When we make the difficult decision to leave our religion, we make a choice to leave community, friends, family, even hobbies we once regularly participated in. In leaving all this familiarity, we begin to focus on rebuilding our new life. We seek out new friends or community, new work or hobbies, new ways of connecting with spirit, new ways of eating or dressing. We begin striving for our new life, our new identity.

We Strive to Appear Joyful After Religion

And it sure becomes an awful lot of work. Some of us may sink pleasantly into the warm bath of our new selves. Those of us who were perhaps already connected to this other self, so it feels like coming home. But others lay out the map and get to work. We become fixated on becoming who we want to be, on healing, on finding our new life. We become so fixated that we tend to overwork ourselves. We focus on our mental health because we know this needs attention, and so find ourselves meditating, or reading books, or some other activity to prove we’re still spiritual. We fixate on friends and so throw ourselves into new communities or groups that don’t quite fit, but we don’t care, so long as we feel we have community. We don’t care that we’re making ourselves miserable, so long as we feel like we’ve made the choice, and we’re coming from our new “authentic” place.

Sadly, all of this striving is a lingering trait of our old selves that we are desperately trying to escape. The perfectionism, the workaholic tendencies, the striving, the clinging, etc. We may be distracting ourselves from our anger or anxiety. We may be soothing ourselves with things that aren’t really bringing us comfort, but we believe they should. Ultimately, we are still escaping what is before us. Because we still, deep down, may not believe we deserve joy after religion.

But we do.

We deserve the heart-bursting, cheek-hurting, can’t-breathe-because-you’re-laughing-too-hard kinda joy. The joy that makes us feel like we’re light headed or dreaming. The kind of joy we see in movies, the kind of joy we claimed to have when in religion. We deserve the kinda joy that everyone assumes we have now that we’re outside religion.

But It Doesn’t Come Easy

So why don’t most of us have it? Why do we often seem to be making ourselves even more miserable than when we had an imaginary god judging us? Why do we seem to strive harder now that our salvation isn’t on the line?

Is it to prove to others how fast we can heal? Or perhaps its to prove to ourselves that we need no time to heal, we’ve got it all together now! Or do we, on some level, feel like we don’t deserve joy after religion or can’t be joyful? Maybe because we’ve walked away from family, don’t have a solid identity, aren’t sure where we’re going in life, and don’t even know what the meaning to all of this is. Could be. Could also be that we were conditioned to believe that joy was sinful, selfish, careless, or foolish. We saw the pictures of hell, those who sided with the devil, how much fun they were having. Dancing, drinking, and being merry. Joy was equated with slothfulness, sexual promiscuity, and rule-breaking. Joy was seen as bad.

We Never Felt Joy Should Be Sought Out

So unconsciously we keep our nose to the grindstone, focusing on improvement. Then even those we left behind can’t say anything negative. Because we’re working on improving ourselves or helping others or saving the world, we’re not just having a ball. We need to prove we didn’t leave religion just to have fun. We believe that if we have joy after religion we may be showing others that we aren’t serious.

The thing is…why do we care what others think? No matter what we do, those we left behind in the church will think what they’re going to think. And odds are, it’s what they’ve been told to think. This means nothing you do can affect it. So why try so hard? Why care so much? We stopped caring about an invisible, judgmental, formidable god of which we have no proof he exists or doesn’t exist. Yet we still care about those who will judge us for the clothes we wear, the food we consume, and the company we keep? We still care about the opinions of others who don’t have any affect on our lives?

Yeah, we probably do. And no, it isn’t an easy thing to get over. But instead of worrying about how they may interpret joyful behavior as selfish, consider how helpful it would be for them to see you experiencing joy outside religion? To them, joy is impossible without their religion, as you once thought. The best way to prove them wrong isn’t by being a workaholic, self-development obsessed, guru. The best way to prove them wrong is by, in fact, being joyful. Even if it’s not about them, the best way to prove to yourself that you’ve made the right choice is by seeking joy. That is why we left, isn’t it? Because the church didn’t make us happy? Because the way of living, the thoughts, the beliefs we held didn’t make us happy?

We Chose Joy, Right?

We’re out now, so why shouldn’t joy after religion be our number one priority? Why wouldn’t we feel we deserve joy? Why wouldn’t we think being joyful is the absolute best thing to seek now that we have freedom?

The truth is, it should be. Now I don’t want to put another “should” on your list. God knows my list is too long. But I want you to consider what number on your “should” list is it? Is being joyful even on the list? If not, ask yourself why. And then ask yourself again. And dig into the answer. It could be something mentioned here, or something else. But whatever the reason is, I’d be willing to bet its false. Its either out of a concern for others feelings or opinions, or because we feel we don’t deserve it. Both are caused by our religious indoctrination, which we are trying to let go.

I challenge you to make joy a priority. Fill your days with laughter and smiles. It doesn’t mean don’t work, for in work we experience triumphs. But it means do everything with the focus of joy. Seek out joy for yourself. You deserve joy after religion, because you endured so long without it while in religion. But to enjoy isn’t just to focus on the good, but to take an active role in creating it. The word enjoy uses the latin element “en” to make, which means it is up to us to make our lives joyous. We make it so. You chose to make yourself happier by leaving religion, by leaving what you didn’t make you happy. And what would it all be for if not to enjoy your new life? So go enjoy it! And make no apologies!

To get the most out of these messages, I invite you to join the next live circle, happening every Sunday! Come reclaim joy after religion, along with so much more.