My Journey to Spiritual Integrity

As far as my spiritual journey background goes, I have always been a highly sensitive and contemplative person since childhood. My earliest memories of connecting with God and Spirit were around 4 years old. However, being raised in a very Catholic family, much of my relationship with the Divine was channeled into organized religion. I was told “how” to be with God. Even though it never felt completely right in my heart, being told how to pray, having to tell a priest your “sins,” etc., it was all that I knew. It was also a very important centerpiece of identity in my mother’s family, who played an important role in my early life.

I even attended a Catholic school from grades 5-8, which I loved! I enjoyed the small class sizes, and I had great teachers (with some exception) and friends. I also really loved being able to be apart of the school’s Mass ceremony (the Catholic sacramental ceremony) that would be held in the school gym. I also loved when we got released from classes to walk to the large, beautiful church building down the street for special occasion services. I loved the traditions and rituals. They grounded me in something bigger than myself. Ash Wednesday and the stations of the cross around Easter, the re-enactment of the Nativity, Advent wreaths, and candlelit mass at Christmas time – just to name a few. I loved that my whole extended family would dress up (Grandma would get me a new dress!) for the big holiday mass and then we would all gather for dinner after. It was Aunts and Uncles, cousins and grandparents, and tradition. But was it really ME?

At the age of 14 I began my Holy Confirmation, a Catholic sacrament, which was a turning point in my Catholic faith. I found myself sitting in confirmation class trying to engage conversation and discussion around the topic being presented by the Priest. It was through his reaction that I realized my desire to APPLY scripture and learn FOR MYSELF what the stories were telling us was not being well received. I told my mother that night that I was leaving the Church. She, after my parent’s divorce, had some unpleasant run-ins with the Church leadership over being a divorced woman. So, although it disappointed her, she didn’t put up a fight.

For the next several years, I dabbled in general spiritualism through books like Talking to Heaven by James Van Praagh which had a huge impact on me, and Eastern traditions like Buddhism and Hinduism. However, one little conversation when I was 17 lit a fire within me to have a more solid understanding of my beliefs. While visiting Georgia with some friends of the family, their “Gran,” a stout Southern Baptist, looked at me through squinted eyes, hands on her hips and said, “Girl. You don’t KNOW Jesus.” I was highly offended because I felt like God/Jesus and I had a very fine relationship thank you very much. But my inability to put WORDS to my beliefs or my KNOWING felt very unsettling. Bless my heart, I was MAD!

This led me to a run in with some Mormon missionaries. One of my best friends was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Her family was hosting the missionaries for dinner one night when I stopped by to get her to go out to a drinking party (obviously she wasn’t practicing! Sorry to her parents if they read this lol). When I came in, there were two dapper young men IN SUITS! You guys, this was 2001, one step out of the grunge era. HELLO! (I still love me a man in a well fitted suit, not going to lie). Her parents jumped on my curiosity like white on rice and invited me to learn more.  Since I was eagerly learning all that I could about different faiths and religions, I agreed. Plus, cute boys in suits! Win-win!

It wasn’t long before I was fully pulled into the very beautiful aspects of Mormonism that I still appreciate. They encouraged a very personal relationship with God, loosely structured prayer (compared to Catholicism at least), more end-of-life options than Heaven/Hell, professed to believe in personal revelation, had amazing community and family values, encouraged reading and wrestling with the scriptures – which included but was not limited to the Bible. They taught me that their leader or Prophet “spoke with God” and lead the church by “modern revelation.” Since I was still looking for someone outside myself to tell me about God, I jumped in with all my heart and soul. I felt like this Church had the answers. Plus they actually TELL you they have the answers. They willingly told me how to be to be loved and connected with God – by being a righteous, obedient Latter-day Saint.

My open heart and enthusiasm landed me quickly in the lay ministry, even at the young age of 18. For the next 19 years I held various leadership positions. Weekly I led and taught children, teens, and adults. I prepared and presented lessons and talks, I organized large (over 200 people) events, children’s programs, and teen camps. I was once over the entire children’s program which had over 70 children and over 18 teachers which all needed scheduling and coordinating (two hours each Sunday plus weekday activities). I testified, I taught, I sang, I lived and breathed my religion. I said yes to anything that was asked of me (for this was ALL unpaid labor). I dedicated myself to God and the “Mormon Path.” I got married by the age of 20 and had 4 children by the age of 29. I did everything in my power to “choose the right,” teach my children, and do my part to build the Kingdom of God.  

