Embracing the Metaphysical Without Abandoning Your Religious Roots {Ep 226}

Your spiritual world starts expanding and suddenly you feel it. That quiet pull between who you were taught to be and who you’re becoming. I’m sharing something personal today, because I know how complicated it can feel to explore metaphysical spirituality, intuition, and psychic gifts while your family and your history are rooted in religion. Sometimes the hardest part isn’t the new practices, it’s the guilt, the loyalty, and the fear of being misunderstood by the people you love. 

I get into why shame often has more to do with belonging than belief, and why growth doesn’t automatically mean rejection. I talk about how different people in the same family can experience the same religion in totally different ways, and why that matters when you’re trying to make sense of your own spiritual awakening. We also explore how spiritual expansion can be integration, not rebellion, especially when your upbringing gave you real comfort, structure, and a sense of God. 

I share practical ways to stay steady during the transition. Grounding, moving slowly, and using the body as your compass for discernment. We talk prayer and intention, faith and manifestation, intuition and discernment, and how the language may change while the essence stays familiar. If you’ve ever kept parts of your practice private, or worried about community backlash, you’ll feel seen here. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs it, and leave a review so more people can find the conversation.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi everyone, welcome to this episode of Tuesday Talks with Darlene. Before I get started, please like, share, subscribe, and comment as it helps my message reach a wider audience. Now this episode is a personal one for me, and I wanted to actually really talk about this. And I've been wanting to talk about this for a while. I think it was courage that I probably didn't have as much of. Now I'm actually ready. I want to talk about embracing the metaphysical, the spiritual, your psychic gifts without abandoning your religious roots. And this is going to be big for some people. It

Why This Topic Feels Personal

SPEAKER_00 0:44

was big for me, like it was really big. I when I first started into the spiritual metaphysical developing my gifts, I hid so much of it. I never said anything because my beautiful family is still religious. Now I love them dearly. They don't need to know what I do though. They don't need to know anything. If they follow my page, which um a couple of them actually do, I'm not worried because I am being me. And I want you to realize there is actually a quiet tension that can actually come up when your spiritual life begins to expand beyond what you were taught. Now, I love religion. I have been told by people that the religion I was in was kind of like a cult. I never felt like that. Talking to my elder sister, she felt a bit more like it was a bit more like that. For me, I had a different experience, and that is something else that I want to bring up as well. No matter how many people you had in the family, they're all going to have different experiences of the religion, and that's okay. It is perfectly okay. You you're growing up at different times. My I've got two older sisters, one three years, one nine years, I think it is eight, nine years, I can't remember. It's one of those

