I grew up in a very strict fundamental “christian” house. I went to a very strict fundamental “christian” church/school 6 out of 7 days of the week for 13 years. This isn’t the average christian church, they are very much a hellfire and brimstone kind of place. Instead of focusing on God’s love, loving your neighbor, loving yourself, etc, we were taught the exact opposite. We were taught to hate ourselves from a very young age because at the end of the day, God hates us. Yes, the bible says “God is Love”, but they interrupted it as “Well, God wants to love you, but he can’t because you are a dirty, disgusting sinner who deserves hell”. We were taught the bible verse that compares us as dirty rags in the sight of the Lord (Isaiah 64:6).
These teachings were for everyone. Women had a whole different list of rules and regulations, as per the bible, they were required to follow. If you were a woman who wore pants, you were going to hell. If you were a woman who wore lots of make-up, you were going to hell. If you wore flashy nail polish colors that could even possibly get you sent to hell, so you better not. If you wore a skirt that was shorter than 3 inches below your knees you were going to hell. And believe me, the list goes on.
Growing up none of this ever resonated with me. Even though I was told that I was a worthless disgusting human, deep down I knew I didn’t feel like it. I feel like I spent the first 18 years of my life in survival mode. I knew that as soon as I was able to get out of that environment I would dedicate myself to learning as much as I could about everything that I could with respect to religion. I knew that I wanted to find out the truth, not what other people said about the truth. To do this I had to go passed the church, the bible, even other books that so-called christians have written about God, the bible, and the “truth”. I didn’t want someone else telling me what the “truth” was, because is that really the truth or just a shared, collective story that was distracting people from the actual truth?
I started studying about other religions, which was highly interesting to me at first, but after a while I just realized that they are just that…other religions. I learned pretty quickly if you look at religion enough, usually there’s a hidden agenda. If not with certain people personally, usually behind the religion as a whole. If you go to the very root of the religion (and by this I mean the actual religion, not the underlying spiritual teachings or philosophies) you will find most of them were probably started as a means to strike fear in people so the higher ups could use fear as a means of control so they could attain and maintain power.
After a while I realized that what I was looking for could not be found in any religion. I wanted the essence of what the core teachings were about, not all of the man made bullshit meant to plant fear into people. I wanted the essence of who we are, why we are here, and where we are going.
At this point in my life I had been practicing yoga for over a decade. I never really went into the philosophy part of it because it had never crossed my mind to do so. Growing up my mom always told me that I was worshipping satan by doing yoga (even just the stretching aspect of it) and warned me against “that meditation stuff”. Obviously since this was the case, I knew I had to start looking into it. This time things were different. The philosophy that underlies yoga isn’t about some deity telling you what to do and when to do it. There’s no mention of being held accountable to any deity out there separate from yourself. In fact, the essential teaching is that you are an individual expression of the universe as a whole and the ultimate goal of the yogi was the self realization of this (samadhi). The origins of yoga stem from the 6 systems of Indian philosophy. It’s not directly tied to any certain religion, even though it shares origins with hinduism. As Pandit Rajmani Tigunait says in his book Seven Systems of Indian Philosophy, “All schools of Indian philosophy (yoga included) are designed to provide a systematic method for exploring one’s inner potentials and ultimately reaching the center of bliss, happiness, and consciousness hidden in the innermost chamber of every human heart”.
Not only did I actually start to address the trauma that I had been through when I started reading, meditating, and practicing yoga with intention, I was also finally able to break away from everything that the church planted into my mind and was able to leave all of the depression, anxiety, guilt, shame, etc, behind.
I would like to leave you with a list of tips, tricks and some wisdom that I’ve learned in hopes that it may help you or someone else on their journey of breaking away.
I learned to think of everything in terms of energy.
If you start to view things in terms of energy, you will soon discover that everything you come across has its own energy frequency. We are literally swimming in a pool full of energy. Every thought that you have, every action that you take produces a certain frequency which sticks with you. If you think negative thoughts it’s very difficult for your body to tell the difference between thinking negative thoughts and actually being in negative situations. Your mind is a very powerful tool which can be used for your greatest good or it can be hijacked by people as means to control you.
Thoughts, actions, teachings, everything has a vibrational signature/frequency that directly affects your energy field and body that in turn affects the way you feel, think, and treat yourself. If you listen to people who tell you that you are worthless, especially to a figure such as God, that will plant the seed in your mind that you truly are worthless. If you start thinking thoughts that you are worthless, that sends out the message to your body that you are, in fact, worthless and your body will respond accordingly, usually with added stress, anxiety, and eventually depression. This will eventually affect the actions that you take in day to day life. People who feel worthless are less likely to practice self care, which they feel is selfish and not something they are worthy of.