In 2017 having just moved to China with my then husband and children, I was asked to hold the position of Relief Society President, the women’s arm of the top leadership in a local congregation.  It was the highest position that could be held by a woman in the local church. The funny thing is, by this time, I had been beginning to see holes in my “Perfect and True” religion. These hang-ups were termed by leadership as “shelf issues.” We were told to put our concerns on a shelf, turn them over to God, stay obedient, and keep the faith.

As I went forwarding leading the woman and being guided by Spirit, the heavier my shelf got. Specifically, I began to see more and more clearly the sexism and (what I now know is) benevolent patriarchy that festered in the faith. I began to see the weight on the shoulders of my sisters and myself. I began to see how we were cast into the shadow, while being asked to carry so much of the responsibility within the church and our homes. I began I hear messages from the highest authorities and knew in my heart they were not only wrong, but damaging to those who would hear and follow blindly. I began to realize that I didn’t really have Choice as I was being told that I did… The Church dictated what I wore, what I watched, where I should be prioritizing my time and attention, how much we had to give in donations (10% of our GROSS income), what I could and couldn’t eat, what family roles I should assume, how to be the “right” kind of parent – all these things IF I wanted to be a member in good standing with a temple recommend and the ability to hold the positions I was holding. I mean, I had a choice… But not really. Later, I came to realize this is called: Bounded Choice. I sensed it, but I was too deep to SEE it.

It was like an itch under my skin I couldn’t quite scratch. I began to act. I was going to be the change from within. With the help of some very amazing counselors with me as Relief Society President, we began to create what I now call – safe space. It became our goal for women to be able to come to Relief Society and be able to be raw, vulnerable, and honest about where they were and how life was REALLY going for them. In Mormonism there is an underlying current of perfectionism and hiding your flaws – because God blesses the obedient (so what’s the opposite of that message?).

I began to speak up. After being un-invited to a regional leadership training meeting because a higher-up was attending (women were not permitted to attend, but our local leaders in China didn’t follow that rule generally), I had a long and heated discussion with our (male) regional leader. He was/is a wonderful man who heard my frustration and met it with compassion and understanding. However, his hands were tied (I’d like to add that the rule was changed the following year. I feel I was one voice of many).

I was morphing as a person. I was beginning to learn to get out of the way. I was learning that the less I prepared to teach, and the more I lead by example and Flow, the more amazing our discussions were in class. If we put energy into fostering the sisterhood outside of church by holding social events, it blossomed and sustained itself. When we sought to understand those outside ourselves and our faith by activities like - inviting a local Rabbi to teach us about Passover, or donating the rest of our yearly budget to buying and wrapping gifts for an orphanage instead of gifts for each other, the energy grew. I began to realize we don’t really “know” anything, but rather we “hope.” Something was moving within me, I just didn’t know what yet.

And then… and then…

I began to question more. I began to read information outside of “approved” channels and then compare it to the “approved” channels. I was shocked to begin to uncover that much was being hidden, even in plain sight. Much was being manipulated and all of a sudden, this organization I had devoted much of my life and personal self to, was not what it claimed to be. This was happening when a truth about my marriage rose to the surface like a haunted, sunken pirate ship with a plague flag flying high… After a massive Kundalini Awakening struck me like lightning and ruptured my whole being into an energetic awakening that was both beautiful beyond measure AND equally painful. Without realizing it, I had become so in-authentic, so far from who I really was, life became ACTUALLY painful. Many days I could do nothing but lay in bed with a feeling of ecstasy energy that pulsed through my body… while simultaneously feeling absolute mental anguish and sorrow at what I knew I needed to do to live again… Which was destroy everything I had built. My actions would hurt the ones I loved and swore to protect. I realized my whole marriage, my identity, and my faith was suddenly a glass castle I had built to protect myself. Instead, I lost myself inside of it. And I watched it began to crack… and fall…

The Temple in Mormonism is a sacred place. I always enjoyed going there. Since I hold respect for my friends who are still active members, I won’t share much about the temple. However, I will say that at one point there is a re-enactment of the Gensis story of Adam and Eve. All of a sudden, I FELT the story… I cried a gut-hollowing cry as I sat in the Endowment room. I understood the choice Eve had to make. She was living in “perfection.” Everything was so perfect… but there was no growth. There was no joy because there was no sorrow. There was no passion because there was no pain… They simply existed… If she wanted to LIVE, she had to DIE. She had to choose the path that took her away from what felt safe and certain, not just for herself to grow to become like God, knowing good and evil, but for all mankind to be… She had to fly in the face of even her GOD in order to do what she knew she HAD to do…

Come with me or don’t, but I’m done living in the garden…

Fast forward a year later December 2019… I lay on my bedroom floor, contemplating death. It was like being shown how good I could feel… While being in a place where I saw no way to achieve actually living it. It was like being in the bottom of a dark, damp well… I struggled to even see any light. I felt like I had no identity outside of wife, mother, Mormon. I felt like I had no skills or talents. I had no self-worth and very little hope. As I lay there, willing my Life Light to extinguish, I heard something tell me – “Hold on just a little longer. Your mother and your grandmother have this all under control.” It was just enough to come back to the present moment and will myself to keep going.