The Guilt And Loyalty Trap

SPEAKER_00 2:04

ages. And so we grew up in different times, and that's why my experience is different. Now, when you start exploring your intuition or energy or synchronicity, manifestation, maybe even ancestral healing, then these ideas about consciousness, they weren't actually part of your upbringing. And I know that for a fact, they were not part of my upbringing. Alongside this curiosity, there can be something else like there can be guilt, there can be shame, there can be a subtle feeling that you're actually drifting too far the other way. When you grow up in a religion and especially a tradition with clear boundaries, like really clear boundaries around all this, exploring the metaphysical, spiritual, psychic gifts can actually feel like a betrayal. For me, thankfully, it didn't feel like that. I did have um maybe not even shame, but I did hide for a very long time what I was doing, what I was actually learning. I was learning tarot cards, I was learning healing, I was learning all of it, absolutely every single thing. I hid it though. I didn't want my family to know. And that's why today I want to talk about how to expand your spirituality, whatever it is for you, without feeling like you're actually abandoning where you've come from. As I said, this is going to be big. And the guilt that you may feel is often about loyalty. When you're raised in a religion, it becomes part of your identity and often part of your family structure. Now you'll see that a lot with families. You know, they and I'm not going to mention religions, but I will mention Catholic because we all know that. It is a big family structure where they go to church every single Sunday. You know, they say a prayer before meals, etc. And when you start expanding your spirituality, it can feel like disloyalty, even if no one says it directly. Now, my sister did say something um, you know, quite a few years ago now, and it didn't matter. Like I just sort of laughed it off because it wasn't anything to do with me personally, it was to do with what you know she felt was coming up. And then another um something happened again only about a year or so ago, or even less, and it was like that's their opinions, and it's nothing to do with me and the person that I am inside. I know I'm a good human being, I know I'm like I know who I am, and that's all that matters to me. Yes, I love my family, and you know, having an opinion about me that's not right, I know it's not right, I've got to let it go. And that's where you may fear disappointing people you love, or being perceived as loss, midled, misled, or even spiritually confused. That fear carries so much emotional weight, and it really can carry a lot of emotional weight. That's why, as I said, I have not shared so much about my my spirituality, because I didn't want my family to disown me, and that was another thing. You fear your family disowning you because some religions do actually force families to do that, they force a family that leaves a religion to disown them, and that's something that you may fear. And remember, sometimes the shame isn't religious, it's actually relational, it's about belonging, and belonging does matter. We want to feel that we belong. The guilt doesn't mean that you're doing something wrong, it often means you value connection. And most of us, most of us want connection. We really do, we want that connection. And I want you to remember that expanding your spirituality doesn't automatically mean rejecting your roots. And roots, of course, I'm talking about family, about your religion. I want you to understand that exploring intuition, energy, metaphysical ideas, psychic abilities doesn't erase the foundation you were raised with, it actually adds layers. Now, as I said, I the religion I had no problems with the Bible, maybe a little bit more, because you know it was written thousands of years. Who knows what the real story actually is? I still believe in God. I still believe in that. Yet I've got my own spirituality. And I want you to know that all of what you're doing actually adds layers to the foundations you've had. Yes,

Integration Not Rebellion

SPEAKER_00 7:12

you can abandon some of the beliefs, like the Bible. I don't believe in it. Just my opinion, and that's my personal opinion. So if you've got a comment about that, don't bother because I'll delete it. I'm not gonna have nasty comments on here. I just won't have it because it's my space. And there are many spiritual concepts that actually overlap more than we admit. Prayer and intention are the same, faith and manifestant manifestation are the same. Discernment and intuition kind of similar, not quite. The language differs though, the essence of often doesn't. And that's the thing. Growth, it's a natural human process, and you're allowed to reinterpret, deepen, or even widen your understanding over time. That is evolution, not rebellion. Rebellion is something totally different. This is not rebellion. The your expansion can be integration rather than departure. Now, sometimes there are religions out there that you do actually want a departure from because they are actually harmful. There's cults out there that are harmful. I'm talking about religion that you didn't feel was harmful or anything for you, like me. I didn't feel it was harmful. That's not um, you know, the experience that might warn one of my sisters had. It is for me though. And I want you to be aware that sometimes this tension that you feel isn't actually intellectual, it's internal. Because we've got our logic mind, but then we've got the internal, and this is where you can feel like two versions of yourself are in a conversation the version shaped by your upbringing, and the version awakening to something so much broader. Like the Bible, I will say it, it it felt limiting in a way. Now I don't feel limited, and this internal dialogue that you're having can actually feel destabilizing. It's like the foundations

When Two Selves Collide

SPEAKER_00 9:26

have fully cracked open and there's no steady ground to stand on. You're like standing there wobbling, going, Oh my goodness, what's going on? And I want you to be aware that religious frameworks often provide uncertainty. Then when you do medical, metaphysic, medical, metaphysical exploration, it can feel fluid and open-ended. That contrast can actually trigger anxious feelings, and it did in me. I did actually quite get quite anxious, and that's where I said I've I've hidden a lot of stuff. I don't tell my family what I do. They'll see it on my podcast, they'll see it on my social media if they go looking for it. I don't tell them anything, though. And when all of this is happening, you may question whether you're doing it wrong, spiritually, morally, or even energetically. Remember though, that this questioning is part of your transition and it's not proof of failure at all. You're not scattered or fragmented, you're actually integrating everything to turn it into your spirituality, and that's the biggest thing. It's your spirituality, it is the way you want to be spiritual. This integration requires grounding, not rejection. And that's why so many times I will tell people you need to ground. You really have to ground, ground, ground. The more that you ground, the easier it is for you to integrate everything and develop your own practice. And be aware that practicing integration, instead of going to the extremes, you don't want to go to those extremes. You don't have to throw out religious language to explore the metaphysical concepts. You can actually reinterpret that that symbolism, the ritual, and the prayer in ways that feel alive rather than rigid.