Break free of the ego and all of it’s programmed thoughts
The ego can be described as the “little voice inside of our head”. It also creates the entire construct we know simply as “I”. I am this, I am that. It’s something that seemingly separates us from other people and also the world around us. It likes to put labels on things such as “tree”, “cat”, “dog”, “house”, you get the idea. According to Indian philosophy we have the ego as an instrument for us to make sense of the outer world. Without the ego we wouldn’t be able to make observations and form thoughts, feelings, and ideas about those observations. The problem arises only when you start to identify with the ego and mistakenly think it’s WHO you are instead of an instrument to use for your good.
I believe Eckhart Tolle put it best when he described his story about the first time he became aware of the ego. He woke up one night in a fit of depression. He had been suicidal for a while and meant to end his life. He shouted out the words “I can’t live with myself any more!”. He suddenly started dissecting the sentence he just uttered. “I” cannot live with “myself” any longer. Did this imply there are 2 selves in question? Who is this “I” that “I” cannot live with, and who is the “I” who feels this way? Eventually he came to understand that the “I” he couldn’t live with any longer is what we know as the ego. The other “I”, he soon realized, was the awareness behind the thoughts that was going through his mind.
The more I started becoming more aware of the ego the more I realized that I wasn’t who I thought I was. I came to realize and understand that we are the pure awareness behind our thoughts. Most people have a constant stream of thoughts, ideas, feelings going through their mind all day long. They are constantly telling themselves stories, playing movies in their minds and they get so caught up in this narrative they mistake it for who they actually are.
If you start to examine the ego you will start to see how it can be “programmed” to behave in certain ways. When you are first born, up until you are a young adult your mind is highly impressionable. If you are born into a home that strongly believes in a certain way, such as being a fundamental christian, they will try to program your mind to believe in the same way. They do this through stories, songs, activities, etc. They use things like this so that it will become pleasurable for children to learn more about the bible and make them want to behave and believe in a certain way. But, in my case, fear can also be used to program your ego to behave and believe in a certain way. Tell a small child about the torments of hell and that will scare them into submission to almost anything or anyone who is conveniently there to save them.
Positive Affirmations
One of the first things you can do to “reprogram” your ego is by using positive affirmations. Start by watching your thoughts and notice any patterns that may arise. Even if you view yourself as a positive person, you may be surprised to see that your ego is primarily focused on negative thoughts and negative situations, playing back negative “movies” over and over in your head, thus creating even more anxiety in your body. Using positive affirmations is a way to reprogram your mind into thinking more positively about itself, which may in turn help alleviate some of the anxiety you often experience.
The phrase “I am…” and whatever you attach to it is one of the most powerful things you can say. If you constantly tell yourself “I am unworthy of love” or “I am unworthy of having money” or “I am not good enough” then chances are you may actually start believing it. If you notice your mind telling you these things, try to use an affirmation that tells you the exact opposite. For example if you notice you keep telling yourself “I am not good enough” start telling yourself “I am good enough”. Change “I am unworthy of love” or “I am unworthy of having money” to “I am worthy of love” and “I am worthy of having money”. Repeat these phrases to yourself often– when you wake up in the morning, on your way to work, any time during the day when you notice your mind is starting to become negative, before bed, etc. If you need additional help just do a quick internet search for “positive affirmations” and you’ll find plenty.
Mediation Exercise
Sit in a quiet room, preferably in a cross-legged position. Close your eyes and start to focus on your breath. Slowly start to notice how your body feels when you inhale and exhale. Start to become aware of any thoughts that are going through your mind, but remember to not get too caught up in them. If you do realize you are caught up in your thoughts, simply bring your attention back to your breath. As you notice thoughts arising in your mind, instead of getting caught up in them simply observe them. What is the content of your thoughts? Any negative self talk? What about negative thoughts about the meditation itself? “This is stupid, what a waste of time!”. Again, don’t get involved in your thoughts, simply take the time to observe. See how long the time between your thoughts is and see if you can extend that time as you get deeper in your practice. Maybe the first time you try you don’t have but a few seconds in between each thought. Maybe next time a little longer, maybe a week into it you only have a few a minute. Eventually you may find that you only have 1 or 2 thoughts every time you sit down to meditate. Which brings us to our next step…
Get to know the life energy that’s inside of you
For this one, I’ll just leave you with an excerpt from Eckhart Tolle’s “A New Earth”. It’s so well written nothing I can write would do it justice:
“Although body-identification is one of the most basic forms of ego, the good news is that it is also the one that you can most easily go beyond. This is done not by trying to convince yourself that you are not your body, but by shifting your attention from the external form of your body and from the thoughts about your body–beautiful, ugly, strong, weak, too fat, too thin– to the feeling of aliveness inside it. No matter what your body’s appearance is on the outer level, beyond the outer form it is an intensely alive energy field.
