or more will receive one individual coaching session with me at any point during the class or up to 6 weeks after. During that one-hour session you’ll get a chance to talk through where you’re stuck, what’s working, what resonates, or what’s not working. You can learn more about the class or sign up here.
Reconstructing Life Rhythms as individual coaching can be started at any time. Choosing this course gives you a lot more individual attention to fine tune your rhythm and exercise self-compassion along the way. We can also incorporate specifics for your enneagram type if you’d like.
Wherever you find yourself in your journey of faith deconstruction and reconstruction, know this: you are not alone. You can do this. You can find your new people. You can find freedom, love, joy, and peace through this process.
May you move bravely forward. May you give yourself the grace of your own pace. May you rest in your belovedness. May you discover the masterpiece that is you.
Honored to be with you on this journey,
Bonni ❤️
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