S1E2 The Religion We Grew Up In: What We Took, What We Left

Speaker: 00:00:03

Welcome back to Live Good.

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Walk Good.

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the podcast about living

well without religion.

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I'm Bianca, your host, inviting you

into honest human conversations about

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ethics, meaning, and joy beyond the pews.

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Whether you've left faith, are

questioning, or you're just

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curious, you're welcome here.

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Let's get into it.

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This week, we're talking about

the religion we grew up in.

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Not to tear it apart and not to

worship at its alter either, but to sit

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with it and ask what did it give us?

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What did we carry forward?

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And what did we have to leave

behind just to be able to breathe?

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For me, I still remember Sunday mornings.

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I remember the shiny, tight

shoes, well-pressed clothes, my

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own little bible that never quite

got rid of that new book smell.

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I remember my mother's voice beside me in

the pews as she sang old hymns that she

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loved, her voice filling with emotion.

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There was a lot of love in that

space and also a kind of quiet fear.

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A fear of asking too many questions,

of wanting too much, of being too much.

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And yet, I know, and I

acknowledge, that faith shaped me.

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Even now, long after I stopped

believing, I can still feel

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its fingerprints in my life.

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Some of them are beautiful

and some of them not so much.

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Today's episode is for anyone who's

walked away from religion but never quite

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stopped feeling its weight or its warmth.

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We're going to explore how it is that

we hold both things at the same time.

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How do we honor our roots

without choking on the branches?

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How do we grieve and grow at once?

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How do we walk forward without

pretending the past never happened?

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Because leaving a belief system

doesn't always mean leaving

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behind everything it gave us.

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Let's walk through it together.

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So before we talk about what we kept or

what we left, I want to take a moment

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to really look at what we were given,

because none of us started from nowhere.

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We were shaped, we inherited things.

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Let's start there.

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I grew up in Jamaica, which

is to say I grew up in church.

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Most of us did.

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Not just on Sundays though.

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Church was in the music we

heard, the language we used, the

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food we blessed before we ate.

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It was stitched into school mornings

with group devotions and prayers.

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It's tucked into every wedding, every

funeral, every holiday, every good

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morning that ended with God bless you.

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For my family, it was mostly

Anglican, so robes, incense, pews.

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I went to Sunday school as a child.

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I joined the youth group and choir.

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As I got older, I went to confirmation

classes so that I could finally

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take communion with the grownups.

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But the deeper current isn't really

about the denomination because

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regardless of which one you grew up in.

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It was about expectation.

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It was about what was normal.

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God was the default.

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Faith was assumed and belief

was pretty much just baked in.

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Luckily for me, I didn't grow up in

what you'd call a fire and brimstone

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home, but there was still a quiet

pressure, a pressure to be good.

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Follow the rules.

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Don't ask too many questions.

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There were stories you

weren't supposed to ask about.

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There were things you weren't

supposed to say, loud desires

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you're not supposed to have.

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And yet, I find when I look back,

there were parts that felt like home.

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There was rhythm in the ritual.

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There was something grounding

in the hymns and the silence.

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And the sense of being part of

something older than you, something

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bigger than you church was community.

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There are still people in my wider network

who I have just always known from church.

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Church was where you learned

how to be seen, and sometimes

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where you learned how to hide.

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But honestly for a lot of us growing

up in the Caribbean, religion wasn't

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just belief, it was structure.

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It shaped your weak, your values,

your boundaries told you who you were

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and who you weren't allowed to be.

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And now as I encounter and I speak to

more and more people who have stepped

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away from traditional religion.

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Whether gently or with anger, I realize

there's a complexity that we all carry.

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Some of us remember the joy.

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Some still flinch at the shame, and

some of us are still untangling.

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What parts of it came from

love and what came from fear?

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So I invite you, maybe take a moment right

now and think back to what you grew up in.

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What faith or framework shaped your

early sense of right and wrong?

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Was it a sense of comfort,

a source of control?

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Did it help you feel held or

did it make you feel small?

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There really is no right answer.

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This is just a chance to notice

what's still with you, which parts

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still echo and what still stings.

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We're not here to judge your upbringing

or your family, or your past self, but

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the aim is for you to see it clearly,

name it, and make space for it without

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letting it take up the whole room.

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Because before we talk about what

we kept or what we left behind, we

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have to name what we were handed.

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Not just the beliefs, but the

silences, the rituals and the rules.

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Not just a God we were told to

follow, but the fear that we

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were taught to carry with us.

