Updating rules for living after a faith crisis

[Reuben]

I learned something about the possible far-reaching effects of a faith crisis this week. Mine basically created a bomb in my head, set to go off when I failed too often at work.

In cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), I learned about "rules for living": the core rules we live by that inform our thoughts, actions and feelings of worth. We get them from our environments and our innate natures, and often (usually?) don't explicitly know that we have them until we do some careful introspection. Here are a few of mine:

• I must provide for my family.
• I must be competent at my job.
• I will love and accept my wife and children no matter what.

(If you've done CBT, you can already see the problem.)

When I can follow my rules, I feel great about myself. When I can't, my self-esteem tanks. I'm currently on extended sick leave because various health-related and church-related things made it impossible to keep the first two rules, so my self-esteem tanked, and then panic and depression cemented my failure to keep my rules. Bleah.

The first two rules are too rigid and unrealistic, so I've been fixing them. One big question this week has been this. I've been unable to keep these rules before. Why didn't my self-esteem tank back then?

I think I figured it out. I had a couple of protective core beliefs:

• God will catch me if I fail, or at least make everything right in the end.
• God will forgive any personal failings as long as I'm willing to improve.

These beliefs made failure more bearable. When I didn't have them anymore, failure became catastrophic.

FWIW, the key change to my rules involves the word "try." Letting go of the guarantee of success I felt following my rules supplied was hard - I experienced it as a loss, with actual grief. I still feel a bit sad, but relieved as well, kind of like the first days after my faith crisis before I figured out how complicated my life was going to get, but less raw and intense.

[MoPag]

This is really interesting. It's weird how faith crisis stuff can be so deep. Like it affects so much, but its had to see up front everything it affects. It's like the gift that keeps on giving.

[Corsair]

This is an idea that does not get enough traction in post-LDS circles. Everyone largely does have to figure out a new basis for moral reasoning, but few people really try to be systematic about it. I had a couple of years where I had a weird existential crisis figuring out my own way to determine right and wrong in the absence of "Follow the Prophet".

Let me simply related one significant point of development for me. I ran across this quote by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson

“For me, I am driven by two main philosophies: know more today about the world than I knew yesterday and lessen the suffering of others. You'd be surprised how far that gets you.”

This is not a comprehensive, systematic basis for determining right and wrong. But, like Dr. Tyson states, you'd be surprised how far that gets you.

The study of comprehensive, secular basis for moral reasoning is an enormous field with ongoing debates that affect religion, science, politics, bio-ethics, AI research, and neurology. The fact that you are thinking about updated rules for living probably puts you further ahead in moral development than most people who take all of their decision making from Sunday School alone.

[Reuben]

The study of comprehensive, secular basis for moral reasoning is an enormous field with ongoing debates that affect religion, science, politics, bio-ethics, AI research, and neurology. The fact that you are thinking about updated rules for living probably puts you further ahead in moral development than most people who take all of their decision making from Sunday School alone.

Thanks.

Soon after my faith crisis, I read some things - I don't remember exactly what - that convinced me that I needed to figure out my morals soon. The last thing I wanted was to go off the rails, so I set out doing that. It took about a month to work out what I was willing to believe about God, and another month to determine the values underlying my morals so I could work them out in detail later. It probably would have gone faster if I had known about the work of Jonathan Haidt. Relieving suffering, as Neil deGrasse Tyson suggests, became the biggest reason I do anything. As a personal value, obeying authority tanked. Go figure...

An identity is associated with (at least) values, beliefs, and expectations for yourself and others. I worked out my values, beliefs, and moral expectations pretty quickly. This other set of expectations - these rules for living - I never even knew I had, or I knew at an implicit (subconscious) level. There was no way I could tell they were too rigid under my new beliefs.

So tricky. What a mindf***!

The other thing that pains me right now is also an expectation related to an identity. The identity is "Mormon," and the expectation is that I should be regarded well and respected by other Mormons. I feel a lot more investment in this than is good for me. I can fix it by either letting go of that expectation (which is really hard) or letting go of the "Mormon" identity (which is also really hard). The latter seems a bit easier. Some days I don't feel like a Mormon, and some days I slip back into talking about "our church." I'm more at peace with the universe on the days I don't feel like a Mormon.

I wonder sometimes if it wouldn't have been healthier for me to rip the band aid off in 2016 instead of trying to hang on for a year. My relationships probably would have suffered, though.