How I’m Using my Spirituality to De-Objectify

Mollyanne Ritter
Aug 28, 2017 · 2 min read

I am not a fan of religion. Aside from having many personal beefs with it due to my missionary upbringing, it’s crusade against critical thinking, progress, personal responsibility, and all the things that make people feel awesome are also decidedly distasteful to me.

https://media.tenor.com/images/269fa7c6066740833f4aed7535ffa8df/tenor.gif
https://media.tenor.com/images/269fa7c6066740833f4aed7535ffa8df/tenor.gif

So, when I was trying to use the 12-steps of recovery specifically for my self-objectification habit, I struggled a little bit with steps 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, and 11, each one prominently featuring a relationship with God.

http://mediaresources.idiva.com/media/content/2017/Jul/tumblr_nibagbphib1qdm7rno4_r1_400.gif
http://mediaresources.idiva.com/media/content/2017/Jul/tumblr_nibagbphib1qdm7rno4_r1_400.gif

After many years, though, I have learned to distinguish between religion and spirituality and come to appreciate the importance of the latter. Rather than focusing on how kick-ass my higher power is and surrendering to its help — which is just reinforcing the idea that validation and salvation comes, not from within, but from external sources — I prefer to emphasize my own divinity through my connection with that higher power.

This is an important distinction. During all my years in the church, I spent more than my fair share of time submitting to and humbling myself before God (and all the other men in my life, of course). What there wasn’t ever enough of, in my experience, was a celebration of my own divine nature, and an acknowledgement of my inherent value therein.

http://thenerdybird.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/XenaBitLipConsider.gif
http://thenerdybird.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/XenaBitLipConsider.gif

I can only speak for myself, and obviously this journey will look different for everyone, but I suspect that establishing our subjecthood in a world that would keep us as objects will require this shift of spiritual understanding. I don’t exist for the pleasure, comfort, or consumption of others. I am an eternal child of the universe and as such, I have as much worth, purpose, and right to be here as anyone else.

Unobjectified

Recovering from patriarchy and objectification culture

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