ESN: Religion and Emotions

Caroline Winzenried

by Leslie Allan

Eleven of us met for our last Ex-Religious Support Network casual meeting on 5th March. On Zoom, we had a good mix of locals from Australia and some international members.

Members brought up the challenges with dealing with family members remaining in the religion and the difficulties in balancing one's integrity with wanting to maintain a healthy family relationship. We explored at length the tension between being angry at one's parents for restricting one's freedom and indoctrinating one into the faith on the one hand and recognizing that one's parents were themselves the unknowing participants in indoctrination.

Is this tension resolvable? Or perhaps one ought to acknowledge the tension and resolve to sit with it. This led to an allied discussion on forgiveness. Should we forgive our parents for indoctrinating us into religious nonsense? Or is it permissible in some circumstances to withhold forgiveness and even to break the relationship? What might those circumstances be?

These complex personal questions touched very deeply the insights Caroline Winzenried shared with us in her previous two talks on religion and emotions. Considering how religions teach us by and large to suppress emotions and to forgive unconditionally, these teachings lead to the tensions that our members experience as they struggle to leave their indoctrination and harmful beliefs and attitudes behind.

I hope you can join us for Caroline Winzenried's final talk in her series on religion and emotions on Wednesday 10 April at 6:30pm AEDT.

In this third and final presentation, professional counsellor, Caroline Winzenried, will take us on a journey of healing from spiritual bypassing and making space for our emotions. We'll look at how to respond—rather than react—to our emotions by harnessing the power of curiosity, listening to the information our emotions provide with compassion, and putting that information into context.