Responding to Someone Concerned About Your Faith Transition
Your religious conditioning taught you that it is everyone's responsibility to insert their opinions into your life, especially when they disagree with your choices. That isn't 'godly behavior' that's actually called poor interpersonal boundaries. And now that you've left, we can guarantee you that the temptation is to want to over-explain yourself in regards to your faith transition, especially when there is pushback to your choices.
You can let yourself off that old religious hook.
Remember that others WILL question your faith transition, and when they do, it will come from their concerns, not yours. And you can't fix their fears because they are based on THEIR beliefs. You are not responsible for taking care of their reactions towards you. That doesn't mean you can't have your own emotions over the fact that your faith transition WILL disrupt others. It simply means the reactions of others isn't yours to fix.
When you are ready to talk about your newly changed beliefs (and this comes with a big IF with some because not everyone can handle the brevity of this news), keep these things in mind:
- You can keep it short. You do not owe a lengthy explanation if you don't want to.
- You can create boundaries around what you're willing to share. You don't need to 'come clean' with all of your choices (especially to your parents if you are an adult).
- You will find that different people will require different things you can discuss. Not everyone will be able to full truth.
- You're not being inauthentic for not disclosing everything. You are actually allowed to keep some things private!
You might also want to read this about creating boundaries. And above all, make sure that you have support surrounding you with people who CAN listen to you and accept you where you are at!
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