What Self-Love Really Looks Like

The lack of self-love in humanity today is a global epidemic. Many cultures, societies, and religions have improperly conditioned their children to focus on the needs of others while partially or even completely neglecting their own needs. Therefore, instead of teaching self-love to ourselves and our children, we have encouraged a culture of self-neglect and self-abandonment. This has caused the wellbeing of the entire world to be diminished, resulting in unnecessary exhaustion, pain, and suffering for us all.

In order to change this dismal state we find humanity in, we must choose to be different, starting with ourselves. We must choose to consciously love ourselves above everyone else so that we can secure both wellness for ourselves and the resulting capacity to help others as well.

The truth is that most people don’t even know what self-love really looks like. So many of us, like myself, were raised in religions or cultures that not only failed to prioritize self-love, but also often misrepresented it even when they mentioned it. However, true self-love is strong, self-protective, just, and consistent–not lazy, comfortable, self-delusional, and self-neglectful like some would suggest. Because very few people have seen self-love demonstrated by their parents, peers, cultures, or religions, I am going to provide some examples of what self-love really looks like, organized by different categories below:

Examples of True Self-Love

Self-Love with Diet

Isn’t:

• Giving yourself permission to eat tasty, unhealthy food all of the time–this is self-abuse.

• Malnourishing yourself to lose weight or eating junk food to gain weight–this is self-abuse.

• Choosing to accept unhealthy body fat levels, either excessively lean or obese–this is self-abandonment

Is:

• Giving yourself permission to occasionally eat tasty, unhealthy food as a reward for eating healthy food most of the time.

• Eating healthy, nutrient-rich foods with reasonable calorie deficits and surpluses (500kcal or less) while losing or gaining weight.

• Choosing to maintain healthy body fat levels based upon one’s sex and age.

Self-Love with Exercise

Isn’t:

• Training excessively or abusing your body to achieve self-punishment, performance, or aesthetic goals–this is self-abuse.

• Forcing yourself to train in a way you hate–this is self-punishment and a lack of self-consideration

Is:

• Training with enough consistency, intensity, and duration to heal old injuries, strengthen your body, and improve your overall health and fitness, but not so much that you’re picking up too many injuries and are unable to properly recover.

• Finding a way to train that you enjoy (or is at least the most preferable if you don’t like exercise) that is both effective at improving your health and sustainable.

Self-Love with Career

Isn’t:

• Giving up on your dreams and desires–this is self-abandonment.

• Tolerating abuse from bosses or collegues–this is self-abandonment.

• Doing the type of work that others expect you to do–this is self-abandonment.

Is:

• Doing your best to find a way to fulfill your dreams, even if it’s only on the side or it requires an inconvenient transition.

• Respectfully confronting any abuse and changing workplaces if necessary.

• Doing the type of work that is the best for you that you want to do.

Self-Love with Relationships

Isn’t:

• Tolerating abuse, disrespect, or mistreatment–this is self-abandonment and a lack of self-respect and self-worth.

• Tolerating one-sided relationships, neglect, or a lack of reasonable prioritization–this is a lack of self-respect and self-worth.

• Accepting relationships with people who aren’t good for you because you’re desperate for love and validation–this is self-abandonment, self-devaluation, and a lack of self-worth.

• Being nice and hiding your true thoughts and feelings to avoid conflict–this is self-rejection, disrespect for the other person, and the promotion of an emotionally-unsafe and false relationship.

Is:

• Confronting abuse, disrespect, and mistreatment and requiring genuine apologies and attempts at relational repair, and if both aren’t received, terminating the relationship after several failed chances.

• Having reasonable expectations for the people in your life and if they don’t meet them, replacing those relationships with people who actually value and prioritize you in their life.

• Being willing to be alone until you find people who treat you properly and choosing to give yourself the love and validation you desire from yourself first.

• Showing respect for yourself and the other person by expressing your true thoughts and feelings to them, ensuring an emotionally-safe environment for authentic self-expression, and promoting a real, genuine relationship.

Self-Love with Sleep

Isn’t:

• Sleep depriving yourself OR oversleeping all of the time OR never allowing yourself to sleep in or take naps–these are self-abuse, self-abandonment, and a lack of self-care respectively.

Is:

• Maintaining a healthy sleep schedule so that you guarantee plenty of quality sleep and have a disciplined life, while also allowing yourself to occasionally sleep in or take naps when you feel like you need the extra rest.

Self-Love with Sex

Isn’t:

• Ignoring, diminishing, or rejecting your sexual needs and desires because of sexual shame–this is self-neglect from toxic beliefs about sexuality that started in your childhood.

• Having less sexual activity than would be ideal for your wellbeing because it’s inconvenient for you or your partner(s) –this is self-neglect.

• Choosing not to masturbate when your partner isn’t available–this is self-neglect and potentially sexual shame.

Is:

• Exploring your sexual needs and desires freely and openly, both on your own and with your partner(s) if you have any, and discarding any sexual shame.

• Having quality sexual activity at a frequency that maintains both sexual satisfaction and peace for yourself.

• Prioritizing both solo and partnered sex because both have a place in a fulfilling sex life.

Self-Love with Truth

Isn’t:

• Lying to yourself to stay comfortable and avoid growth–this is self-disrespect and self-abandonment

• Suppressing your truth to make others comfortable–this is self-rejection and self-devaluation.

Is:

• Being honest with yourself about what is true about yourself, others, and reality so that you can improve yourself, navigate relationships with others in a healthy way, and live your life for what really matters instead of wasting your limited time and energy on things that aren’t true, real, or worthwhile.

• Respectfully standing up for what you know to be true and moral, even when others disagree with you.

Self-Love with Self-Care

Isn’t:

• Failing to→brush your teeth twice a day, floss once a day, eat quality food when your blood sugar is dropping, take regular showers, groom yourself well, or dress with dignity–these failings are evidence of self-neglect and a lack of self-respect.

• Failing to get outside and spend time in the sun–this is self-neglect

• Allowing the needs of others to continually push aside your needs–this is self-neglect and self-abandonment.

Is:

• Establishing a routine to guarantee that your body is properly taken care of every day.

• Regularly prioritizing time outside whenever possible because fresh air and sunlight are essential for emotional and physical wellness.

• Prioritizing your needs while only taking care of those for whom you’re responsible and maybe anyone YOU have chosen to give kindness from a place of love and not obligation.

Will You Choose to Love Yourself?

I hope that these examples have inspired you to love yourself more in everything you do. Whenever you’re making decisions, ask yourself, “What would be the self-loving thing to do?” and then DO IT! Stop making excuses to justify neglecting, abusing, abandoning, devaluing, disrespecting, rejecting, harming, hating, and shaming yourself and choose to love yourself instead!

You need to be honest with yourself, because if you keep choosing to neglect yourself despite understanding what self-love looks like, then you don’t love yourself. And if you don’t love yourself, it’s probably because your parents didn’t love you (or themselves) in a healthy way. And if this is the case, if you value yourself at all, you need to make a conscious decision to love yourself consistently anyway, even if you don’t feel like it, even if you think you don’t deserve it, because no one else can do it for you.

If you’ve been looking for love from others or religion, you’ve been looking in the wrong place. You need to find love within yourself, and the beauty of it is that anyone can choose to love themselves. You only have to make the commitment to yourself to do it.

It’s up to you. Are you going to love yourself in a way that probably no one else ever has for you? If so, congratulations because your life is about to change for the better! However, if you’re hesitating to love yourself, you need to figure out why and resolve it. I highly recommend hiring a coach or a therapist to help you understand yourself better and move towards self-love; but, even if you don’t get professional help, you still need to ask yourself why you’ve accepted a life of self-neglect. Just know that everyone deserves love and that you’re no exception.

It’s time to live your life for YOU and to become the healthiest version of yourself. However, you can only do that by consistently choosing to practice self-love.

An Atheist’s Guide to Achieving Lasting Transformation

Growing up in a conservative Christian home, I noticed that lasting transformation rarely happened despite constantly being discussed. I observed how the same people had the same problems, years and even decades later, myself included. As I grew into my early twenties and my problems with emotional regulation and mental illness worsened, I developed a personal interest in psychology as I tried to heal myself. From then until now, I’ve noticed that most people who achieve any real, lasting change do so through the principles of modern psychology, not religion. While religion usually encourages people to transform through prayer and surrender to a higher power, those who actually change do so through personal, internal transformation. Even among the religious people I’ve personally known, the ones who have achieved significant growth and lasting change have almost always had a hybrid life philosophy, combining their religious ideals with an understanding of modern psychology. I’ve noticed that those who rely upon religion alone often stay stuck in their problems, especially those with mental and emotional problems. They often mistake their intention to change for being actual change. Therefore, real, lasting transformation comes not through religious practice as some would think, but instead through an intentional, honest encounter with oneself. Also, anyone can do it, regardless of religious preference or life philosophy. That being said, I’m now going to share with you how to achieve real transformation from the perspective of an atheist, starting with the two pathways to change.

