Transitioning from Religious to spiritual

First off, I was sick this last weekend.  I am feeling better and catching up with my work.

I believe most of us take 'the long way around' on our spiritual journey.  My journey has been no different.  Religion became everything to me from a very early age.  Let me define 'everything':  My emotional outlet, my fun, my friends, my guilt, my shame, my beliefs, my hope, my future, and my food: my world.  This reality is still unclear to me, so let me explain further.  

I don't know what my parents did with the money my father made, but it didn't trickle down to us.  I started working at 15 so I could have clothes, enough food, and fun.  Before 15, we children, literally received the scraps in the 'everything' category listed above.  Church became an alternate source of all these things, and thereby Religion as well.  I was at church every time the doors were open, my parents insisted, but I would have insisted if they didn't, because it was where all my needs were met.

Religion became 'everything' to me, and church was the source of this Religion.  Effectively, the church became my parents in many regards.  I was hungry for knowledge, for growth, for love, and for food.  Church isn't every day, so I found myself becoming two different people, Aaron, the pious (righteous), and Aaron, the normal (bad).  So, in affect I was the epitome of incongruence.  Aaron, the pious, was acceptable everywhere he went, Aaron, the normal, was sinful and guilty every time he appeared.  I couldn't grasp the differences at that age, so I shunned the normal side of myself, and shone the pious part.

Fast forward from 15 to 30 years of age.  I was going through my first divorce, the church, shunned both sides of me, and the Religion I believed in with all of myself made no exceptions for me.  This intense deep pain, this rejection finally allowed me to see these two parts of myself, and they became allies.  When all of me became unacceptable then I awoke to find that all of me was good, and the religion and the church was unacceptable.  I began to accept all parts of myself.  This was the first time in my life that I loved myself completely.  I literally, fell in love with myself.  I gave myself grace for my mistakes, gave myself understanding for my sex drive, gave myself 'everything' that I thought I needed from everyone else.  While, this one moment was somewhat culminating, it was also only the beginning of a spiritual journey to discover myself.  

I can recognize that there were many boons i received from this attachment to Religion and Church.  I studied the Bible fervently, down the languages and contexts of the passages.  The principles behind the words on the page have stuck with me.  Understanding King James English has helped me in my understanding of today's English language, so I have fun with it, my latest discovery is the word meteorology:  the study of meteors!  I have a clear sensitivity to manipulation in words people use, mostly on themselves, but sometimes people try to manipulate me, and I take a step back, recognize the 'dirty fighting tactic' and walk on.

Once I started loving myself, I was forever changed.  Imagine a world where discovery and curiosity are the driving forces.  Imagine a world where all the parts of oneself are working together, instead of fighting amongst themselves.  While it sounds perfect, there are good days and bad days.  The rain still falls, the sun still shines, and I still make what I used to call 'mistakes', now I call them discoveries!