Then Covid hit China where we were still living… We went into lock-down and homeschool and masks and chaos and food shortage and what-the-heck-is-happening!! My issues had to be put aside to handle the tasks at hand. Then, on March 10, 2020 my life changed forever. I woke up to an email that my mother had passed away of a massive heart attack (read more on that story here). I immediately bought a plane ticket home, with a return date of two weeks (the required time to be away to return to China through Hong Kong), kissed and hugged my four babies ages 7, 9, 11, and 13, and walked out the door with nothing but a carry-on and no idea that it would be two and a half years until I’d see them again…

I’m not going to get into the depths of what happened in this story, (you can read more here) but finding myself alone in my mother’s house for a year and a half (until my eldest daughter joined me in July 2021) during a time of social isolation and utter destruction of my marriage, my faith, my finances, my entire identity… I had to go back to my 17 year old self and grow her back up. I had to figure out where I self-abandoned and why. I had to heal so much in order to become who I was meant to become. I must have listened to Glennon Doyle’s book Untamed at least 4 times during those first couple of months, crying through it each time while I remodeled the house. I felt like I had a weight of grief just hanging over me. Like I myself had a gravitational pull. Every day I just kept going…

While picking up the pieces of my abandoned self, I went through a grief and anger phase against “God.” I yearned, as I always had, for Spirit to be with me and guide me– and had unbelievable spiritual experiences during this time… (again that’s its own chapter!) But Man’s God had wounded me. That wound took time to mend. In the meantime, I dove into spiritualism and psychospiritual books, podcasts, and videos. I listened and learned. I attuned and learned. I journaled and learned. I cried and learned. I walked and learned. I ran and learned. I did tai chi and learned.

I learned to chant and mediated which blew my mind open… Eckhart Tolle may have spent his Awakening on a park bench, but gratefully I had house. I never was very good at rough-it camping!

This space, mostly away from people, with actually NOTHING else to do but heal, learn, practice, grieve, bask in existing, talk with Spirit, and take care of myself was excruciatingly painful… and a precious gift. It had an incredible cost… And yet… I honestly cannot see how else I would have been able to become who I am without it. I feel like I did at least a decade of inner work in two years. The more I was willing to open and expand my mind, the more the Universe would give me. If I could take the pain of what happened away from my children, I absolutely would. But I cannot. I can only love them in a better way NOW then I ever could THEN.

Where did I end up “finding God?” Within myself. It turns out the Divine is within… and always was. The Divine is me, is you, is in the plants and animals and the dirt and the rocks, is the Earth, is the Universe… God is creation, energy vibration, and love, and peace. God is self-acceptance, self-actualization. God is the true essence of “filling the measure of your creation.” YOU ARE CREATION. You create relationships, you create art, you create joy - and even our own suffering! But there is growth there too. Mostly, to me, “finding God” is a personal process of radical honesty. There is no “right way.” We ultimately know NOTHING for certain. This quote is attributed to Aristotle:

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."

This is where we find peace. When we stop needing to convince others to see life in the same way we do -AND- we strive to understand our personal truth, and extend compassion and belief to other’s that their personal truth may be different than our own. In this space we “find God.” Because if we are willing to SEE other’s for who they are, not who we wish they were or want them to be, and love them in that space, THAT my friends is LOVE.

I am still learning. I am still growing. We never stop. I can say the words: God, prayer, and blessing now without anger or resentment. I have a desire to create and be a part of an inclusive Spiritual Community because I feel like we need each other. We each have our own unique path, but we weren’t mean to stand alone.

What I learned in time where there was no Time, space away from life, was that everything is love. Everything.

I’ve learned so much on my journey to Spiritual Integrity. I am actually considering going back to school to get my Master’s degree in Interfaith/Interspiritual Divinity… I enjoy being in this work so much, I feel it calling me deep within. So we shall see what is to come.

At the end of the day, the path you take is the perfect path for you. Trust yourself. Love yourself. Forgive yourself and others. And don’t forget to meditate…

And so it is…

All My Love,

REH