The Two Pathways to Change

The Path of External Discipline – Forcing Change

There are two pathways to change: The most common and ineffective path is through external discipline and the less common and more permanent path is through internal transformation. Most people choose the first, often not realizing that the second option is even available. Modern society teaches people that the key to change or growth is to just try harder, to force yourself to be who you want to be or to do what you want to do. This path of trying to force behavioral change is also the one that religion often tries to use. Religious people pray to their gods to help them change and when their prayers inevitably never get answered, they then try to force themselves to change to convince themselves that their prayers were answered. Instead of achieving real transformation, they’ve only forced a temporary change. In the same way, non-religious people also do this same thing, assuming that the only path to change is to fight to be different. As a result, they regularly wonder as well why they can never maintain the change they’ve worked so hard to achieve through discipline. Therefore, everyone on this path either ends up abandoning their goals for transformation OR deluding themselves into believing they’ve achieved real change when they actually haven’t. So what’s the alternative to never getting anywhere with external discipline? The answer is internal transformation.

The Path of Internal Transformation – Being Change

One can only achieve lasting change through internal transformation. When someone tries to force change on the outside without transforming on the inside, they end up constantly fighting against who they are on the inside. That’s why external discipline never lasts–it has no sustainable source on the inside! What you’re really doing is attempting to constantly override your internal self over and over until you exhaust yourself and collapse into being who you really are on the inside right now. Because of this, the inside always eventually shows on the outside. You might be able to act differently than how you really feel internally for a while, but eventually, your inside world will become your outside world again. However, if you recognize this pattern of constantly fighting yourself and burning out, you can change the game in your favor. By identifying the internal source of your behavior and using this knowledge to transform your inner self, your outward self will automatically align! You will no longer have to constantly fight against your inner self to achieve the outer self you want because your inner self and your outward goals will be the same! Therefore, the key to achieving real transformation is to change who you are on the inside so that you can naturally and permanently express your new self on the outside. The reality is that the results you’ve been getting have always been a reflection of who you are on the inside. You may be able to temporarily fake change on the outside, but you will always eventually return to living in alignment with who you are on the inside. Therefore, the only path to sustainable outward transformation is living in alignment with a transformed inner self.

The Three Steps to Achieving Internal Transformation

Step 1 – Acknowledge the Problem and Take Responsibility for It

So the question is, “How do I achieve internal transformation so that the external change flows automatically?” I’m glad you asked, because this is where the real work of transformation begins. Instead of trying to force yourself to change on the outside, you’re going to take a deeper, honest look at yourself on the inside. Begin by acknowledging the problem you have and taking responsibility for it. Maybe you have a problem with a relationship, your work, or your health. Maybe you’re not happy with who you are or you keep falling into the same behavioral patterns over and over again. Whatever it is, just acknowledge the problem and accept that it is your responsibility to resolve it. If you get this far, you’ve already made it further than most people because it’s uncomfortable to admit that YOU are at least part of the problem. Without being willing to acknowledge your responsibility in creating this problem in your life, you will get nowhere. Therefore, you must accept that you need to change to solve your problem. Don’t worry about what others in your life are doing because you aren’t responsible for their actions, nor can you control what they do anyway. You are only responsible for yourself and can only control what you do.

Step 2 – Be Honest with Yourself about the Problem’s Origin

Secondly, you need to ask yourself why you keep having this problem: Why do I keep doing this? Why am I acting this way? What is motivating me to continue in this pattern? These questions will help you determine the internal source of your problem. Don’t let excuses or blaming other people get in the way of digging deeper into yourself. Instead, you must be honest with yourself and ask yourself, “What is wrong with ME that is making these issues continually surface in my life?” Without the humility to admit that you’re at least part of the problem, you will get stuck here and be unable to find the root cause of your issue. However, if you choose humility and are willing to receive constructive criticism from yourself, you will eventually get an uncomfortable, but powerful answer to your question. This answer is going to tell you something about yourself that you’ve probably been trying to bury, repress, or deny for a long time because you haven’t wanted to face it until now. However, you’ve known this truth deep down for a long time, haven’t you? So the next question to ask is, “Do I actually want to take responsibility for this issue and work to change it, or do I want to take the easy route and stay the same?” Be honest with yourself, because if you don’t really want to change, it’s better to accept the results you’ve always gotten because nothing is going to change. However, if you do want to change, it’s time for you to start intentionally creating an internal shift that will transform your life forever.

Step 3 – Replace the Problem’s Origin with Healthier Alternatives

The third and final step to achieving internal transformation is to start replacing the old values, beliefs, and ways of interacting with yourself that have been compromising your goals with new ones that will naturally facilitate the transformation you seek. While this process is much more involved than I have time to communicate with you in this article, sometimes these things can be processed and solved on your own and other times you will need the help of a coach or therapist to understand yourself better and create the change you’re seeking. But for now, I’m going to give you the three foundations of inner transformation upon which all lasting change is built. With these three concepts intentionally applied to your life, you will be able to create tremendous change for yourself, even if you choose not to seek guidance from a professional.

The Three Foundations of Internal Transformation

#1 Self-Respect – Keeping Your Promises and Following Your Leadership

Oftentimes, the only thing getting in the way of achieving lasting change and transformation in our lives is a lack of self-respect. We make promises to ourselves that we don’t keep and decide to do things and then fail to move on them. In my own life, I realized that while I would keep promises that I made to others, I kept failing to keep promises that I made to myself. When I started to think about this and be honest with myself, I found it ridiculous that I valued upholding the honor of my word to someone else but would regularly choose to dishonor my word to myself. My lack of self-respect was causing me to only follow through on commitments that I made to others instead of the promises that I made to myself.

Besides failing to respect my promises to myself, I also regularly failed to follow my own leadership. When someone else in authority told me to do something, I would immediately do it,  respecting their leadership. However, when I told myself to do something, I resisted my own authority and procrastinated like a lazy, disrespectful employee. In the workforce, this behavior might get you fired, but when you disrespect yourself this way, you just suffer the consequences of ignoring your inner wisdom and rightfully start losing respect for yourself. When I finally started demanding the same respect for myself that I had always given to any other authority, THAT is when my life really started to change. When I made promises to myself, I started keeping them. When I told myself to do something, I started complying immediately without resistance or procrastination.

#2 Self-Love – Doing What is Best for Yourself and Giving Yourself the Life You’ve Always Wanted

Self-love doesn’t mean lazing around, doing nothing, putting in minimal effort into your life, or otherwise going easy on yourself. Instead, self-love means doing what is best for yourself and giving yourself the life you’ve always wanted, even when it’s HARD. In other words, when you choose to love yourself, you stop neglecting yourself and settling for less. In my life before transformation, instead of doing what was best for me, I often did whatever was easiest. I also regularly avoided my fears and did the bare minimum to get by. Lastly, I consistently chose weakness and avoidance for myself instead of strength and courage. Instead of determining what would be good for me and doing it even if it was hard or uncomfortable, I kept choosing to neglect and abandon myself because I didn’t love myself enough to do anything differently.

I also had given up on my dreams because all of them seemed either too difficult or too scary. For a long time, I chose to give into my anxiety because I didn’t love myself enough to raise the courage necessary to conquer it. I always knew I wanted more, but I never loved myself enough to be honest with myself and figure out what was wrong with me. Instead, I kept supporting the successes of others because it was easier to be a part of someone else’s journey than it was to walk my own. I had given up on myself. However, all of this changed one day when I chose to love myself the way no one else ever had. I started holding myself accountable to treat myself with love in everything I did, from how I talked to myself, to how I took care of myself, to how I let other people treat me. Choosing to love myself started out as a commitment that I didn’t always feel like doing, but over time, it became a natural way of being. Now, I do my best to love myself in everything I think and do. As a result, this commitment to self-love has transformed almost everything in my life. I am now living MY life for ME and am finally giving myself the life I’ve always wanted. Therefore, letting go of the expectations of others and taking back my life for myself like this was only possible through self-love.