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We inherit more than just the faith.

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We inherit the frameworks, the ways

of seeing ourselves, the ways of

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belonging, or not ways of measuring our

worth or bodies or questions or joy.

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And until we can name

it, it still owns us.

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It still lives in a background

shaping how we walk through the world.

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So this isn't just about looking back,

it's about tracing those outlines of

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what shaped us so we can decide with care

what still deserves a place in our lives.

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Of course, our story doesn't

go straight to the ending with

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walking away because this is not

just about rejection of that past.

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It's also about remembering the

parts that stayed with us, because

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sometimes even after the belief

fades, something beautiful remains.

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So let's talk about

what we carried forward.

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Here's the thing that surprised me.

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When I first started drifting from

church, I thought I had to let go of

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everything, all or nothing, in or out.

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And for a while that's how it felt.

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Like I was walking away from a

house I had lived in my whole life,

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turning my back on every room, even

the ones where the light came in.

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But over time I realized something softer.

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I hadn't left everything behind.

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Some things followed me out.

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Some things I chose to carry.

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Like rhythm.

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Church gave me rhythm, not the rhythm

of clapping and dancing because my

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church, the Anglican Church of 30

years ago was not a clapping and

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dancing kind of church, God forbid,

but there was a rhythm to the routine.

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Sunday mornings as a marker, quiet

pauses for prayer during service,

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the marking of time through rituals.

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And even now, though I stopped

attending church decades ago, I find

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comfort in rhythm and structure.

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The idea of pausing, of

naming, of returning.

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I've just changed the container

and my rituals are different

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now, but they still hold me.

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And what about morality?

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That's where I started with

the first episode, but just

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touching on it a little more.

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People often assume that if

you don't believe in God, you

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don't believe in goodness.

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But for many of us, religion was just the

first place that we encountered values.

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Not the only place, not even the

clearest place, but it planted

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the early seeds for things like

kindness, responsibility, compassion.

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As we grew, we got to question

the soil that those seeds were in.

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We got to replant them

somewhere healthier, but the

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values, they're still blooming.

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I also carried forward the music.

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There are still hymns and gospel songs

that I sing or hum along with because

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I feel so much when I hear them.

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Not because I believe in the words

anymore, but because they remind me of

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a time when I felt held, they remind

me of the voices raised in harmony,

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of something transcendent, beyond

dogma, beyond doctrine of just awe.

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And for me, there's also something

about reverence, about stillness.

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Church taught me how to be quiet

with myself and with others.

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To be honest, it gave me a sense

that some things are sacred, not

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because somebody told me they are,

but because I feel it in my bones.

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Nowadays, some people might find it a

little sacrilegious, but I find that

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sacredness at the beach, floating

in the sea, watching the sky change.

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I've taken the reverence,

but I left the rules.

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Another thing that I've taken is

prayer, or at least something like it.

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Not petitioning a deity, but just

pausing to speak intention, to ask

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questions, to sit with silence.

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These days I'm more likely to journal.

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I whisper truths to myself in the dark.

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Is it prayer?

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Probably not in a traditional sense,

but it's definitely a kind of communion.

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And I keep saying, maybe that's enough.

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Leaving religion didn't mean I

abandoned everything I got from it.

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It meant I got to sift through

what it gave me and choose.

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Now I can choose to carry

forward what still fits and

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bless the rest for what it was.

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So I want to ask you now,

what did you take with you?

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What ideas or memories still

hold warmth in your chest?

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What is your version of sacred?

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What do you honor now, not because you

were told to, but because it feels right?

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Because walking away

doesn't mean forgetting.

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And rejecting the whole house

doesn't mean you can't take

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your favorite chair with you.

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Of course, not everything

made the journey.

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Some things we have to leave behind to

breathe because religion didn't only

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give me rhythm or community or memory, it

also gave me messages I had to unlearn.

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That's where it gets hard.

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So let's talk about what didn't survive.

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There was a lot of quiet shame woven

into the framework I grew up with.

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There was shame around doubt,

around desire, and especially sex.

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It wasn't always spoken about

outright, but you felt it.

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You could feel it in the way people

looked at you when you asked the

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wrong questions or wore the wrong

clothes or liked the wrong people.

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There was a fear-based kind

of goodness expected of us.

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Not goodness rooted in love

or understanding, but goodness

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driven by the fear of punishment.

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Be good or else.

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I was a curious kid and I asked a

lot of questions, but eventually

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I learned which ones not to ask.