Grounding To Stay Steady

SPEAKER_00 11:32

I talk to God, the angels, elementals, everything all the time. I'm always talking to them. Like you might hear it in my voice. I'm feeling sick. I have actually been talking to God, angels, and everything, thanking them because this was a lesson for me. I needed to learn this lesson, and I'm actually grateful and I thank them. And I say, you know, I would love to be well again. And I, you know, I say things, and that's why you can stay connected to family traditions while privately expanding your own understanding. Your growth doesn't require public declaration declaration. This is what happens when you know I'm not feeling the best. Some of my words get a bit mixed up. And I want you to realize that you can test ideas slowly. Notice what resonates in your body. That's why that's the first thing I teach people connection to your body. Because, and this can happen, it happens like it's it happened for me. I was taught disconnection with my body in subtle ways. I'm a woman, I know nothing about my body. Everyone else knows more about my body than me, and that is why I teach about connecting back to your body, to feeling the sensations you feel. And it can be as simple, if you're watching this, you'll see me put my hands on my upper arms. It can be as simple as doing that and noticing

Let Your Body Test What Fits

SPEAKER_00 13:02

what sensations you're actually feeling. Notice what feels expansive versus performative. What are you actually performing? What mask have you put on? Because integration is embodied, not rushed. You don't want to rush integration. Remember that spiritual growth doesn't require you to sever your history. As I've repeatedly said through this episode, I am still connected to parts of the religion. I'm still connected to some of that because it it mattered, it meant something for me. And remember that sometimes the fear isn't just about belief, it's about community. When there's a religion, there's actually a community. And so when you remove yourself from most of that, you fear losing that community. And that's sometimes why you can have shame and fear around your spirituality. Now, not everyone is going to understand your expansion. That doesn't make you wrong, and it doesn't make them malicious. People protect what feels stable to them. We all do it. We protect what feels stable to us, and you're allowed to have boundaries around what you share. Your spirituality can be personal. As I said, I haven't shared a lot. Not to my family anyway, I have publicly. Because not every spiritual evolution that you have, and there's you know layers to this evolution, needs to actually be explained. You don't need to explain anything at all. Remember that. Because that distinction matters. You can't actually know what someone is thinking about you unless they actually say it. And that's why I've said imagined judgment. I want you to remember that emotional growth often looks like holding this growth quietly without needing approval or confrontation, because confrontation can happen, and this is why you want to share what you want to share. And if you don't share anything, then you don't share anything. If that means that you use tarot cards and then you hide them away when family comes over, that's okay. You get to do what you want to do. Because, as I

Boundaries With Family And Community

SPEAKER_00 15:52

said, the spiritual exploration does not erase your past, it does not cancel your upbringing, it does not require you to reject the people who shaped you. It can be an expansion or a widening of the understanding rather than a rebellion against where you started. You're allowed to grow in ways that feel honest to you. And growth does not have to come with shame, it can come with respect, with integration, and with steadiness. Your roots and your expansion do not have to be enemies. They can be part of the same story, and that is me. They are part of the same story. That is why I love all of this. I love everything. Spirituality, religion, all of that gives us beautiful frameworks that help us feel safe. Thank you so much for watching and listening, or watching all listening, whichever you're doing. And again, I thank you for liking, subscribing, sharing, and commenting. Wishing you a beautiful day wherever you are in this world.