If you are not familiar with “inner body” awareness, close your eyes for a moment and find out if there is life inside your hands. Don’t ask your mind. It will say, “I can’t feel anything.” Probably it will also say “Give me something more interesting to think about.” So instead of asking your mind, go to the hands directly. By this I mean become aware of the subtle feeling of aliveness inside them. It is there. You just have to go there with your attention to notice it. You may get a slight tingling sensation at first, then a feeling of energy or aliveness. If you hold your attention in your hands for a while, the sense of aliveness will intensify. Some people won’t even have to close their eyes. They will be able to feel their “inner hands” at the same time as they read this. Then go to your feet, keep your attention there for a minute or so, and begin to feel your hands and feet at the same time. Then incorporate other parts of the body–legs, arms, abdomen, chest, and so on– into that feeling until you are aware of the inner body as a global sense of aliveness.
What I call the “inner body” isn’t really the body anymore but life energy, the bridge between form and formless. Make it a habit to feel the inner body as often as you can. After a while, you won’t need to close your eyes anymore to feel it. For example, see if you can feel the inner body whenever you listen to someone. It almost seems like a paradox: When you are in touch with the inner body, you are not identified with your body anymore, nor are you identified with your mind. This is to say you are no longer identified with form but moving away from form-identification toward formlessness, which we may also call Being. It is your essence identity. Body awareness not only anchors you in the present moment, it is a doorway out of the prison that is the ego. It also strengthens the immune system and the body’s ability to heal itself.”
Yoga/Massage
According to Ayurveda, Yoga, and many other healing modalities, all of your past trauma that is not quickly addressed and released is stored inside of your muscles and fascia. I was a massage therapist for 6 years and have had a lot of clients who experienced “emotional release” upon receiving myofascial release massage. I have plenty of personal experience with this in respect to yoga, too. Deep stretching is capable of releasing an enormous amount of emotions associated with past trauma. Here is a simple, short exercise that may help you deal with your own emotions.
Wearing loose fitting clothes you can easily stretch in, find a quiet place where you won’t be interrupted. A yoga mat and a journal is recommended. I recommend starting with your hip muscles, as these seem to hold the most tension in them for most people. Pigeon pose is a great hip opener. Safely and slowly get into the posture. Remember that everyone’s flexibility level is different, and it’s ok if you can’t get as deep into the pose as the example given, what is important is that you are in it to the best of your ability and you can feel a stretch. Make sure not to go too deeply too quickly because you will be holding this pose for a while. In the past my goal was to hold this pose for 5 minutes, but it was something that I had to work up to. The first time you do this, just try to hold it for as long as you are able to. If it gets uncomfortable, try to discern if it’s a physical discomfort that could potentially cause injury (in that case immediately come out of the pose slowly and safely), or if it’s more of a mental discomfort. If it’s more of a mental discomfort, try focusing on the breath (see above meditations) and hold it as long as you are able to. When you feel like you need to come out of the pose, come out slowly and switch to the other side. After you are done with both sides, get your journal out and write some reflections. What kind of emotions did you feel? How intense were they? How long were you able to hold the pose? How do you feel now as compared to before you did the stretch? If this isn’t the first time you’ve done this exercise, compare this time with the last time with regards to emotional intensity and time duration. See if you can work your way up to holding it for 5 minutes (this may take a month or longer of regular practice). You can also try different poses, the hips and the hamstrings/quads are usually the most powerful.
I sincerely hope this information reaches someone who can use it to recover from any trauma, religious or otherwise, that they have. Thank you so much for reading!
Here are some additional resources you may be interested in:
Books— Anything by Eckhart Tolle, my favorite is “A New Earth” and “The Power of Now”.
For more studious types “Seven Systems of Indian Philosophy” is a great book if you want to deep dive into Indian philosophy.
Videos— This video is great for those who suffer from anxiety and depression.
As always, please consult with your physician or therapist before engaging in any new practices or exercises you have not done before, or if you need any additional information on how it may affect you.
If you are suicidal and need immediate help, please consult the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 800-273-8255.