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And I think many of us who grew up

in religious environments carried

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that fear that curiosity might cost

us belonging or worse, or soul.

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I chose to leave that behind, but the

shame is a tough one for many people.

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Then we have the binaries, the black

and white thinking that colored

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everything that endless either or.

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It's right or wrong.

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You're saved or damned.

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A believer or backslider.

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Everything and everyone

is either good or bad.

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You were either holy or you were lost.

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There was no room for the

messy middle in between.

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No space for uncertainty, for

nuance, no space for asking what

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if I'm still figuring it out?

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It was just a cliff edge and a push.

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You were either all in or all out.

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You were taught to choose.

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Even if that meant choosing

against parts of yourself.

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Like many, I learned early how

to split myself into acceptable

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fragments, to tuck away the parts

that were too loud, too curious,

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too different, to perform certainty

even when I was quietly unraveling.

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And the thing about binaries is they make

you afraid of gray, afraid of change,

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of holding two things as true at once.

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You start to see complexity as weakness.

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You believe that doubt is failure, that

if something doesn't fit completely,

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it has to be thrown away entirely.

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But life doesn't really work like that.

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People don't work like that.

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When I finally started stepping

away from those binaries, I

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didn't just lose a belief system.

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I had to relearn how to see the world,

how to hold tension without panicking,

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how to trust myself without needing

a label for every single thing.

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Honestly, letting go of black and

white thinking didn't make me confused.

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It really made me more whole.

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But that clarity comes with a cost because

once I started stepping outside of those

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lines, I saw just how much of myself

and others I'd been taught to silence.

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One of the hardest things

to unlearn was the idea that

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being loved meant being small.

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That acceptance was conditional and

being accepted meant being silent.

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You had to shrink to fit inside

the circle, and you had to

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flatten yourself just to be held.

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There was a mold, and if you didn't

fit it, the message was clear.

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You are the problem, you're the

deviation, you're the danger.

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And so for many people, especially

those that are queer or questioning

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or complicated in any way or just a

little other, that messaging cuts deep.

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The so-called love could sting

because it was love with an asterisk.

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Love that said, we accept you as

long as you don't act like yourself.

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And that's something that's

very real here in Jamaica.

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It's improving, but it's still a problem.

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I had to consciously step away

from frameworks that excluded

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people I love, from doctrines that

made certain bodies identities

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or relationships feel like a sin.

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They turned sacred love into something

shameful and continue to see the beautiful

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complexity that is humanity as a threat.

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And the thing is, it wasn't always loud.

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It wasn't always fire and brimstone.

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Sometimes that harm came

dressed in kindness.

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The exclusion was delivered with a smile,

a gentle tone, a verse and a prayer.

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But polite rejection is still rejection.

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And once I could name that, I could

begin to loosen the grip that those

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messages had on my thoughts, my

mindset, how I saw myself in the world.

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Because so much of what we had to

leave behind wasn't just doctrine.

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It was the damage those doctrines did

quietly, consistently over time, the

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way they shaped how we saw ourselves,

what we believed we deserved, what we

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even thought we had to endure to be

worthy of love or belonging or grace.

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And naming that can be uncomfortable.

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Especially when the harm was

wrapped in familiarity or in love.

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But we can't heal what we can't name.

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For some people it's fair to

call this religious trauma.

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It is not always dramatic or visible.

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It's not always headline grabbing.

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Sometimes it's just a slow erosion of

self-worth, that deep fear of being wrong,

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feeling a lifelong tension between who you

are and who you were told you should be.

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And when you start pulling

away from those teachings.

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It may not feel like

liberation right away.

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It can feel like grief, like exile,

like you're losing the language

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you used to make sense of yourself.

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For me, letting go did mean

wandering for a while without a map.

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I had to face the world without a

script and try to learn to trust

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my own compass again, but that's

the work, that's the journey.

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So if you're someone who's still in that

in-between space, still figuring out

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what you believe, still brushing off the

dust of doctrines that don't fit anymore.

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I just want to say, you're

not alone, you're not broken.

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So take a breath and ask yourself,

what did you have to leave behind?

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What beliefs no longer feel true, even

if once upon a time they felt sacred?

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What parts of your old

faith made you shrink?

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Not to rehash the pain, but just to

witness yourself and name what no

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longer belongs in your hands, because

that's when you can begin to rebuild

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something honest, something whole.

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Now, the easy story would be

I left and I'm better for it.

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And in many ways that's true.

