When we grow up within a faith tradition, it’s typical to have a parent/child type relationship with faith institutions. Traditions inform us of how we should live and what role we should play in society. They equip us with a sort of map showing what is right and wrong and true and false about the universe, the divine, and ourselves, and it can feel like we must accept all this to belong in our family and community.
As we become adults, we often start to experience discord one way or another between our developing spiritual compasses and the guidance of our faith traditions. There are generational and other gaps between us and religious leaders and texts to grapple with. We may come to question or reject certain expectations and underlying assumptions. We may have spiritual experiences that challenge spiritual and religious concepts we were taught to uphold.
These kinds of experiences are a form of differentiation, which is a healthy part of adult development. At first it might be threatening and confusing, perhaps esp. in religious contexts dealing with matters we've been taught to hold sacred. It can be helpful to recognize what differentiation is and to use it intentionally when needed. Differentiation includes giving ourselves permission to identify and uphold our own sincere opinions, moral convictions, doubts and questions, identities, spiritual experiences and strong feelings that are distinct from others’ without giving way to pressures to conform. Differentiation can help us cultivate inner peace and self-knowledge. Rather than a parent/child type structure, it seeks adult peer-to-peer relationships. We empower ourselves to edit and add to our personal spiritual maps. Faith communities don't always seem to make room for nuance, relative truth, and more complex beliefs, but we can find ways to carve out much of the space we need for ourselves. This may include setting boundaries about what and who we listen to, what we share with others, and also finding our own “villages” of like-minded people within our faith communities.
Another thing about differentiation in faith contexts is that it holds space for mystery, questions, recognizing human errors and biases, and in-between stances. It can be exciting to realize that things are more open and uncertain for you than they were before, and often our beliefs change in ways that liberate us to love ourselves more and to feel greater divine love and acceptance.
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