#3 Self-Worth – Tolerating Less and Working to Transform

Once I started treating myself with respect and love, my self-worth started to rise and I began noticing how much disrespect and lack of love I had been tolerating from both myself and others my whole life. I also saw how I had been allowing people to neglect me and use me for their benefit in one-sided relationships without reciprocating anything of value in return. Many of them had been drawn to me because I previously lacked boundaries and would allow them to manipulate me to meet only their needs. As a result, I had spent my entire life feeling drained and neglected by them because I had never prioritized my own wellness instead. However, as I continued to practice self-love and self-respect, I eventually decided that I had been tolerating far too much from them and that I deserved better. Because I finally believed that I was worthy of being treated better, I started setting boundaries, holding people accountable, and ending relationships that weren’t good for me.

In addition to tolerating less and expecting more from the people in my life, I also realized that I was worth putting in the effort to transform both myself and my life. Most people know that transformation and a better life is possible, but because of a lack of self-love, self-respect, and self-worth, they rarely put in the effort to change their life and that is why they keep getting the same results. However, as a person’s self-worth rises and they realize that they are worth the effort of changing and living a better life, transformation finally becomes possible. No one else in my life had placed that level of worth in me previously, so it was up to me to value myself enough to break free from my fear and choose a life of strength and courage instead. After all, it’s called self-worth and not others-worth for a reason.

A person will only put in the work to transform themselves if they think they are worthy of it. It doesn’t matter whether others think you are worth the effort or not, because ultimately, the only person’s opinion that matters is yours. Do YOU believe you are worthy of the effort to change?

Real Transformation Versus False Transformation

Everything I’ve said so far has set the foundation for understanding the difference between real transformation and false transformation. Real transformation occurs on the inside and naturally expresses to the outside, whereas false transformation is forced on the outside, but never fully aligns with the inside. It all comes down to the difference between forcing behaviors (false transformation) and becoming behaviors (real transformation). As previously mentioned, forcing is unsustainable and inauthentic whereas being is sustainable and real. Therefore, if you want to achieve lasting change in your life, you need to focus on becoming who you want to be on the INSIDE instead of trying to force inauthentic behavior on the OUTSIDE.

Are You Working on the Real Problem?

If you’re tired of trying to change and keep finding yourself always falling back into old habits, the truth is, it’s probably because you haven’t changed on the inside. You’re probably still trying to override the natural behaviors of your unchanged inner self.

If you really want to change, you’re going to have to change who you are on the inside. How will you know it's working and that you’ve started to change internally? You’ll know when your previous problems and behaviors start to go away and stay away. Instead of having an undesirable inner self producing undesirable outward behaviors, you will now be a transformed person producing transformed behaviors.

Put your work into yourself, not your problems. Choose to respect yourself, choose to love yourself, and watch your self-worth grow. Your behaviors have never been the problem; your relationship with yourself has always been. And in the same way that you’ve been the source of your problems, you can also become the solution to your problems. Don’t let denial or pride or blame or excuses keep you away from the transformation you desire; take responsibility for who you are right now and put the work into yourself to become who you want to be tomorrow. You are worth the effort, even if you can’t feel it or see it right now.

Engage with yourself in a newer, healthier way and watch your transformation unfold, because

Real, lasting transformation starts with how you treat yourself on the inside.

Life After Religious Deconversion

When I went through my deconversion from Christianity, I didn’t know what to expect on the other side. I wasn’t sure if life after religious deconversion was going to be better or worse, but all I knew was that I wanted my life to be based on truth from that moment onward. In the eleven years since my deconversion, I’ve found that life has been so much better for me ever since and I suspect it will be for you too if you’re going through a deconversion as well. 

While some things that were once precious will be lost to you, I would argue that those things were never good for you anyway. Furthermore, what you gain is far superior to the experience you could ever have while being repressed under religious thought and control. Therefore, today I’m going to present to you five things a person loses and five things a person gains in their life after religious deconversion.

The Things You Lose After Religious Deconversion

#1 You Lose the Obligation to Attend Church and Other Religious Activities

The most immediate and noticeable change when you deconvert is that you no longer feel obligated to attend religious services or activities. While some of these activities were enjoyable, there was always a pressure to be there, wasn’t there? If you had a tough week and needed more rest on the weekend, that was too bad because you were judged by others and by yourself for your church attendance. God forbid (literally) that you take some time for yourself on the weekends to recover and spend time with your family. And let’s be real, did any of us really need to hear those sermons every week when we actually needed rest and connection with the people we loved far more? Once you no longer feel guilted into the obligation of consistent church attendance, it’s amazing how much more enjoyable and relaxing your weekends (and maybe even weeknights) become. We as humans already have enough to do with our work, school, and daily lives. The last thing we need is another obligation to consume the last bits of energy we possess, especially when we wake up and realize that our religious obligation was actually a waste of time and based not on truth, but instead on assumptions and fear.

#2 You Lose the Obsession with Moral Perfectionism and Repentance

You know, it really sucked being obsessed with my behavior all the time as a Christian. I felt like I could never do anything right. It was like I was being monitored by God continuously as he nitpicked my behavior. After all, just ONE minor, insignificant mistake or moral fault could send me to a LIFETIME in hell. Yeah, like that ever made any sense. This caused me to constantly obsess over obtaining and maintaining moral perfection, as is the case for most of the Christians I’ve ever known. Instead of focusing on living a moral life and accepting my mistakes when they happened, I instead was encouraged by my religion to obsess over these mistakes, feel excessive shame and remorse for them, and repent for these “sins” afterward. However, when I left religion and became an atheist, I finally developed a proper understanding of moral reasoning and moved on with my life. I no longer obsess over my imperfections. I no longer need to repent to a god that might not even exist. And finally, I’m focused on being good instead of beating myself up for all the times when I’m bad. Honestly, being religious created an unhealthy psychological state for me, one which finally healed once I deconverted.

#3 You Lose the Fear of Judgment in the Afterlife

While going through a deconversion, one of the hardest things for some people to shake is their belief in hell or some type of judgement in the afterlife. It’s honestly sad how religious people are motivated by fear of judgment to stay in line. Instead of being motivated only by love and moral reasoning to be good, so many religions and their holy books have preferred fear and cruelty to keep people in their control. So basically, instead of tapping into people’s best instincts for social harmony, someone thought it necessary to scare the shit out of people to keep them in line. During my deconversion, I like many others, initially had some fear of hell. I occasionally thought, “What if I’m wrong? What if I’m going to go to hell or be judged harshly by a god when I die for becoming an atheist?” However, as time passed, I realized that most religions had their own unique afterlife fabrications and that because they were all different, they couldn’t all be true at the same time. I also strongly suspected that all of them were false. As a result, my feelings eventually shifted and I realized that for hell to be an actual threat, it had to actually exist. And for me to believe that it existed, there needed to be evidence of the afterlife. Because I soon realized in my research that there was absolutely ZERO credible evidence for the afterlife, my belief in hell faded and I realized that there was nothing to fear. It was all just superstition and deserved no further serious consideration. If you still have a fear of hell, just realize that it’s not based in reality or reliable evidence, but instead in indoctrination. It’s just a feeling, a feeling that will go away with time as your belief in hell goes away.

#4 You Lose the Shame for Prioritizing Yourself

While I can’t speak for all religions, the version of Christianity I grew up with turned me into a self-depriving people pleaser. I was expected to serve others and always put their needs above my own. Sacrifice as a concept was adored within my religious community, treated like an ideal to be sought. As Christians, we based our worth as individuals on how much value we provided to other people, instead of basing our worth on who we were. There was no emphasis on self-worth, self-love, or self-care; it was all about what you could do for others. I often heard the phrase “God first, others second, you last” from the people around me. What an awful piece of advice and a terrible way to live! This concept is completely contrary to everything we know from modern psychology about achieving the wellbeing of both the individual and society as a whole. Instead of prioritizing the wellness of the individual, religion actually prioritizes the wellness of itself! It was never about helping people achieve wellness; it was always about profiting and upscaling the religion. In the same way that greedy companies mistreat their employees to maximize their financial gains, religion also encourages self-deprivation, self-neglect, and self-sacrifice to maximize its reach. However, once you leave religion behind, you can finally drop that insufferable shame for honoring your needs and start prioritizing yourself the way you’ve always deserved. You start to realize that YOU come first and that you’re no good to anyone if you aren’t taking proper care of yourself. 

