Today I am enjoying an amazing Saturday in Chicago. I am here for my Art Of Communication seminar and while I am busy with the guys, I asked Dan to write up a really tough blog today. So give your Dan your eyes and I will be online later checking out all the comments!

This is a tough post for me to write because I’m not even sure how I feel about it. I’m going to be writing about religion. Plus I know when David asked me to write this I was taken back. I know he is not a religious person at all and knew that this topic could really stir some things up.

So here is my story about how religion has affected me in dating and thanks David for letting me share something very personal with the readers.

I’m a cradle Catholic. That means I was born a Catholic. I’ve gone to church every Sunday, with a few exceptions, since I was 4. I’m 27 now. I recently stopped going to church. I still believe in God. My experience with religion was mixed. I have felt my best and my worst with it.

There are times, when everything is dark and it looks like the world is just going to fall apart right on top of you… and you feel like you’re completely broken and you can’t take a step farther… and then, after all the yelling and screaming and crying there’s just silence… and you can hear God whisper to you “DO NOT BE AFRAID”. Yeah, whispering in all caps. And you know everything is going to be fine because you’re connected with that Higher Power. It’s these times when I know there is a God, that there is such a thing as a soul and that we’re all here, in this life together.

However, there were and still are times when religion has made me feel completely worthless. I learned all the rules for my particular religion and did my best to follow them. I mean, my God got nailed to a tree because I didn’t follow the rules… He died for my sins. My PERSONAL sins. When I saw that pretty girl walking down the school hall when I was 14 and had a lustful thought I was nailing Jesus to the cross. And what was I going to do? Not have lustful thoughts at 14? 16? 18? 24? 26? I can’t stop the chemicals that God made me with from mixing in a certain way and giving me a biological impulse to procreate with the female of my species. I did my best to suppress my sexuality. I knew that it would be MY sin of choice. That if I was going to Hell, it would be because of my sexuality.

I was also told to go forth and multiply and to choose a date that would make a good mate. Do you know how hard it is to figure out if a person will be a good mate for life (we don’t divorce) after meeting them once or twice? Do you know how hard it is to attract a woman when you’re terrified of arousing sexual desire in her because it’s a sin for you and for her? Yet I still wanted to be with a woman.

I felt like I had this darkness inside of me… a Dark Passenger. I was constantly aware of it and all I could do to stop it was shame and guilt myself into submission. It made me so angry with myself and the world. I remember wanting someone to just flick the switch on the universe and turn everything off. The worst was being at church. I’d look around and see all these happy people… young unmarried couples. They seemed so happy!! How could they be so happy?? They had the EXACT same pressures on me to be “a good and humble servant” and they were happy about it! And I KNEW that they were all having sex. I wasn’t. I was saving myself and was MISERABLE while these people who weren’t following the rules nearly as strictly as me were happy. Finally I broke. I hated myself because I couldn’t be what the church wanted me to be. So I gave myself a month to live without the church.

I felt horrible that first week. I was going straight to Hell. After that week I felt free. I still talked to God… but I got to actually be me and talk to God as myself. I felt so much more confident in my life and my anger disappeared. I felt love flow through me for everyone. Without religion, I was free and I still had my connection to God. Everything flowed better and I was able to love more freely. I started loving life.

I don’t know if this applies to anyone else but me. I just know that I’m a better, more loving person now that I’m outside of an organized church.