In the 2023 song “God must hate me,” Catie Turner writes:
“Do you ever see someone and think ‘Wow, God must hate me’
‘Cause He spent so much time on them and for me, He got lazy
Got ample mental illness personality flaws
While their only flaw seems to be is that they have none at all…
I don’t know what I believe
But it’s easier to think
He made a mistake with me.”
Have you ever felt anything like this? Although religion and spirituality can be helpful to people, they also can be sources of stress or even trauma. These lyrics demonstrate the emotional power of what psychologists often term “religious and spiritual struggles.”
What is a Religious or Spiritual Struggle?
A religious or spiritual struggle involves a tension or conflict an individual may experience in relation to what they consider sacred. For instance, like in the song lyrics above, a person may feel angry, disappointed, abandoned, or rejected by God. Someone may wrestle with their beliefs or the ultimate meaning of their lives. An individual also may be upset by interactions they’ve had with others within religious or spiritual communities or feel hurt or offended by the teachings of a faith.
The Effects of Struggling with Religion and Spirituality
Research conducted across a variety of contexts and groups consistently reveals how religious and spiritual struggles predict poorer mental and physical health. For instance, individuals who report more religious and spiritual struggles also tend to report more anxiety, depression, and suicidality as well as lower satisfaction with life and overall happiness.
Experiencing religious and spiritual struggles may also underlie why many people disengage from a religion, an increasingly common occurrence. For example, people may withdraw from a religion when they feel negative emotions toward God, such as in the lyrics that opened this article. As another example, individuals may pull back from religion if they experience judgment from others or disagreement about political issues in their religious community as well as when they feel dissonance about belonging to a group they feel has perpetrated prejudice or violence.
Given all this, what could help people wrestling with stress and trauma associated with religion and spirituality? Below are six suggestions informed by the research on this topic.
6 Ways of Coping with Religious and Spiritual Struggles
1. Realize you’re not alone. Experiencing religious and spiritual struggles appears fairly common. In one study, for example, when a national sample of adults were asked to name a specific religious or spiritual struggle they experienced in the past few months, about 40% could do so. Furthermore, many of the heroes of religious faith – from Job to Jesus to Mother Teresa, in the Judeo-Christian faith, for instance – also struggled with matters of the sacred. Realizing this may help decrease the sense of guilt, shame, or moral unacceptability you may feel.
2. Interrogate your experience. Can you pinpoint the sources or causes of your struggle? Is it possible to think about this in a more optimistic way? For example, is God really the cause of the stress and trauma in your life? Does your distress necessarily reveal that God is cruel and against you? Could it be, instead, that God loves you, that God is with you, and that other factors may be responsible for causing your pain? A deeper dive into theologies of suffering may help you grow religiously and spiritually through this struggle.
3. Reframe struggle as a sign of strength. If you’re experiencing a religious or spiritual struggle, you probably think hard about what’s true and meaningful about much of life, and that’s a good thing. You care enough to seriously wrestle with your beliefs and values. This trait comes with many benefits as well.
4. Recognize this may be temporary. Like other kinds of struggles, religious and spiritual struggles may pass. And, like other kinds of struggles, they don’t need to be resolved right away. Take care of yourself and give this some time to see how you feel later. Give yourself the opportunity to gain more experience and perspective and you may find a peaceful resolution awaits.
5. Seek support from someone you trust. Avoiding or minimizing your struggles isn’t going to help. Find someone who can empathize, accept you as you are, and help you through this time without making you feel guilty or ashamed. Professional help is an option for working through these struggles as well.
6. Accept mystery and irresolution. Much of what people struggle with religiously and spiritually is unknowable. And, as much as we might like resolution of our problems, sometimes that’s not possible. As the writer Anne Lamott says, “the opposite of faith isn’t doubt; it’s certainty.”
The Quest for a Good Life 