Pushing Forward

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I have felt stuck in a phase of this deconstruction for a while now and I find myself trying to force my way out of it. I have been bouncing around in a phase of anger and acceptance wherein I go back and forth between feeling angry and lashing out about the lies I feel I was fed by religion and accepting these truths without malice. In this phase there is a lot of discomfort. I spend a lot of time researching, listening and learning about other religions, I have been reading the Bible more and learning about world history and the historical contexts of all of these different types of religions. In the past I would have taken all of these different accounts of these stories as some sort of evidence that many cultures had similar experiences which would point to the validity of them. Where as now, I look at them and I can see how religions borrowed from other religions and stories follow common archetypes. The fact that members of a particular religion can look at texts and belief structures of all other world religions and find reasons why they feel those texts and stories cannot be trusted yet fail to look on their own with the same criteria they used to discount all the others does not point to the validity of their beliefs it actually pokes holes in it.

Today I am trying to give myself a little grace. Allowing myself to sit with this stage of the process and feel uncomfortable. The main difference is instead of taking in mostly negative content regarding Christianity, because I am pretty well convinced at this point that the Bible is full of shit, and I am going to opt for listening to Eckart Tolle and Alan Watts and Neil deGrasse Tyson. I am going to think more about what is instead of listening to arrogant atheists discuss and argue about what isn't. Probably, the way out of this stage is to leave all of the other stuff behind and start looking forward and start taking in light and positivity once again. No longer should there be a concern for what was; only what is. I am not preparing for some grand debate. This is not something I have to define or something I have to justify or discuss or label for anyone. I can just allow myself to be the universe experiencing itself as Jessica for a while longer; whatever that might look like. 

Instead of trying to force myself out of this stage of deconstruction I am going to guide myself out by changing up what I am exposing myself to. I don't imagine it will take too long.

    

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