Religion in its humility restores man to his only dignity, the courage to live by grace.
—George Santayana
There was a little girl who always looked on the bright side of everything. No matter what was happening, she always looked for the good. Her brothers were really tired of her positiveness so they decided to play a trick on her. They filled the barn with manure and sent her down there to get something, hoping that she would get all dirty, stinky, and sad. The little girl was gone for quite some time, and her brothers started to worry. They thought that they had better go and see if she was okay. They walked into the barn and there she was, smiling and shoveling away! They asked her what she was doing, and she replied, “With all of this manure, there must be a pony in here somewhere!”
This story illustrates that what you find in life is all about what you expect to find. This is the law of attraction. If you know, deep inside, that you are good and wonderful and loved, then you will attract good and loving kindness into your life. If you know that goodness is within you, then you will look for it in others. The flip side of that is when you believe that you are bad or undeserving, you will tend to attract negative experiences. This, too, is the law of attraction, with a less positive outcome.
Unfortunately, many religions, or perhaps I should say religious leaders, reinforce negative feelings and beliefs that we have about ourselves. I'm not saying all religions or religious leaders do this, but many of them do.
Being a psychic and a spiritual healer for forty-two years has shown me a lot about the negativity of religions. I know about this negativity in two ways: first, through the clients I have worked with over the years; second, through the religious people who have never met me, yet believe that I am evil and what I do is evil. It's tough to turn the other cheek sometimes and allow others to have their opinions without getting into a debate.
Many religious people I have encountered love to talk about Satan. They go on and on about his powers. In a ten-minute conversation, they will mention Satan fifteen to twenty times and God once, if He's lucky! To me, it's all such a contradiction! They say they've got Jesus in their heart, yet they love to dwell on Satan. My parents taught me to pray for these people, to ask God to bless them. I have to admit, there have been many times when I have prayed for them and my heart wasn't in it!
I don't understand what gives people the right to judge others as evil or as sinners. Jesus did say “Judge them by their fruits,” which I believe means that if you are going to judge people, judge them by their lives, by what they do with their gifts, their attitudes toward others, their whole essence. Get to know someone, then make your judgments based on what you have learned about her rather than on what you have heard or what you fear.
When a religion is condemnatory, harsh, shameful, and punishing, we—and our bodies—bear the results of that treatment. When we are continually reminded that we are sinners, that we are fallen, our bodies suffer. Religion is supposed to make you feel good. When it doesn't—when we inherit negative beliefs about ourselves from our religious practice or from the doctrine that is passed down from our parents—we suffer.
Until I began working on and healing my beliefs about myself, I could not have gone week after week to a church that preached what a wonderful child of God I was. For so long, I felt there was something really wrong with me and I was always afraid that people would be able to see all that bad stuff. It made me too uncomfortable to hear a lot of positive things about myself or to be told that, as a child of God, I had all the capabilities to do or be anything that I wanted. Yet, I have to admit, as Reverend Jim— former minister at the Unity Church—said in a sermon, we know deep down at the core of our being that weare good. And that's probably why I kept digging for that pony in my life! I had to shovel away the manure and find the goodness.
Religion has the potential to be a place where it is safe to get rid of the bad feelings you are still holding on to and discover your goodness. That's what religion should be doing for all of us. It should be encouraging us to shovel away our negative beliefs and feelings about ourselves, which we have acquired along the way. It should be helping us to discover our goodness. Our holiness. Our divinity. If we are created in God's image, wouldn't that mean we have unlimited potential? That we are made out of the good in God? If you are the son or daughter of the highest Source in the Universe, you can't get much better!
Some readers are going to jump on that last statement right away! What about all of the evil people? The people who kill and abuse others? They, too, are children of God, but it's probably been lifetimes since anyone told them so. Their goodness is in there. It's just that, with all of the manure inside (negative beliefs about themselves), they probably don't even dare to look for fear they'll never find it! Their belief that they are bad is constantly reinforced by society, or by a religious system that reinforces these negative beliefs.
Look honestly at the religious system you follow. Does it reinforce your goodness or those negative beliefs that you have about yourself? Are you constantly reminded about your shortcomings? Are you told every week that you are a sinner? That you're bad? That you do not deserve happiness? What beliefs does your current religion reinforce? Can you be honest with yourself about this?
In your heart, you know if you're good or not. You know the truth about God. I remember hearing in a sermon that God told Moses, “My truth is written on your heart.”
If you have discovered that your religion does reinforce your negative beliefs about yourself, it's important to start thinking about finding one that will reinforce your goodness. The problem here is that you need to start believing in it yourself. So what comes first—the chicken or the egg? It doesn't matter. What does matter is that this process of knowing your goodness begin now. Enough time has been wasted wallowing in negativity! Ask God to help direct you to a religion that will encourage you to know your goodness. I really believe in my heart that that's what God wants for you. He wants you to do everything you can to heal your pain.
Your Present Religion
Even if you are an atheist, or haven't been to church or synagogue in years, religious teachings from your childhood can still be affecting you.
Ask yourself if your present religion reinforces your essential goodness or negative beliefs you have about yourself. The reinforcement of the positive is important to your healing. If you are holding negative feelings about yourself inside your body, this cannot be a positive influence on your health.
Write down in your journal the kinds of beliefs your place of worship reinforces and your feelings about these.
Exercise 2
Your Religious Attitudes
What do you think of when you hear the word “religion”? Even if you don't attend church or synagogue on a regular basis or think that religion has no meaning in your life, you may still be harboring bad feelings around an association with religion stemming from your childhood. If you have recently turned away from religion, you may still carry negative feelings in your body.
Record your insights, your beliefs, your memories, and your feelings about religion in your journal.
Inherited Belief Systems
Sometimes the negative beliefs we find in our religious experiences reinforce or carry on negative beliefs or feelings that our parents taught us. Take the time to look at this possibility. If your parents were raised to believe in badness, the chances are they will raise you the same way. This cycle goes on and on until that tiny voice inside says, “Hey, I'm in here and I'm good because I was created by God!”