One of the worst parts about de/reconstructing is realizing that I always associated guilt/shame with God talking to me.
Now when I feel super guilty I’m like, is this a spiritual experience? Or just bad theology?
@Reina i recently went trough my poetry archive, and I was surprised how many poems mention or deal with guilt or shame. Certainly think that's related to my religious upbringing. Everything good I did, wasn't my doing, but praise God. Everything bad, wasn't Gods fault but mine, and I should pray for forgiveness. Hard to build a healthy selfesteem inside of that.
@Corina that’s an amazing way to put it. I would say the same about all of the journal entries from my adolescence. I didn’t realize how much my terrible self-esteem was rooted in that bad theology.
@Corina I didn’t realize I already replied to this, haha.
@Reina 2 replies, for 1 toot. I'm just lukcy.
@Reina @Corina
Yeah... I had to come to this same conclusion. I spent a lot of time trying to learn how to think lowly enough of myself, because that's what I thought humility and properly glorifying God meant. I'm now trying to unlearn all that, learn to love myself and trying to understand that God loves me. It's hard for me to understand the balance of a proper self esteem that is not pridefulness. Which is my tendency anyway, I'm a very all-or-nothing thinker...
@Corina so true. It’s hard to even know how to seek God in ways that don’t glorify guilt & shame.