#5 You Lose the Company of Close-Minded People

And finally, the last thing you lose when you deconvert from religion is the company of close-minded people. At this intersection between your past religious life and your new secular life, you discover very quickly who truly loves and respects you. In my experience, some of your religious friends, the open-minded ones, will continue being friends with you and agree to disagree with you when necessary. Some of them may also choose to disrespect you by refusing to even acknowledge your shift, continuing to treat you like you’re still religious. And lastly, some of them will show you just how close-minded, prejudiced, and insecure they really are, leaving your friendship or criticizing you for your new position. The reality is that while you will lose people, either completely or partially, the ones that you lose were probably never that good for you anyway. However, the people that stay in your life and treat you and your new position with respect–you don’t lose these people. You only lose the ones that are worth losing.

The Things You Gain After Religious Deconversion

#1 You Gain the Company of Open-Minded People

In your life after deconversion, you not only gain new people who respect you and your new position, but as alluded to earlier, you also gain appreciation for the open-minded people who still remain in your life after your deconversion. Because religion thrives on being close-minded to the world of possibilities, when you leave religion, you finally gain access to people who are much more open-minded. These people will not only be much more likely to be interested in discovering and valuing you for who you really are, but they will also be much less prone to being condescending toward the way you think and feel. I would argue that open-minded people are healthier to associate with and will bring much more love and acceptance into your life than any close-minded people ever could. While I do value challenging my beliefs occasionally because I value truth, the last thing anyone needs is a close-minded person who doesn’t care to understand or respect another human being for who they are or how they think.

#2 You Gain the Ability to Ground Your Beliefs in Evidence

This one is a big one. Instead of constantly trying to convince yourself that something is true on the basis of faith or religious dogma, you can begin rebuilding your beliefs on the basis of evidence. You won’t realize how insecure you felt about your previous beliefs until you develop new ones based on evidence, observation, science, moral reasoning, and psychology. The confidence you gain in what you know to be true is vastly superior to the feeble confidence you understandably had in faith, religious authoritarianism, or superstitious texts. No longer are you trying to force confidence and conviction because they come naturally since you actually have evidence this time! Also, the days of having to have an answer for everything are over. I remember when I was a Christian that I was expected to be ready to “defend the faith” at all times. I often felt like if I didn’t have an answer for something, I had to pretend like I knew the answer or defer to the “God knows the answer” excuse. Now, as an atheist, I admit what I don’t know when the evidence is insufficient, but boy oh boy, when I do know something, I KNOW it and can prove it. Being able to be honest with myself about what I do and don’t know is such a relief. Being grounded in evidence instead of trying to determine what is true based upon shifting feelings (i.e. faith) has resulted in clarity instead of the frustration I previously lived with in my religious past. Now I know what I know and have the honesty and humility with myself and others to admit what I don’t know. It’s so freeing!

#3 You Gain the Motivation to Live YOUR Best Life

Once you leave religion and realize that the concept of an afterlife is probably just another man-made pipedream, you gain an urgency to start taking your life more seriously. Instead of deferring your hope and happiness to an afterlife that may never happen, you understand that this life is probably the only one you’ll ever get and that you need to live it YOUR way. Gone are the days of living your life in subjugation to an authority that might not even exist and sacrificing yourself for the benefit of your “non-profit” religions and churches. Instead, you begin to question what really matters to YOU and who you really are, beginning the process of self-discovery and aligning with your true self. Doing what matters to you becomes of primary importance because you realize how much time you’ve wasted serving goals and values that were never really yours. The truth is that you actually begin living YOUR life for the first time. No longer are you living by someone else's arbitrary rules or values, but instead by those of your own. You begin to realize that what you need, want, think, and feel actually matters and that religious servitude has only been stealing those things from you your entire life. Because of your deconversion, you now OWN your life and can begin to live your best life as a result.

#4 You Gain the Freedom to Think for Yourself

In addition to the open-minded people you will attract, the confidence in your convictions, and the motivation to live a life in alignment with your values, you also gain the freedom to think for yourself. Instead of doubting your inner wisdom and deferring your mind to the religious authorities or holy books held over you, you begin to trust yourself and realize that you’re capable of thinking for yourself! Because thinking skeptically and freely is no longer the “sin of doubt” or some other type of sacrilegious grievance, you gain the ability to discern what is right, what is wrong, what is true, and what is false. Trading blind trust in authority for trust in yourself, you gain self-respect and finally honor your ability to think. You begin to realize that it is your responsibility to develop the critical thinking skills religion never taught you and that you are ultimately responsible for what you think and do. You also look back into your religious past and realize that you’ve always had this responsibility, but failed to acknowledge it because you gave away your ability to think to appease a religion that doesn’t want you to think. Now though, there is no institution trying to shut down your logical faculties, but instead only yourself, seeking truth and understanding in a world that far too often fears and avoids it. 

#5 You Gain the Freedom to Be Yourself

Most importantly, in your life after religion, you leave behind all of the acting, pretending, and hiding you did to alter and stuff yourself into the tiny hole religion created for you. You gain the ability to expand into your true self and be who you’ve always been on the inside. Because you think for yourself and are no longer diminishing yourself under the authority of religion, you finally gain the freedom to be yourself. So many religious people spend their whole lives never living in alignment with their true values or expressing their authentic selves. But you, because you’ve left all of this self-repressing dogma behind, are about to bloom into something beautiful. Some people might tell you that you have “changed”; however, you and I both know this isn’t the case. You’re just being the person you’ve always been, free of the false self religion continually expected of you. And what the world needs is more people like you, not the mindless drones that religion keeps trying to manufacture, but instead REAL, authentic, independent-thinking individuals. The world never grows or changes in a healthy way when people are forced into self-abandonment and compliance through propaganda, indoctrination, or brainwashing. Instead, the world becomes a better place when every individual owns their own mind and contributes their unique perspective into the world’s consensus. Therefore, the freedom that you gain to be yourself when you leave religion is not only a gift to yourself, but also to the world. Individuation and collaboration make the world a better place, not compliance and dissolution of the self.

Final Thoughts

If you’re currently going through a deconversion, just know that after a while, all of the stress and uncertainty you’re experiencing will eventually get replaced with confidence and a much better life. While you may lose some people, you'll also lose the shame, guilt, fear, obligation, and self-depreciation that religion has been giving you too. And what’s left after that? The opportunity to gain healthier friends, ground your life in evidence instead of faith, live YOUR life for the first time, think for yourself, and most importantly, be yourself. All of these things are priceless! If only more people could go through this process to experience a better and healthier life, the world would become a better place.

You’re not crazy, you’re not weird, you’re not weak in faith–you’re just awakening to the reality that has always been in front of you and inside of you that others deny. Most people don’t get this far, either because they’ve never had something happen in their life to stir their awakening OR because they’ve lacked the courage to discover the truth when they do. But YOU…you’re not them, and you’re going to get through this.

While it may be difficult right now, you’ll eventually come out the other side and you’ll be FREE!

If You’re Suicidal, Just STAY ALIVE

I sat on my bed in a dimly lit room with a loaded pistol resting beside me.

“Is today the day that my suffering is going to end? Is today the day that I’ve finally had enough?”, I thought.

I felt intense emotional pain surge throughout my body, contracting my muscles wherever it went. Depression inundated my demeanor and sadness made my posture sag. I then felt intense anger flood through me with a desire to grab the gun and punish myself for my inability to escape this misery. Just one moment of self-hatred, just one moment of raging impulse and it could all be over! I nearly grabbed the gun right there and sent a 124 grain 9mm Speer Gold Dot hollowpoint at 1250 feet per second into the temporal lobe of my head. It was that close. My anger toward myself for being unable to thrive and my distorted sense of self-mercy almost ended my life that day. I wasn’t afraid to do it either; in fact, I was never afraid to kill myself, yet, something always stopped me.

What was it? Hope. I knew that if I could survive just one more day, there was a chance that I might find healing in the future. While I knew that I might not ever thrive again, as long as I stayed alive, I knew that there was hope. I also realized that what I really wanted was to live without so much pain and suffering and that I couldn’t do that if I was DEAD. At the time, suicide felt like bestowing a form of mercy (and punishment) upon myself, but it would have actually ended the opportunity for me to find healing from my afflictions. I didn’t crave non-existence, which would have been the end result of pulling that trigger, but instead a peaceful existence. And now, twelve years later, I have finally found that peaceful existence, the healing that I had always hoped for all of those painful years.

If you are on the verge right now, realize that what you want isn’t oblivion and annihilation. What you actually want is peace and joy, and you can only obtain that if you stay alive long enough to find it. I know that you’re suffering and feeling immense pain right now, but death isn’t the answer; compassion upon yourself in the form of choosing to live and take better care of yourself IS. 

