losing faith
Everything happens for a reason.
Growing up in the Catholic church, this is something I heard a lot, especially from my family. As I’ve written about before, my family is plagued with generational trauma and tragedy. Faith was used as a way to cope and explain away all of the terrible things that were happening, as ‘God’s plan.’
I never identified with this brand of faith. Instead, after my dad died, I became an atheist, and held onto this ‘dark night of the soul‘ for about 12 years.
becoming ‘strong’
Even so, when terrible things kept happening, I had a sneaking suspicion that there had to be a reason. I mean, all this senseless death and destruction, for what? A cornerstone memory of mine is from on our way home from my dad’s funeral, when my mom said to us, “I don’t know why you girls have to be so strong at such a young age. I know it doesn’t feel that way now, but this will make you strong.”
I was nine. A new piece of my survival identity was unlocked that day – strong.
I hate that narrative now. My trauma didn’t make me strong, it broke me. It gave me this horrible, sinking, empty feeling in my gut. It forced me to put together the pieces. I am strong; but I don’t always want to be. All I needed was to be soft, to be fragile, to be nurtured. That is what I crave today.
life without reason
In my senseless grief, I clung to this idea of reason to understand the world. I had to understand why all these terrible things were happening, and if I could, figure out how to stop them. It became my life’s mission.
I found purpose through several causes in my adolescence – activism, politics, and even vegetarianism (I regretfully admit that I once handed out PETA stickers in middle school. Cringe). In my teen years, I saw all of the horrible things that were happening in my world and the greater world, and they became my purpose. Unconsciously, yet somehow intentionally, I sought friends who saw these terrible things too. In mutual pain, I listened to their stories, visited their broken homes, and learned that I wasn’t alone. Everyone was suffering.
This made my lack of that faith I was taught even stronger. Although I could find the explanation (usually trauma, greed, pain, and sometimes just plain evil), I couldn’t find the reason. There was no grand plan. Life was chaotic and meaningless, and I truly felt that way for a long time. I became bitter towards the phrase, everything happens for a reason, and I took it personally. God didn’t need my dad in heaven; I needed him here.
finding faith again
And then, I fell in love.
Suddenly, life had meaning again. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?
But of course, my first love ripped my heart out and stomped on it, as most do. Thus my nihilism continued for another few years.
Until I met the next great love of my life. Don’t get it twisted, this person was not my soulmate, and I was not meant to stay with him for long. And naturally, he utterly destroyed me in a million different ways. But he did do one thing for me, whether he knows it or not, and I will always thank him for that.
I struggle to find the words for what this person did for me, and how they pulled me out of this dark night of the soul into a sort of spiritual awakening. In part, it was the juxtaposition between the chaos and pain of loving them, and the beauty and sheer in love-ness of it. When he left my life, I didn’t wish we had never met like I had with most of my exes up until that point. Rather, I was grateful for the experiences and the lessons, even though they came with the deepest heartache I had ever known. I learned what it meant to grieve for the living.
For the first time, even on a subconscious level, I was able to grasp the concept of duality.
what is duality?
Duality is the ancient idea of good and evil. In this most essential definition, it’s overly simplistic. In labeling things as good or evil, we tend to lose their nuance, and we don’t make space for all the beautiful shades of gray in life.
The way I understand duality is more like this: the darkness in life is the reason we strive for the light. The lightness is the reason our spirit persists through the darkness. Without the light, we would lose hope, give up, and destroy ourselves entirely. Without the dark, we would lose ourselves in overindulgence and shatter a few of the most beautiful aspects of the human spirit: resilience, grace, community and support, adrenaline and thrill, patience, discipline, responsibility, and hope – to name a few.
What would there be to hope for without the dark? To wait for? Why would we need to support each other if not for the darkness in our loved ones’ lives? To what would we need to be held accountable for if nothing bad could happen as a result of our actions?
Suffering and joy is all there really is. But in a beautiful and twisted way, they need each other.
understanding faith
Faith is not what I learned in the church. Or at least, not in the way it was explained to me. Maybe the priest and my aunts and uncles understand faith more than I ever will, and they’re just not the best communicators. I’m a pretty decent communicator, so let me break down how I understand faith today.
Actually, I’ll let renowned author, speaker, and researcher Brené Brown start, from her amazing book that I recommend to literally everyone, The Gifts of Imperfection:
Faith is a place of mystery, where we find the courage to believe in what we cannot see and the strength to let go of the fear of uncertainty.
Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection
Brené argues that faith and reason are not at odds at all. Rather, it is the understanding that we cannot know everything for certain, and the bravery to keep going anyways.
I understand faith as acceptance. Instead of constantly trying to use my own small sphere of influence to control, alter, and change the world around me to fit my narrative of the way things should be, I can accept things for what they are, and have faith that by impacting my small sphere of influence and shaping my life how I want it to be, I can make the world a better place.
It’s also letting go of that goal entirely and understanding that I don’t have the power to change what is. I can’t eliminate suffering from the world, or my family, or my friends. I can’t take their pain away. But I can heal my own and guide others to do the same for themselves. I can heal the generational trauma that flows through my very blood and make my children’s lives better for it. I believe that by doing that, I’m fulfilling my life’s purpose.
Faith is also a sense of knowing and trusting. It’s a decision to trust the events of life as they unfold in your path, knowing that as long as you trust your intuition and follow your heart, you will end up where you need to be. Instead of driving myself literally crazy trying to control the things around me to create a false sense of safety, I can redirect my focus to my own path, where I can enact meaningful changes.
living with reason, purpose, and faith
I like to view my life as a story. As a writer and book lover, this seems only natural. In that story, there have been ups and downs, twists and turns, and unexpected plot twists. There have been inspiring moments of hope and resilience, and heart-wrenching moments of despair and unraveling.
As an author, do I write every word with a reason behind it? Not always. This is a frustration you might relate to if you’ve ever taken a literature class; sometimes the curtains are just blue.
When I reflect on my own story, I know that I did stupid things with very little intention many times over in my life. Sometimes these things led to great discoveries of ‘character development,’ and other times they were senseless and dull. Not everything happens for a reason.
But most things do.
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