Hiding Stuff From People...

[greatcaptain]

Hello everyone. I don't really know where to start with this, so I guess I'll kind of give you the background information about me. I'm 17, just finished my junior year of high school, grew up in a conservative christian household. For a little bit over a year I've been into personal development.

After a while it felt like something was holding me back in various areas, although I avoided that whole idea and convinced myself I just needed more self-discipline. Things went like that for a couple of months.

Recently, I left the religion I grew up with. I thought about how my parents would react, and immediately decided I would have to hide this from them. Then I thought about my sister, and my friends, and I realized that I had a pretty big problem on my hands. Most of the people closest to me would have huge problems with this. The whole idea of hiding this from them didn't really sit well with me, though.

I was reading though The Courage to Live Consciously, although I'd read it before in the past, and I kind of had a breakthrough. I realized the bigger issue that I'd been trying to avoid. I realized how much I fear what other people will say to me and how they'll judge me, and how much I let that control my life. The reason I mention the religion thing so much is because its a really good example, and it helped lead me to this conclusion. But this is affecting almost every aspect of my life. For example, I had made a goal to lose weight, and although I had had some success, I was holding myself back because I never really told anyone I was trying to lose weight. It shouldn't even be a hard thing to tell people, yet here I am almost trying to do it secretly. There are other aspects it affects too, like goals to get to bed at a normal time, and where I want to go for a career in the future, for example. I don't know why I have this problem with telling people things like this, but I realized it would greatly improve everything if I could.

I know I need to take on this fear now, so I'm thinking of starting a fear hierarchy like Steve mentions in the article I was talking about. I still don't know if it is a good idea to tell my parents about leaving their religion, things would definitely be hard if I did. If anyone has any advice on this situation, that would be great, because I know this is going to be a challenge for me. Hopefully this post can benefit some of you, because this whole thing is causing major changes in my life. I'll try to keep posted here if I have any progress on this situation. Thanks for reading this looong post, I feel weird starting a thread and writing so much while I'm such a new member, but this just seemed to come together for me around the same time I joined this forum.

[theknightwhosaysni-NI]

Hi Captain,

I can relate to this, I'm having difficulties too to speak about my personal goals.
The belief system and lifestyle I am aiming at is so different from what my friends and family know that I feel it's odd to tell them openly right away about it.
(for instance I have tried things such as being vegetarian, acted as a pick up artist, waking up at 6 in the morning even on week ends, committing to lightworking, refusing to have a job, choosing my beliefs etc.)
It's hard for me to speak about that with my friends and family also because these are experiments for me, and I don't identify with that, and I feel they would identify me with these things.

The solutions I found so far is :
-speaking about these topics in order to introduce them to my friends and family. Little by little they know I'm interested by these "alternatives" point of views. It's then easier to tell them things like "I'm stopping eating meat to see if it makes any difference" for instance. So this is the "little by little" approach.

-a second solution is to tell about your goals online.
I have started a website for people to share their goals and share their experiences. It's in French so I don't think you'll find it useful, however there is this website that exists in English. You can state your goals publicly while still being more or less anonymous, it's a good start.

however, at some point, we'll choose to "out ourselves" completely I guess, and this will not be a problem anymore

[garym]

Hi greatcaptain,

As soon as I saw that subject I knew there was something I could relate to here......and your story really resonated with me. I too left conservative Christianity after 18 years of being a serious believer, and I have also just recently become aware of my tendency to try to please people and hide from them.

What I am doing is becoming more present in my life, more aware of the thoughts and emotions that are driving me, and more aware of my body. So now I am becoming more aware of the judging thoughts within me and the feelings that are present around situations where I would in the past unconsciously react in fear and self-loathing.

Have you read The Power of Now or A New Earth? Either book is a great place to start in the process of cultivating presence and becoming more conscious. And with A New Earth, you've got the online course at oprah.com as well For me, the process is bringing me to understand the stories I've been telling myself about how unworthy I am, so that I bring complete acceptance of myself.

I wish you well on your journey, you are blessed to have reached this realization at such a young age!

Gary

[Jarrod]

First up, self development (the kind related to developing as a person rather than just being more productive ) really hurts as you know. We have to break out of what seems like thousands of molds, fear absolutely attacks this sort of change. So don't feel alone in your trip, we are all going through the difficulties.

Short answer to question: The fear hierarchy will probably be helpful for you, do it.

My story, instead of moving out of religion it is a story of going into spirituality.

My family has almost no association with religion and one of my parents think religion and especially spiritual things are ridiculous, cultish and every other negative connotation of religion there is.

So I was starting to explore and practice gnostic things (this is at the end of my high school years) which emphasises direct experience. After a year or two of really hiding what I was looking into, I wanted to go and practice with a local group in their courses. Not having a vehicle for transportation the only way I was going to get their was to go through my parent.

Fear in this was terrible, eventually I managed to work through the fear and had 'the' talk with my parents which was so hard. Talking to my parents about this for some reason petrified me.

Anyway long story short I got to go and see the group by bringing one of my parents along. The whole time their I could just feel the disapproval and the disgust for what was being said. I got a big talking to later on as well.

In the end I survived (who would have thought!). I found out my parents want me to be happy even if they think what I'm doing is stupid.

But the real point is this: Confronting and working on your fears is what this work is all about.

Don't hide that you want to be a better person and that you are exploring various things. The only way to make progress in your life is to completely accept what you think you should do and then do it no matter what you think others will think.