You don’t need to end the pain right now. You probably couldn’t even if you tried. What you can do is end your suffering by no longer resisting your pain. Let yourself feel the pain. Observe where it is present in your body and notice what it feels like. Once you’ve located the pain, choose to accept it and allow it to be. It won’t be there forever, but as long as it is with you, you must only feel the pain instead of adding additional suffering to it. 

Suffering is an unwillingness to feel pain and is actually far more painful than the pain itself. While humans have incredible pain tolerances, they also have poor suffering tolerances in my observation. Pain isn’t a choice; it’s an unavoidable aspect of life. However, suffering IS a choice and therefore it is within your power to end your suffering now, not by killing yourself, but by choosing to accept your pain and allow it to be. 

Choose to be okay with how you feel right now. Choose to embrace your life as it is without the need to change anything immediately. I know this is hard to do initially, but trust me, after my lifetime of suffering, I’m telling you that it is so much harder and infinitely more painful to resist your pain than it is to accept it. Acceptance is where you will find peace and healing for yourself. I’m not promising fast results. I’m not promising the end of your pain. But you can end your suffering today by continually choosing acceptance in every moment and allowing your pain to exist as it is.

Just remember,you will never find the peace and healing you crave if you end your life today. Now is not the time to worry about thriving and being pain-free. Those things can come later. Right now, just focus on accepting your pain and staying alive. I made it through to the other side and YOU CAN TOO. It won’t always be easy, but trust me, it will be worth it. Progress might feel impossible right now, but if you keep moving forward, there is always hope that things can eventually change and gradually get better. At this point in your life, just staying alive is a form of progress. Just know that you won’t always feel and be this way. You might not be able to handle much right now, but with time you will have the opportunity for healing, and with healing you have the opportunity to thrive once again. But for now,

Just stay alive…

Why It Is Okay to Be a Lone Wolf

I’ve spent most of my life feeling different from other people. While most people value companionship highly, I’ve always found myself enjoying solitude over socialization instead. While I still have social needs, I rarely feel like being around anybody and even when I do, I usually find those interactions unsatisfying and exhausting. As I’ve grown in self-acceptance, I’ve also noticed that the desperate need I previously possessed for others to validate me has been replaced with increasing indifference and acceptance of the fact that I like being alone. Therefore, my preference for solitude as a lone wolf as well as my diminishing need for social acceptance has made me question if high levels of socialization are really as beneficial for all of us as many would claim. In my own experience and observations, I have found that less socialization is actually better for me as a lone wolf. 

The Consequences of Too Much Socialization for the Lone Wolf

While this obviously doesn’t apply to everyone, those of us who are closer on the spectrum to introversion would do well to disregard the traditional extroversion bias we often encounter and instead discover what works best for us. I have grown up in a country (USA) where lone wolves are shamed for being who they are and are pressured into being more social. However, in my experience, this makes me miserable. Too much socialization exhausts my energy, stifles my creativity, and overstimulates my highly sensitive nervous system. Lone wolves like myself don’t need other people surrounding us to feel good; instead, we actually need significant amounts of time alone to feel good! It’s sad that so many people in my life have seen this attribute as some type of mental illness or social defect when it isn’t. Therefore, if you know someone who prefers lots of time alone, don’t criticize them for it; instead, understand that for them, time alone makes them feel the same way as being around people makes you feel.

Socialization Isn’t as Important for Lone Wolves

I know it might be hard to believe, but lone wolves find joy, fulfillment, and happiness in solitude that many people only find in the company of others. While I sometimes enjoy the company of others if I’m willing to drag myself into it, I rarely experience the satisfaction I observe others feeling in similar situations. When I was younger, I did enjoy receiving validation from others because I wasn’t able to validate myself at the time; however, I still didn’t really enjoy socialization that much for its own sake either. As I’ve gotten older, healed my childhood wounds, and increased my self-esteem, I’ve found myself no longer needing as much from my social interactions with other people anymore. When I do connect with others, I’m not looking for validation, but instead sharing interesting conversations or life experiences. These connections now fall into the category of life enrichment for me instead of desperate need.

Optimal Social Interaction Is Better Than More Social Interaction

In my observations, I’ve noticed that every person has their own optimal level of social interaction. The more social a person is, the more important higher levels of socialization are to their wellbeing; however, the less social a person is, the more important solitude is to their wellbeing. Therefore, wherever you are on the social spectrum determines what’s best for you. 

The Pressure to Socialize More Only Hurts Lone Wolves

I’m often frustrated by how so many people, including psychologists, pressure solitude-preferring people like me to socialize more and treat everyone as if we’re all the same. It’s like they think that more socialization is always better. However, they could not be further from the truth! My fellow lone wolves, you and I both know we’ve all tried this. We get goaded into attending social functions and being around people more and do we feel better? No! We get exhausted, feel disconnected from our joy and creativity, and take days to recover! Yet somehow this excessive socialization is supposed to be good for us?! I don’t think so. Instead, when we minimize social engagements and engage with ourselves–thinking, creating, and reflecting alone–we bloom into people full of energy, enthusiasm, creative ambition, and fullness of life! Therefore, a person’s wellbeing should be judged not by some arbitrary psycho-social average, but instead by what makes a person thrive.

It is Okay to Be a Lone Wolf!

If you are a lone wolf and prefer solitude over socialization, don’t let others tell you that something is wrong with you and that you need to be more like them. That is just their ignorance of psychology and insecurity about their emotional dependence on people being challenged by your alternative lifestyle and emotional independence.

Lone Wolves Have Different Needs

If you are a very social person, try to understand that everyone’s needs and preferences are different. Just like it would be unhealthy for you to be socially isolated, it would also be very unhealthy for a lone wolf to be oversocialized. Therefore, no one needs to change anyone. Let’s just accept our differences and appreciate the value that comes from each of us.

Take the Alone Time You Need

For my lone wolves and introverts out there, give yourself permission to disappoint people and take more time to enjoy the solitude you need. You deserve to live a life that is healthy for you just like highly social people do. Why is it okay for them to get what they need and be around people all the time, but for you, it’s unacceptable to get what you need and spend more time alone? 

Conclusion

It’s time that we live in alignment with who we are and set boundaries with others to ensure that we get the time alone we need to thrive. After all, isn’t that what makes us lone wolves? We thrive alone.

The Root Cause of People Pleasing

The root cause of people pleasing behavior is an emotionally unsafe childhood. Maybe self-expression wasn’t allowed. Maybe you were blamed for things that weren’t your fault. Maybe your parents or caregivers made you feel like you weren’t good enough, providing only conditional love in an effort to control you instead of accepting you the way you were. Whatever it was, all of these injuries damaged your self-image and filled you with toxic shame–the belief that your authentic self isn’t good, lovable, acceptable, worthy, or respectable as it is. And tragically, your natural response to this belief was to alter yourself in an attempt to gain safety, love, and approval instead of realizing that your caregivers failed to love you for who you are. Today, if you’re willing, you’re going to drop this shame and choose to love yourself as you are.

The Misery of Being a People Pleaser

People pleasers, also known as “nice guys or girls”, spend their whole lives wearing a mask to cover their true self. They constantly assess how to please everyone else except for themselves. Having spent the majority of my life as a people pleaser due to the toxic shame instilled in me by my narcissistic parents and Christianity, I can tell you that it ruins the quality of your life. Instead of living authentically, being who you are, doing what makes you happy, and taking good care of yourself, you do the exact opposite. The nice guy gives everyone else what they want in a desperate need to gain validation from those around him because he’s convinced that he’s unlovable and is unable to validate and love himself.   

The Psychology Behind The People Pleaser

Because the people pleaser’s childhood caregivers convinced him that he wasn’t good enough, he has already rejected himself. He had no chance to avoid this internal shame because it happened so early in his development before he could think for himself. Because he isn’t able to validate himself, he desperately seeks to counteract his own self-rejection with validation from others. He subconsciously feels, “If I can get other people to love and accept me, then maybe I’m worthy of my own love and acceptance.” However, in this process, because he’s rejected his true self, he erects a false self to show others because he’s terrified that others might see his “awful” true self. So, he’s driven to create an idealized personality that no one could reject that pleases everybody. He becomes a chameleon and alters himself to match whoever he’s with at the moment. As a result, his mind becomes exhausted in social situations due to the unrelenting effort to optimize his act to receive the acceptance he craves from those around him.

