Why do people experience different side effects of leaving the church?

Some experience nihilism. Some don't. Some flounder. Some flourish. Why? Lots of reasons. Here is one.

Hi guys. Going back to my roots today and discussing faith transitions. Also throwing it back to sharing content via video. Thought it might be fun to throw videos in the substack mix every now and then. You know, I love me a white board.

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I’ve been sitting on this concept of describing one reason people have such different experiences leaving the church and just itching to share it.

Sharing it now.

TLDR: Some people naturally find it easy to meet inner expectations, some find it easy to meet outer expectations. Some have a mixture of both or neither. Gretchen Rubin describes this wonderfully in her book The Four Tendencies.

Depending on your tendency, everyone will have a very different experience both in the church and out of it.

Let me know which tendency you are and how your tendency has affected your religious journey. Can’t wait to hear your thoughts!

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Your Response to Last Week’s Prompt

Last week we talked about hero-izing the shooting of the bad guy and why we necessitate violence in the formation of a hero in media and the military.

I LOVED this response on why we do that:

“I've been thinking about this all week! Here's what I've come up with. 

I think partly it's evolutionary. In caveman times, the man who could fight off the "bad guys" (the lions and the tigers and who knows what else that wanted to eat him for a tasty snack) was the guy that survived to reproduce. And he got the girl too, because he could protect her and their babies. It was pure survival. And now we don't need that sort of brute strength for survival but it's still wired into us. 

I also think there's some patriarchy at play. Because even when there's a female "hero" in a movie, she's doing the same butt kicking that the man does, and that's what makes her cool. Because the caregiving, empathetic, community building tasks traditionally attributed to women are never seen as heroic unless it's in the benevolent patriarchy sense. The caregiving tasks of a woman are only heroic because they allow the man in their life to go blow up bad guys. 

I wonder if we would love the dramatic, world saving hero stories so much if they were actually developed and presented as human beings. Iron man blows up a bunch of aliens and then needs to go to therapy for the rest of his life for his severe PTSD. Or Captain America is actually deeply depressed because all his hero stuff makes it difficult for him to form a deep emotional connection with anyone. 

The hero who blows up bad guys and saves the world is who we all wish we could be, because he doesn't panic in a crisis. I think blowing things up and the good guys/bad guys narrative appeals to the natural man, the ego, the less enlightened self. It's simplistic.”