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But the fuller story, the

more human one is messier.

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Because letting go of religion

doesn't always mean walking away

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from everyone who still believes or

from every tradition or every memory

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that still stirs something in you.

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There are people that I love who

still go to church every Sunday.

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Some of them are my family,

some of them are my friends.

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They're not villains in my story.

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They're part of it, and

sometimes that means biting my

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tongue or softening my edges.

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Sometimes it means showing up to a

service, not outta faith, but out of love.

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And that's okay because the reason

I left and haven't gone back

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wasn't to become someone harder.

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It was to become someone truer.

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But that tension is real.

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I've felt it at weddings and

funerals standing quietly during

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prayers that I no longer believe in.

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Not out of mockery, but out of

memory, out of respect for the

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moment, even if not the meaning.

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I've felt it when I remain at my seat

when the call for communion is made.

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Because I no longer believe in that

symbolism, but I remember the reverence.

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And honestly, I remember the taste.

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I've felt it during holidays when

the old rituals call up something

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inside me that's not quite belief,

but it isn't absence either.

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And over the years, I noticed

something interesting.

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It's possible to feel

both grief and relief.

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To remember the certainty while

still choosing the questioning.

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To honor the comfort that religion

once gave you, while also naming,

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the harm that it might have caused.

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Here's the part I wish

someone had told me earlier.

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You don't have to have it all figured

out to start living with intention.

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You don't need a label

for everything you feel.

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You're allowed to be unfinished.

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You don't have to resolve it all.

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: 00:25:19

You don't have to land in a neat category.

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: 00:25:21

You can be a work in progress,

a walking contradiction.

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: 00:25:25

You can be someone who bows their

head at grace and then sits quietly

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: 00:25:32

with their own quiet kind of truth.

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: 00:25:34

It's about choosing

integrity over performance.

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: 00:25:38

Alignment within yourself

over their approval.

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: 00:25:43

And sometimes it's choosing

healing over certainty.

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: 00:25:50

And once we start living that way,

not from fear, but from alignment,

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: 00:25:56

a new question starts to emerge.

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: 00:26:00

If we've stepped away from a faith that

once gave us structure, what holds us now?

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: 00:26:06

If we no longer live by a

divine plan, what do we live by?

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: 00:26:13

Because the truth is we didn't leave

meaning behind, but we're making it new.

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: 00:26:22

Religion gave many of us a script, a

sense that life had a built in purpose.

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: 00:26:27

Follow the rules, honor

God, obey the path.

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: 00:26:31

There is something comforting about

that until it doesn't fit anymore,

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: 00:26:36

until the path narrows and that script

starts to suffocate more than it guides.

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: 00:26:43

When I stepped away from that, there

was a time, maybe a long time where I

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: 00:26:51

felt like I was floating untethered,

like I'd cut the anchor and I

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: 00:26:56

didn't know what else to hold onto.

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: 00:26:59

Because it's not just walking away.

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: 00:27:01

You end up asking, what do I do now?

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: 00:27:05

How do I build a life that's not

defined by what I escaped, but

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: 00:27:10

by what I'm consciously creating?

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: 00:27:16

Over time, I started finding

different roots to hold on to.

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: 00:27:19

Humanist roots, even before

I knew what they were.

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: 00:27:24

Grounded, not in hierarchy,

but in a shared humanity.

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: 00:27:30

Not divine judgment, but mutual care.

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: 00:27:34

Bell hooks once wrote that love is

an action, never simply a feeling.

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: 00:27:41

And I've come to think of

humanism in the same way.

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: 00:27:44

It's not just about what I don't believe

and not even just an idea I believe in.

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: 00:27:51

It's about how I choose to live.

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: 00:27:53

It shows up in how I treat people,

what I protect, what I make

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: 00:27:58

space for, what I choose to love.

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: 00:28:02

So it's not just about rejecting

belief in Gods, it's about

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: 00:28:07

affirming belief in us, in humanity.

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: 00:28:14

It's about choosing to honor the sacred

in a world without a supernatural script

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: 00:28:21

where the sacred isn't handed down, it's

created through care and connection and

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: 00:28:27

responsibility through love as action.

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: 00:28:33

Now meaning looks different.

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: 00:28:35

It's not handed down.

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: 00:28:37

It's built layer by

layer through intention.

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: 00:28:41

And my purpose comes from within, from

the pull of curiosity, from the work

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: 00:28:47

that makes me feel useful from the

moments when I show up fully in my

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: 00:28:52

own life and in the lives of others.