The Confusion and Social Anxiety of the People Pleaser

After a while, reading people and presenting the ideal false self to please them starts to confuse the people pleaser. He begins to realize that he’s not really sure who he is anymore. Afterall, when you spend your whole life as a professional actor, acting starts to feel safer than authentic self-expression. Because you have no idea how the people in your life will react to your true self, the fear of being yourself increases over time. Eventually this fear develops into severe social anxiety. Furthermore, this fear from your social anxiety isn’t that people might reject you; it is the belief that people will reject you because you have already rejected yourself.

My Years of Failed Attempts at Healing From People Pleasing

So now that we understand what causes people pleasing, how do we heal this unfortunate condition? For years, I tried to be more authentic, to force the mask off and show my true self to everyone, and I could never sustain it. Before my recovery from people pleasing, I was a perpetual smiler, smiling at everyone even when it wasn’t necessary. For a while, I tried to force myself to not smile excessively and I just ended up feeling like an asshole whenever I withheld my smiles because I couldn’t tell the difference between an authentic smile and my mask. Because I couldn’t even tell which ones were real and which ones were false, I often mistakenly suppressed the real ones in an effort to get rid of the false ones! It was so aggravating and confusing for me. In my effort to express my true self more, I couldn’t even figure out which behaviors were genuine for me.

What Finally Began My Recovery From People Pleasing

So what eventually worked for me? Determining the origin of my toxic beliefs about myself. I had to examine the damaging beliefs I had about myself and realize that I didn’t choose them for myself. Instead, I had to become aware that these unhealthy core beliefs came from my narcissistic parents and their toxic Christian religion. I was told from an early age that I was an evil sinner–despicable from the day I was born–and that I needed someone to save me from a hell that I apparently deserved just because I dared to live. Also, I was constantly criticized for not being good enough because my parents were perfectionists. Furthermore, I was always wrong because my parents idolized themselves and blamed me for their mistakes because they were covert narcissists. My parents systematically rejected my true self because they wanted to manipulate me into a more pacified, controllable version of myself that they could use to feed their narcissistic egos. As a result, self-discovery and self-expression didn’t happen in my childhood like it should have; instead, I repressed my true self to survive and took on characteristics that weren’t my own to give my parents and their religion what they wanted from me. I also later realized that just like my parents, the god of Christianity himself was a narcissist too, blaming and punishing humanity for his faulty creation and convincing us that we’re the evil ones when it’s actually his intolerant, wrathful, blood-loving, and hell-creating self that is evil.

Rejecting the Brainwashing of My Childhood

Once I understood that I was brainwashed to believe that I was an unworthy, unlovable, terrible person, I rejected those beliefs. It made me angry to see how an innocent child like me was conditioned by my parents and their religion to despise myself. I started to think independently and reconsider all of the beliefs that had been forced into me during my vulnerable childhood. I asked myself, “Who am I? What matters to me? What do I want? Do my actions indicate that I am a good person or a bad person? Am I a lovable person? Am I worthy of anyone loving me? Is my judgement always wrong or have I just been the victim of narcissistic abuse?”

The Beginning of Self-Differentiation from My Parents

As I asked myself these questions, I noticed that my answers differed tremendously from the poisonous presumptions pressured into me as a child. I realized that I was a unique person, with values and beliefs very different from my parent’s. Truth and authenticity actually mattered to me instead of wishful thinking and hidden motives. I also wanted real connection, not the conditional love from my parents that required self-abandonment. Furthermore, my actions indicated that while I was a very hurt person, I was also a good person who valued moral reasoning over the mandates of a morally-devoid god. I also realized that I was a lovable person and that like everyone, some people would like my personality and some wouldn’t. I decided that I was worthy of love and that even if no one else would choose to love me, I would choose to love me. And lastly, I realized that my judgement was actually quite good, considering all of the years of hyper-awareness that I developed as a people pleaser in emotionally unsafe environments.

The Rise of My Anger and Self-Worth

My answers to these questions began a shift within me from insecurity to righteous anger. I began to realize that instead of being a bad emotion that should be suppressed, my anger was actually a self-protective instinct meant to shield me from those who would harm me or diminish my value. It was this very anger that began to rebuild my self-worth. Whenever anyone mistreated me, instead of justifying and minimizing their actions like I usually did, my anger would rise and motivate me to communicate with them to achieve resolution. My anger was advocating for me, revealing mistreatment from those around me so that I could hold them accountable. I started to understand that many of the aspects of myself that I had repressed due to the unhealthy emotional environment of my childhood, like my anger, were actually parts of me trying to help me.

Rebuilding Myself One Day at a Time

Over time, I slowly began to integrate all of myself into my life, including the parts of me that didn’t always please those around me. I began to be myself a little bit more every day, exposing myself to my fear of rejection while also reminding myself of the truth of who I am and my worthiness as a person. As I overcame these fears one by one, I began to realize that these fears were nothing but illusions coming from the awful core beliefs about myself from my unfortunate childhood. My confidence started to build, not the type one gets externally from others, but instead the type that comes internally from oneself known as self-confidence.I also began to view myself in a much better light, raising my self-esteem. And, most importantly, I chose to love myself in a way that no one ever had, developing self-love.

Overcoming My Fear of Rejection

While many of these realizations have been immediate on the conscious level of my mind, it has taken time for these beliefs to shift on a deeper subconscious and emotional level for me. As I’ve recovered from my previously poor self-image, I’ve grown in empowerment and self-respect over time. I used to be afraid of significant shifts in my behavior being seen by people who’ve known me for a long time, feeling like if I ever revealed my true self, I would have to do it around new people. I began to realize that I had been rejecting myself every time I thought like this, diminishing and hiding myself from the people in my life just to make them comfortable and avoid triggering my own shame. I began to think, “What about me? What about my self-expression? What about my comfort? What about what I want?!” As a result of questions like these, I started to gradually reveal my true self to the people around me and as expected, some people liked me and some people didn’t, but that was okay with me because I liked me.

The Results of My Healing and Transformation

As I write this, I have transformed significantly from being mostly an externally-validated people pleaser to mostly being an internally-validated authentic man. I’ve let people go who weren’t good for me instead of trying to keep pleasing them. I’ve held people accountable who love me, but have been neglecting or disrespecting me. I’ve also held myself accountable for not being the man I want to be. The end result is that I’ve chosen to leave almost all of the relationships in my life because most of them were dependent upon my deprivation, tolerance, inauthenticity, and self-sacrifice. I’ve realized that it’s better to be alone in authenticity and love yourself than to surround yourself with people who don’t love or respect you the way you deserve. It’s this shift toward providing love for myself that has enabled me to leave these unhealthy relationships behind and begin a new relationship with myself, one with self-love, self-respect, and self-esteem. Relationships with others are less essential for me now because I provide for myself what I previously sought in the validation of others. Now I no longer try to make incompatible relationships work by altering or diminishing myself. I no longer try to see the best in people out of hopes that they will do the same for me. Instead, I try to see people for who they actually are based upon their actions and if they’re not good for me, they’re out of my life. The people who give me the respect I deserve and who celebrate me for who I am–those are the people who remain in my life. However, I am done with diminishing myself to make those who reject my true self accept a false version of me. 

I’ve finally found the contentment with myself I’ve always wanted. I’ve finally found the love and acceptance I’ve desperately sought my whole life. I’m no longer a people pleaser because I’ve found love and acceptance where I least expected it–from myself.

Looking for Love in the Right Place

If you’re a people pleaser and you’re looking for love and acceptance, stop looking for it in the wrong places like others and religion. Instead, start looking for love in the one place that it really matters–from yourself. You don’t need to feel love for yourself to give it to yourself. You just need to choose to love yourself, for it is this choice that will begin your healing journey. Love yourself the way you’ve always wanted to be loved! It’s time for you to switch from being a people pleaser to a self pleaser. The world will benefit far more from your authenticity and self-expression than it ever did from your false self and fearful mask. It’s time for you to give yourself and the world the real version of yourself!

Final Thoughts

Will you choose to love yourself? Will you choose to become the validation for yourself that you’ve always painfully sought in others? Will you choose to stop avoiding rejection so that you can gain something far greater for yourself–your own joy, authentic expression, and happiness? Will…you…choose…YOU?

“It’s better to be who you are and be loved by some and rejected by others than it is to be someone who you are not and never be loved for who you actually are.”

— Tim Bartlett

How to Find Your Purpose as an Atheist

I’ve been an atheist for over a decade since my deconversion from Christianity in 2015. During my reconstruction into my own personal atheistic life philosophy, I encountered the existential crisis common to those going through transitions like these. After years of being told that my purpose was to glorify God, convert others to my religion, and be obsessed with behavioral perfection, I found myself wondering what my purpose would be moving forward as an atheist.