Yes some people will make your life very hard. But your choices are to stay hidden away and hide yourself forever or come out and start really living.

Until you can say that you accept that it is ok to live how you think you should live you will never be happy. You will always be conflicted, the curse of a truth seeker

I hope I didn't go to far off topic and that it serves to inspire you.



In regards to the specifics of talking to your parents, try to explain why you want to leave. Try as much as possible to say why you think you will be happier. Do not attack their viewpoints and under no circumstances get angry. If you already have good to average relationships with your parents you may be surprised with the outcomes (it will still hurt ).

[greatcaptain]

Wow, thanks everyone for the great replies. I'll proabably be starting to tell people things little by little, which goes along with the fear hierarchy idea pretty well. I'm taking a trip with my family next week, but I think it will be easier to start with talking to friends. We'll see. I'll finish setting up a nice little fear hierarchy today and get working on it. Thanks again for all the supportive comments!

[greatcaptain]

Sorry for double posting, I've just come up with a couple questions about telling people about leaving my religion. I'm not sure if I'm just trying to get out of doing it or if there are legitimate reasons not to tell certain people.

First of all, I have some friends I feel are only serving to drag me down, and I know I need to kind of let them go. They just really aren't healthy people for me to be around. What I'm unsure about is if I still need to also get into the whole religion thing with them or just not even bother if I need to move on without them anyway.

Second, I don't know if it would be worth it to tell my sister or not. On the one hand, I feel like it will make me more open and free and all that good stuff, but on the other hand, I think it will just make our relationship stressed and depressing. She's one of the most important people to me and I'm one of the most important people to her in the world. She told me she would rather have me die a horrible death right now than tell her I'm no longer a christian (i was giving her some hypotheticals earlier today). I just think it would crush her, and I'm unsure about it. And incase this is important, she's not super young or anything, she's almost 20.

Lastly, I'm unsure about my parents. I think most of this is just the fear talking, but not positive. For one thing, if they knew, my sister would find out. So if I didn't want her to know, they couldn't. Also, they would react similarly to my sister, like it would be devistating to them. And I don't know how it would affect my college education. I plan on going to college at this point, and if I told them nothing I'd go to a christian college that they would pay for. Telling them, I have not idea what would happen with college. It's really anyone's guess. And basically my life would probably be a living hell until I moved out. And they'd probably have me going to a christian counselor. It'd be a mess.

All in all, things are going well. All my other goals and developments in my life I plan on telling everyone, and I've already started working on getting through my hierarchy. Thank you all for your help!

[Jarrod]

What happens when someone asks you what your religion is?

Do you feel like you are lying when you answer?

When you are researching things on the internet do you need to be ready to hide it incase someone sees it and thinks you are non-christian?

(I actually don't know that it means to really 'be' conservative christian, I'm just throwing up related questions to how I used to be)

When you are talking to your friends, do you have to change your sentences and not say what you think because you don't want them to know you?



You say that you plan on telling everyone, but the way you talk about your sister (and consequently your parents) sounds like you never want to tell them. It sounds like you are only considering the impact on them (who should also be responsible for trying to understand their family members), you should also consider the impact on you (the positive benefits).

Do you have anyone you can talk to face to face without hiding/omitting details and really honestly say anything to? If you do I would strongly recommend you spend some time talking to them and notice how different you feel when you are being honest about yourself compared to pretending.



I'm sorry to hear the response of your sister, that must have really hurt. It is wonderful to see you care so much about her. If she cares as much about you as you do about her then I would guess she would understand after awhile (even if she flips out to start with).



Clearly I don't understand religious families. They would make you move out because you said you were no longer christian? They would refuse to give you an education because you're not christian? It seems like you love your family, do you think they are going to hate you if you are always positive, loving and caring to them?

I don't have answers to these questions.



Just had an idea, you don't have to use it. Maybe you should request to go see a christian counselor yourself. I don't know your reasons for becoming non-christian but I assume you have thought it through and decided it was the best option for you. If part of your reason is that christianity doesn't seem right to you or doesn't make sense then talking to someone to try and understand more about the religion sounds like an honest action. I'm assuming the role of a counselor is to help people understand christianity.

Do you want to wait till you are in a christian college before telling people you are not christian?



Finally my advice is not from a christian or any religious family background so I have experience with telling that to people. As I said in my story, I only have experience going through the fear of telling family stuff they are not going to like. It sounds like this action is going to be the hardest thing you have done in your life. I know it was the hardest thing I've done.

But you are not me, you are you and you have to decide on your own how you want to live your life. That is your call not mine.

I wish you good luck and remind you that whoever you are, you can still love and cherish your family.

PS: I'm not saying you have to do any of this tomorrow, you still have to pick your time. But pick your time based on when you think it is best, not whenever you think your fear is gone. Because the fear will always try really hard to convince you that you are not ready.

[The Cloud]

Perhaps you could start by questioning Christianity to them, and countering their answers with logically sound arguments. In the end, most versions of Christianity boil down to unfounded faith in God, so eventually you're likely to get the answer "have faith." If you pick at this answer and ask why have faith, you will probably get a good idea of how they would react if you flat out said you were not Christian, because faith seems to be a sore point for Christians since it can't be logically justified. Plus, it would prime them for the eventuality of telling them, softening the blow.

By the way, I'm not against faith, just unfounded faith.