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.

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.