Looking for a Universal Purpose After Christianity

The problem I encountered was caused by the unreasonable expectations indoctrinated into me by my previous religion. Christianity had told me that there is a universal purpose to my life and when I left it, my subconscious sought a direct replacement. Only this time, I was looking for a universal purpose for my life from a secular viewpoint. I eventually came up with the idea that the closest purpose I could assign to human and other sentient life is that we are here to survive and thrive. However, I soon realized that this was only our living instinct, but not necessarily what we’re here to do. And again, I was still looking for that universal purpose I lost when I left Christianity.

Religion Sold Me a Problem I Didn’t Have

I eventually realized through my research and contemplation that the idea of a universal purpose for our lives was fabricated by religion. Religious people created the problem of needing a universal purpose for our lives and told us that they had the solution.This is so typical of religion, telling you that you need something (like God) to survive and thrive when you don’t and are perfectly fine as you are. Once I understood that a universal purpose wasn’t needed to live a good life, I started to wonder if I needed purpose at all. The answer I found was yes, but not quite what I expected.

What People Really Need

We as human beings don’t need to know why we’re here or how we got here to live fulfilling lives with a sense of purpose. Indeed, that’s great news because no one really knows how we got here anyway. What we do need instead are things to motivate us to keep moving forward. However, these motivators aren’t like a universal purpose that applies to everyone. While many of us share similar sources of purpose, ultimately, what motivates us individually provides our unique purpose. This could be anything from our relationships to our jobs to our hopes to our personal growth to our desire to understand the world around us. Furthermore, because motivation comes from investment, we also create purpose for ourselves wherever we invest our time and energy. Therefore, investment creates purpose.

My Struggle with Lack of Purpose

As someone who spent over a decade in unemployment due to mental illness, I’ve spent a significant portion of my life feeling a lack of purpose. For a long time, my only purpose was to survive the pain of mental illness because I knew that as long as I survived, there was hope of healing in my future. I also didn’t want to kill myself because I loved my wife and didn’t want to leave her with that suffering. So, I kept living because of these significant, but not entirely fulfilling sources of purpose. Because of my inability to make any significant contributions to my home, my family, and the world other than my own survival, I felt the pain of lacking purpose in my life. I felt like my life didn’t really matter that much most of the time and I often felt like I was just wasting it trying to survive another day. This feeling continued even though days, months, and years went by without any significant healing or progress.

Years later, as I finally began to find genuine healing from my mental health problems and become more active in my life again, I discovered that purpose comes from investing in yourself and in others. Before my healing process though, investing in anything was extremely difficult because of my mental health problems, resulting in those many years of living without feeling much purpose. 

Keep It Simple

Honestly, those struggling with purpose have a tendency to make this pursuit more difficult than it is. Contrary to our struggle, it’s actually quite simple: Better yourself and the lives of others, because that’s where purpose comes from–investment. It’s not some universal concept like worshiping a god but instead a feeling you get when you take good care of yourself and eventually have the capacity to share your time and energy with others as well.

Focus on Yourself and Help Others as a Result

The whole “better yourself and the lives of others” may seem like a universal source of purpose, but it’s actually more of a concept by which you’ll be able to find what’s specifically meaningful to you. Furthermore, I’ve also noticed that when I focus on self-care and improving myself, others invariably benefit as well. We are social creatures and in order to better ourselves, we have to create value that benefits others as well. Therefore, by bettering ourselves, we automatically end up bettering others.

Anything morally beneficial to oneself will also directly or indirectly benefit society, thus constituting a potential source of purpose. It doesn’t matter whether you get your purpose from your job, your family, your friends, or other pursuits in your life. What matters is that you’re living your life in alignment with your values, because if you do that, you and others will always benefit.

Live by YOUR Values

Don’t let other people try to push their values on you, because if you do, they will benefit but you likely won’t. You won’t be living from your heart, doing what matters to you, and being who you really are! Instead of absorbing the values of those around you, begin to ask yourself what matters to you. What brings you joy, motivation, and excitement? What makes you angry? Where do you invest most of your time and energy? These are the types of questions to ask yourself if you feel like you don’t have any purpose because these questions will reveal what matters to you. If these questions don’t reveal anything, you probably just need to start trying new things and investing yourself more deeply in things. Investment and commitment is where you will find purpose.

When the Pursuit of Purpose Needs to Take a Back Seat

I would like to note that if you’re going through depression right now, and feel like nothing matters to you, that’s common–although not a great place to be. It’s called anhedonia, where the things that used to matter to you and motivate you are no longer meaningful or appealing to you. This is a common side effect of experiencing depression–no longer being able to feel motivation or a sense of purpose. Just know that there is hope for you of healing and once again being able to feel motivation and purpose. I know because I’ve lived with severe depression, anxiety, anhedonia, fatigue and more for a long time and I’ve finally begun to heal and feel purpose again. If you’re stuck right now, dealing with any disability or mental illness, know that it's okay to only find purpose in taking care of yourself when you’re unwell. Afterall, if you’re not well, it’s going to be difficult to create value in your life, so you must focus on taking good care of yourself. Don’t pressure yourself to function highly like those who are well. Just focus on getting professional help and introducing better self-care into your routine. Healing will come with time if you choose to treat yourself with love and care. Greater sources of purpose can come later.

Evaluate Yourself

For those of you who are in a state of wellness though, you already have sources of purpose in your life; you just have to notice and acknowledge them. If what you’re doing with your life doesn’t seem to matter to you, first assess yourself for depression and mental health challenges. This is critically important because nothing you change in your life will make you feel a sense of purpose again if you are unwell, unless of course the changes specifically improve your general wellbeing. Secondly, if signs of mental or emotional unwellness aren’t apparent, ask yourself if you’re doing what you really want to do with your time. Some good questions to ask yourself could be: 

1. Are you living the life YOU want to live or the life that others have conditioned you to live? 

2. Are you being who you really are, or are you hiding your true self out of fear of rejection like I did for most of my life? 

3. Are you living by your own chosen values or the values your family, friends, and society have pressured upon you?

If you answer these questions honestly, you may gain some valuable insight into your feeling of purposelessness. While the value you’re currently providing to yourself and others is definitely a potential source of purpose, if it is not creating the feeling of purpose within you that you’re craving, you’re probably not living in alignment with your true self and personal values.

We Want to Feel Purpose, Not Just Know It

This leads me to the ultimate secret about purpose that I’ve recently discovered: What people crave isn’t universal or objective purpose, but instead the feeling of purpose. It doesn’t matter if what you’re doing with your life seems purposeful to someone else if it doesn’t…feel…purposeful…to you. Therefore, aim to find what makes you feel like your life matters. The best way to do this is to be yourself and use what makes you special to improve the lives of others and yourself. There is no need for you to try to be someone else and do what they’re good at. Instead, you need to discover who you are and what makes you special and give yourself permission to live authentically, because authenticity is the true source of purpose.

Trust Their Actions, Not Their Words

A person’s actions are the most reliable evidence for assessing who they are and what they value. While an honest person’s words may convey truth about their intentions, a dishonest person’s will rarely match their actions. Even sometimes an honest person’s claims will not be true because a person’s subconscious often has motives of which their conscious mind is unaware. Because of this–the dishonest person’s lies and the honest person’s occasional lack of self-awareness–one would be wise to stop trusting what people say (unless they’ve earned your trust consistently) and start trusting what they do instead.

I Learned This Lesson the Hard Way

Having been raised by two covert narcissists, the truth in my home was far different than the deception of my parents' words. Things were said with the appearance of kindness or love, but the manipulation underneath was anything but lovely. Furthermore, they taught me to not trust my observations because they knew that I could see that their actions didn’t line up with their words. Love was spoken, but rarely shown and frustrations were placated, but only temporarily to do the same exact thing again later. 

My Heart Always Knew the Truth

The dishonesty and deception of my mother and father showed me how people have the ability, whether they are conscious of it or not, to use their words to keep others confused–in other words, to lie. I knew that people could lie, but discovering that the people you’ve trusted your whole life are lying to you is a completely different experience. Since my teens, my subconscious always knew that my parents weren’t worthy of my love, empathy, or adoration, but I gave it to them anyway because they had convinced me with their words that they deserved it and that I would be wrong to withhold it. However, I always knew on a subconscious, emotional, and intuitive level that something was wrong with them. While my parents had consciously convinced me that I could only trust them and not my much more honest heart, my heart always knew. Why? Because the subconscious mind (our heart) processes information at a much higher level than our conscious minds, noticing the disparity between a person’s actions and words long before our conscious mind does.

