Hopefully I am not the only one to experience this feeling:

Something you once loved feels constricting to you. The old labels you once embraced feel like a scar. A place where you once felt safe feels like a prison.

This feeling can often come with being in a religious community, when it just no longer feels "right." This can happen when religions lose their childlike admiration for the mystery of spirituality.

One of my favorite quotes is how Sue Spencer defines spirituality: "[Spirituality is] those aspects of individual feelings, aspirations, and needs which are concerned with man's effort to find a purpose and meaning in life experiences...which may occur without the individual's being related to an organized church body or his making use of a systemized body of beliefs and practices."

What Sue Spencer is saying touched my heart deeply. I interpret it like this: we're all connected by wanting to find our purpose, and that connection can happen outside of religious communities, something I previously did not believe. 

Another quote, this one from Beryl Hugen: "Spirituality refers more to inner feelings and the experience of the immediacy of a higher power... Spirituality, by its very nature, is eclectic, inclusive, and generally described with broad definitions."  

In my opinion, religion is not directly tied to spirituality. Spirituality is the connection between divine and human. Religion is the connection to facts, thoughts, and speculations. Spirituality is the human's natural intuition, the right side of the brain. Meanwhile, religion is the human's natural curiosity seeking to be satiated -- the left side of the brain. 

That being said, in order to heal from the pain a  religious community may have caused, one does not have to disconnect from their inner intuition, their spirit, the divine. I believe we are innately connected to each other, ourselves, and the divine, whether or not we choose to participate in traditional religious activities.

Happy healing <3

With love, 

Ivy