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: 00:28:56

Relationships have become sacred, not

because somebody says so from the pulpit.

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: 00:29:02

But because love is a kind of

miracle and holding space for someone

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: 00:29:09

else's truth is downright holy work.

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: 00:29:15

Responsibility is my compass now.

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: 00:29:20

It's not fear of eternal consequences,

but caring about the real world ones.

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: 00:29:26

What I do matters because

it impacts others.

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: 00:29:30

Because this life, it's what I've got

and how I live, it ripples outwards.

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: 00:29:40

This is what I mean when I say no gods,

no guilt, just the work of being human.

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: 00:29:49

It's not perfect.

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: 00:29:50

It's not always certain.

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: 00:29:52

But it's real, deliberate and alive.

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: 00:29:55

And I want to leave you with

this thought that you don't

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: 00:29:58

have to borrow meaning anymore.

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: 00:30:01

You can build it.

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: 00:30:03

And maybe the best place to start

building is by pausing, by turning

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: 00:30:09

inward, asking the quiet questions

that help you see what's still shaping

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: 00:30:15

you and what you're ready to reshape.

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: 00:30:18

So let's take a breath.

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: 00:30:20

I want to leave you with

some space to reflect.

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: 00:30:24

No pressure, no performance.

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: 00:30:26

Just a quiet invitation to turn inward.

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: 00:30:31

Take a moment this week.

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: 00:30:33

Ask yourself, what parts of your

religious upbringing still live in you?

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: 00:30:40

Was it the music, the rituals, the

values, the voices, what still echoes?

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: 00:30:48

Which parts have you lovingly released?

381

: 00:30:52

Maybe it's the fear, the shame.

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: 00:30:55

What have you let fall away,

not with anger, but with grace?

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: 00:31:01

And maybe the hardest question,

if you're not there yet,

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: 00:31:05

but start to think about it.

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: 00:31:07

How do you want to define your

moral and spiritual compass now?

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: 00:31:13

Not the one you inherited,

but the one you're building.

387

: 00:31:17

If you're interested in taking it even

deeper, here's a journal exercise for you.

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: 00:31:23

Write a letter, a thank you and goodbye

letter to your childhood religion.

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: 00:31:30

Tell it what it gave you.

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: 00:31:31

Tell it what it took.

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: 00:31:33

Tell it what you are

reclaiming for yourself.

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: 00:31:38

You don't have to share it.

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: 00:31:39

You don't even have to read it again.

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: 00:31:41

Just write it for the sake of

clarity, for the sake of peace.

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: 00:31:47

If anything in this episode stirred

something in you, a memory, a question,

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: 00:31:51

a story of your own, I'd love to hear it.

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: 00:31:55

You can send me a voice note

or write in anonymously, email

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: 00:32:00

is hello@livegoodwalkgood.com

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: 00:32:04

or via any of our social channels.

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: 00:32:08

I may share a few reflections

in future episodes.

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: 00:32:12

Always with consent, so let me

know when you submit, if you're

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: 00:32:15

okay with it being shared.

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: 00:32:17

Because these aren't just

my stories, they're ours.

404

: 00:32:23

And maybe, in hearing some of

our stories, you've started

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: 00:32:27

remembering more of your own.

406

: 00:32:29

The detours, the doubts, the quiet shifts

that you couldn't name at the time.

407

: 00:32:35

And maybe you didn't walk a

straight line out of religion.

408

: 00:32:40

Maybe it was more like wandering

or wrestling, or slowly loosening

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: 00:32:45

your grip as you tried to let go.

410

: 00:32:48

And maybe there's still a part of you

holding tension between who you were

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: 00:32:54

taught to be and who you're becoming now.

412

: 00:32:57

And that's okay.

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: 00:32:58

You don't have to hate your

past to grow beyond it.

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: 00:33:02

You don't have to discard every single

memory to step into a new kind of meaning.

415

: 00:33:08

You can honor what was

while choosing what is.

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: 00:33:14

Next time, we'll go deeper into

what that choice looks like for me.

417

: 00:33:21

We'll look at what is humanism

anyway, and why is it more

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: 00:33:25

than just not believing in God?

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: 00:33:29

We'll talk about values, purpose,

and how to build a life rooted

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: 00:33:35

in compassion and clarity without

needing a supernatural framework.

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: 00:33:42

So you're welcome to join me

for that in our next episode.

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: 00:33:46

Until then...

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: 00:33:47

live good, walk good.