Religion Has Scarred This Soul — Love Your Beauty Scars Part 5

Blind faith is dangerous

The following account is told by Beth Ostrander. She digs deep and reveals how religion has suppressed parts of her being to this very day.

My beauty scar is very deep. It’s at the soul level. And like a person who has their leg amputated, I too have limitations. Mine show up in the form of these words and the sensation of being frozen out of fear. Or these words that are: I can’t, I shouldn’t, this is too much.

I am compelled to edit my words and find safer words. Even as I was writing my first drafts, of what my beauty scar is, I wrote a LOT of words. But this is not complicated. My beauty scar is ugly. It is self hatred, it is self-judgement, it is judgement. It is shame. It is the ugly side of religion that has caused this. I keep wanting to edit so I don’t hurt others, but this time I don’t want to edit so I get to the point quickly.

There is an ugly side to religion and it has caused me a wound.

It has kept me silent. It has kept me unhappy. It has shut down my sexual desires. It has shut down my awareness of what makes me happy. It caused me to be depressed because I listened to the judgement and I heard that I am evil, I am bad, I am wrong, my desires are wrong.

So my scar goes deep. My scar has layers. I let you see a tiny bit of my scar, but to let you see to the depths of my scar and how it still affects me…that I DO NOT like to do. It scares me, quite frankly.

Because I awoke. I woke up to my amazingness.

I could see that I was no longer shit; I was amazing. And I did that four years ago. But there is still scar tissue that grips me sometimes. Sometimes it hits in the middle of a moment in the day. It feels of dread and fear and self-doubt that is so extreme, I will give up on every passion and every desire that was crisp and clear just the day or moment before. And I know not everyone has this.

I know everyone worries and has self-doubts and wonders, but this degree of I am willing to shut it all down because of how wrong and how incapable I am. This…this particular depth of that belief, I think, is a special result of the dark side of religion. Because I am CERTAINLY not alone in it. And I see it as a common scar of those who have been affected by religion. That we suppress our sexual desires, that we suppress our actual passions in the world. Because we are afraid we are wrong.

When in fact it is our very beauty, our very gift to the world that we are diminishing. It’s ironic. I think it is the final lie. If we speak in Christian terms, it is the final lie of the serpent and of Satan that sex is wrong and bad, our desires are wrong and bad. Because, in fact, when we suppress these areas of our lives, when I suppress these areas of my life, we are not our beautiful in the world, I am not my beautiful in the world.

And it’s this ironic thing that the very people affected by religion actually desire to contribute and be something for others. And they are so fooled, I have been so fooled.

I continue to show the affects of this scar tissue. It’s easy to fool myself in a moment to stop being my beauty, to stop being my gift to the world. Because I am afraid I can’t, I shouldn’t, I am bad, and I get overwhelmed.

I have a phantom belief system which I don’t actually agree with. But this belief still holds tremendous weight if I don’t catch myself in the moment. The weight of that former truth can still be heavy.

And yes, it is a beauty scar because every, every, every time I can see beyond that phantom reaction, my beauty shines. People are impacted; they say it again and again. They couldn’t say it enough for me to actually believe, but they are impacted by the beauty that I am as an individual.

And my scar tissue keeps me very, very authentic and connected to the pain which I know is what makes me so relatable to others.

When I allow my beauty to shine, the combination of my authenticity and my sincerity and my connection to the pain, AND the gift when I let it be unleashed, the gift that I actually share with people, that combo is the result of me, Beth Ostrander, and my beauty, and my beauty scar.

So, I am grateful. And I am more grateful for this opportunity to share because it has not been easy to write this. In fact, I had to say it out loud first, in the dark, on a video camera, in the dark, because I am crying as I am saying it. Because it is painful yet. Because I feel alone in it. It feels still dark. And yet, speaking it again, alone in the dark, right now, has me feel very, very humbled and powerful. I am grateful for my beauty scar.

My novel BEAUTY SCARS is OUT NOW. Get your copy right here or visit kerncarter.com