Seeing the Truth for the First Time

Once I began trusting my lifetime of observations instead of their words–the deception, hypocrisy, and double-standards of my parents began flooding into my conscious awareness. I had seen and felt who they were for almost two decades, but had repressed and disregarded my perceptions of them due to their continual efforts to destroy my self-trust and protect their delusional egos. Now that I began to trust myself, I began to see them and everyone else clearly by their actions instead of easily spoken and broken words.

Where to Look to See People Clearly

Everyone will show you who they are if you objectively observe their actions for long enough instead of overvaluing their words. If you want to know what really matters to a person, look at how they spend their time. If you want to know if someone loves you, look at how they treat you. If you want to know if someone can be trusted, look at their history of keeping promises. It’s so simple, yet the pontification of so many people would convince us to ignore this simple truth and instead believe their delusions, dishonesty, and lies.

Ground Even Your Trusted Relationships In Truth

Even the people you love and trust should be held accountable by their actions. While understanding and empathizing with them is healthy, your empathy should also be grounded in the truth of their actions. Why? Because blindness is not a virtue and opens the door for dysfunction and disrespect. If we want to have healthy relationships, we must see people for who they are–not who they claim to be. Those who’ve earned our trust may get some free passes, but if their actions begin to consistently show contempt, dishonesty, or disrespect, they must be held accountable and repairs must be made before resuming trust again. Otherwise, if they are unwilling to apologize and change their unhealthy behaviors, those relationships should be reconsidered as a valuable use of our time and effort.

Place Your Trust in the Right Place

Deceivers will take advantage of our trust if we allow them by ignoring and minimizing their toxic actions. That’s what happened to me with my father and mother. While trust is wisely built upon consistently observing the actions of others, I would argue that many of us have instead mistakenly placed our trust in what people tell us about themselves. Instead of allowing people to convince us about who they are with their words, we would be wise to let them convince us with their actions. This is the foundation of reliable trust: evidence, not words or stories or feelings or promises, but instead what people actually DO.

Are You Confused By the People In Your Life, Even Yourself?

If you’re confused about who the people in your life really are and what they actually think and feel, stop listening to what they say and start observing what they do. Manipulative people in my life taught me that words are cheap, but actions reveal the truth of who people are. Even when applied to yourself, this concept will help you to develop incredible clarity and self-awareness as to who you really are, what really matters to you, and areas in which you could grow. 

Conclusion

The words that come out of a person’s mouth only have value if they continually align with their actions. If they don’t, ignore what they say and stay away. 

Life is too valuable to waste on dishonest people.

Surviving Mental Illness as an Atheist

As someone who has lived with mental illness most of my life, I have experienced anxiety, depression, irritability, and more as both a Christian previously and now as an agnostic atheist. While the struggle has always been there regardless of my perspective at the time, there have been several key differences between surviving mental illness as an atheist versus as a theist. Both can survive, and proponents of each will likely continue to argue that their position is better for surviving hardship. However, having experienced both sides, I am in a unique position to be able to share how the atheist position offers several key advantages while navigating the difficulties of the mind.

1—Atheists Pursue Healing Instead of Fighting Demons That Aren’t There

When I was a Christian, I honestly thought that my struggle to get out of bed in the morning and overcome my anxiety and depression was caused by demonic attack, spiritual oppression, or a lack of faith in God. Instead of figuring out what I needed to heal my mind or my body, I wasted valuable time praying for help and assuming that I had a spiritual problem instead of a psychological or medical problem. Once I willingly discarded my faith in Christianity, I began to look for actual solutions instead of continually seeking the failing intervention of the divine.

2—Atheists Listen to Their Intuition Instead of Unanswered Prayers

As mentioned above, because I thought I was under spiritual attack by demons and other “dark entities”, I wasted years praying to God for help. Because I never received any help or relief, I thought that God either wanted me to suffer for some inexplicable reason “for his will” or that I was somehow at fault–gaslighting myself as religion often does. I could never understand why being crushed by depression to the point of complete social isolation would do anything for advancing God’s kingdom. It just seemed like a needless waste of my life, and it was. When I became an atheist, however, rather than seeking God’s help through prayer, I began asking myself what I needed to heal and I actually started getting real answers! As a result of this, I can confidently conclude that my deconversion from Christianity was the beginning of my healing process from mental illness. Because I started trusting my intuition and allowing it to guide me toward doing what I needed to do to heal–instead of waiting for unanswered prayers–I started getting the help I actually needed, both from myself and others. This transition from prayer to self-trust marked the beginning of tremendous healing in my life.

3—Atheists Trust Themselves Instead of Feeling Abandoned by Gods

In the process of desperately praying for God’s help for years, I began to feel abandoned by him. I could no longer ignore the fact that I had never heard his voice or witnessed any notable answers from him to my prayers. Instead, I was actually getting worse. Why? Because I was trusting God instead of taking responsibility for healing myself. However, when I became an atheist, instead of feeling like God didn’t give a shit about me, I started giving a shit about me. I became what God could never be for me: someone real who I could trust. Someone who had my back. Someone who was present to love me. As an atheist, I began to trust myself and find my own inner advocacy and support so that I could begin the journey of healing my mental and emotional health.

4—Atheists Take Responsibility Instead of Waiting on God’s Intervention

Once I became an atheist and began to trust myself instead of waiting on God's help, I began to take personal responsibility for the challenges in my life. While I know that many of us have heard the whole Christian speech on “Trust God, but do your part” thing, you and I both know that is just an excuse for the fact that prayers go unanswered (or unheard) and that gods don’t intervene (or don’t exist at all).It was this realization–that God didn’t exist or was unwilling to help–that ignited personal responsibility in my life for my mental health problems. I started to understand that regardless of whether the supernatural existed or not, I was on my own and if I didn’t do anything, nothing was going to change. I realized that my healing journey was up to ME, not a god who didn’t exist or who didn’t care to help. I was never going to get better unless I took responsibility for my struggles and helped myself.

The Lies Theists Tell You About Surviving Mental Illness

If you’re an atheist in the middle of a crisis, whether that be mental illnesses or something else, don’t believe all the lies that theists will tell you about suffering, such as:

1. “Only through the power of God could I survive ______.”

2. “Without God and the support of my local church, I wouldn’t have made it.”

3. “It’s faith that got me through.”

4. And the list continues…

The problem with all of these self-depreciating assumptions that theists make is that the vast majority of them have never experienced hardship as an atheist. Even if they had gone through hardships previously as atheists before becoming theists, the fact that they negotiated those hardships and survived as atheists proves my point! The reality is that most theists underestimate their survival capacity because they believe that strength (or anything good really) can only come from their gods. They assume that they are feeble, frail, and foolish people who couldn't handle anything on their own without the support of their faith and their gods. See what I mean? How would any theist know if they could survive hardship as an atheist without actually being an atheist while going through their fires? By their same logic, atheists could easily claim that they wouldn’t have survived what they’ve been through if they had been religious.

Conclusion

The reality is that both atheists and theists can survive immense suffering. They can both claim that it was their life philosophy that got them through it, but the reality is that surviving mental illness has nothing to do with the religious or philosophical label by which one defines themselves. Sure, different perspectives have their own advantages and disadvantages in the realm of coping with hardship, but in my experience, having been on both sides, it doesn’t really matter. What actually matters is committing to living another day and accepting your pain. Acknowledging your struggle and asking for help. Realizing that it’s okay to feel bad and that you don’t need to force these uncomfortable feelings to go away immediately. Learning that emotional pain is both a sensation and a message from your subconscious, but that suffering is a choice. Taking better care of yourself instead of beating yourself up. Giving yourself permission to not be as happy or as successful as your peers right now. And, choosing to love and care for yourself in a way that your family probably never has.

Don’t let theists tell you that you're screwed without their gods if you’re navigating mental or emotional challenges in your life. The reality is that you’re probably better off. At least you can count on yourself instead of gods that never show up. At least you’re fighting to heal an actual condition instead of battling against evil superstitions. And most importantly, because you’re unencumbered by waiting for supernatural disappointment, you can start taking responsibility for your healing right now by trusting your intuition and getting the help you need. 

You’ve got this. Afterall, isn’t that what theists and atheists share in common–our humanity? And given the fact that we are both able to survive hardships, maybe it’s never been gods getting us through it afterall? Instead,maybe it’s just been our humanity this whole time.Afterall, survival is what we do, because if we didn’t, there wouldn’t be 8 billion of us on this planet. 

You are a survival machine that doesn't need an illusion to get you through this. You just need to show up for yourself. You need YOU.