The Identity Alchemy of Losing My Religion
We don’t get to choose our circumstances, but we sure do get to choose how we respond and react to them.
All of our results in life come from how we choose to operate in this world. Since most of our childhood years were spent as a subconscious being absorbing all that was around us especially from our primary care takers. Think about it, the fact that you can actually think in a language is a referential point of consciousness in and of itself.
When we were babies, we didn’t have a language construct to analyze information that was coming in through our senses, we just absorbed it all into our subconscious, within our body. If we experienced a lot of trauma growing up, that trauma is buried deep in the subconscious, and now governs the way we react to things, circumstances, etc. unless we begin the healing journey and create new awarenesses. No matter how bad the things that happened to us in our developmental years, we all walk away with some sort of interpretation or perspective that may or may not serve us today.
My parents are two of the most loving and encouraging people that I know. They’ve always loved me and pushed me to do what I love in my life, and for that I’m grateful. They “got saved” meaning they converted to Christianity a few years before I was born. If you don’t know the “crux” of Christianity, it means that you must accept Jesus as your lord and savior and that he died on the cross for your sins. If you do that, you’ll go to “Heaven” instead of hell. While there are so many beautiful teachings, it’s all based on fearing people that they will go to “hell”.
I grew up sheltered. In a bubble of Christianity, subconsciously afraid of the outside world. My parents cultured me into the religion by bringing me to church every day. I loved it because all my friends were there and I had a great community. Even though deep down in the depths of my soul I had inklings that there was something deeper and more vast than the white bearded Jesus, I really really tried to believe the dogma and had a hard time with it, so most of my high school and college years were spent enjoying the company, while internally questioning the truth that was presented to me. I was even the worship leader in the college group. I was in it though. Besides not knowing any better, the community is what kept me involved.
When I turned 21, I hit a point of church burnout. I was doing something church related 6 out of 7 days of the week. I had to walk away, and thus I began the first step of(one of) my Identity Alchemy journey’s of “Deconstruction” which took me a good seven years. This has been more of a personal alchemy piece, which is a similar process of my signature Identity Alchemy process(If you’re asking “what is Identity Alchemy?” I answered a lot of these questions on a recent podcast.) I created a process of identity alchemy for your personal brand, which can be directly applied to your own personal alchemy. We are always shapeshifting our identities in life in general. I say all to give you a little context here.
So back to my story here. It’s at that point where I started to question the construct in which I grew up and beginning to deconstruct. Deconstructing is taking an objective look at a certain set of beliefs and observing what works and what doesn’t. I believe that we are not defined by who we were told we have to be, or by our traumas, or anything. In every moment, we are curating a new reality. We get to choose who we want to be in this world. A lot of that is exploring the depths of our soul vs the constructs society has told us we “should” be. My family and culture was telling me that I should be a “Christian” and adopt those beliefs because that is the ONLY way to live. Otherwise I’ll go to hell. I was cultured to believe this idea of truth by being church washed and being immersed in a community that was of one belief system. I didn’t know any better.
Fear is a real thing. It’s an emotion that can grip ups and make us do crazy irrational shit(like believing in a fictitious place that you burn in for eternity). Just look what fear is doing in our society today. We must alchemize the fear in our body, to be able to take an objective look at things vs acting through that fear. Fear is what wages wars and makes people kill each other. I say this because part of my own alchemic process of deconstructing my belief system of Christianity was letting go of the fear of going to hell. It was always in the back of my mind, as it was driven down my throat my whole life. That fear was one of the hardest things to detach from.
One catalyst in the early days of my journey was one of my first girlfriends. We had many deep philosophical conversations about life. She was agnostic at the time, and I was so curious of her perspective. We’d have endless conversations about life and the universe. About the idea of living in the question of the existence of a “god” in the story of Christianity that I was presented. Throw in another dogmatic stigma of “no sex before marriage” which we broke. Also yet another thing I was wrestling with and even now in my journey working to release the oppression that was deeply inlayed into my subconscious growing up. Sex was never talked about in my household except for not before marriage. So there was definitely a lot of guilt built into this relationship. Eventually I broke up with her because she didn’t believe the same way(Looking back on it now, there were other dynamics and personality traits at play that didn’t work, but that was the most prevalent at the time). I was still ridden with guilt and fear being in my process of deconstruction my construct still laid true to the dogma and wasn’t able to let it go at that point. I was still going to church with one foot in and one foot out.
It took me about seven years till I was around 28 to fully finish deconstructing that identity and let it die. To fully shed it from my deeply woven subconscious narrative and fear of letting it go and to be able to even begin to curate a new identity and belief system. Curate is the second step in my identity alchemy process. Once I was able to let go of that identity fully, is when I could even begin to curate and dream about who I wanted to be next. The identity alchemy process is one that can be elongated or short a short and quick cycle. We go through the process many times in many different spaces of our lives both personally and in entrepreneurship/business. At this point, I was curating a space of agnosticism where I lived in question of whether there is a god or not and that was a great space to be at the time. It was a process that took years to lose my religion, and what I mean by that is to detach from the dogma, from the sub-conscious laden fear that lived in my nervous system and ultimately kept me from my own freedom and full self expression.
The third step in my identity alchemy process is “becoming” which is stepping in and becoming that identity that you’ve curated. We are human “BEINGS” and the way we be in life is when we begin to live in our full expression. Otherwise we’re just human “DOINGS” walking and navigating this matrix. At that point in my journey, who I became was someone not of religion finding my identity as a “Creative” a commercial photographer where all my self-worth and who I was became that identity. Then it all came crashing down as did I, but I’ll save that for another post. That has been a whole other identity alchemy process and a big part of what allowed me to create the process.
As far as where I am today, I’m diving deeper in to the identity alchemy process and finding my own spiritual practice after going through a whole dark night of the soul and spiritual awakening a few years back. I’ve gone through many new levels of awarenesses, consciousness, and new constantly stepping into new ways of being in more full expression. I am still deconstructing and pushing through old sub-conscious narratives that don’t serve me. I am curating a new spiritual connection that is one of oneness, love, and acceptance of all of us in this universe. One where the universe, god, source whatever you want to call it lives inside of us, one where the kingdom of heaven is within. One that is harmonious and life giving. A new earth. One where the truths of the ascended masters, Christ, Buddah, and all those iconic figures that were tapped into the divine and creating from that space.
One of the narratives that my Christian upbringing hindered me from is sexuality and spirituality. I am deconstructing this area and learning how to become even more fully expressed in this area, to be more open and not shunned from this. Our sexual power is our creative power and my vision is to live a fully expressed creative life of love and fullness. I am now moving through a new personal alchemic process of mastering that area of my life.
The alchemic process is taking these areas of our psyche and deconstructing them to curate new unlimited narratives. To create the utmost possibility in our lives. We must find the tools that help us deconstruct and reconstruct these things. Plant medicine has been one of those tools as well as books, meditation, breathwork, online classes etc. There’s a wealth of information out there and it’s up to us to seek it out.
Want to learn more about Identity Alchemy and how you can create a congruent personal brand? DM me the phrase “IDENTITY ALCHEMY” over on instagram and we’ll get you plugged in.
