I Got Tricked Into Running Away From God

I used to think that religion was:

• hocus pocus nonsense

• a method of controlling the masses

• an excuse to not be accountable for life

• a shield people use to hide their weakness

• a way to opt out of being responsible for your life

For the last 25 years, I have studied, coached, and taught personal development. I have studied physical, psychological, and spiritual well-being in depth to create a system and formula that I could use to structure my life and help the thousands of individuals I’ve coached.

I was raised as a Roman Catholic, was baptized, confirmed, and all the things that went with Catholicism. I ended up running in the opposite direction of religion because of the corruption of the church in the 80s and 90s and for the reasons I stated above.

I still yearned for a connection with the divine, which led me to devote 10 years of my life to a spiritually oriented personal development organization that promised the path of enlightenment and living in alignment with the divine. We practiced manifesting, the law of attraction, energy work, meditations, chanting, and many other "spiritual" practices.

I’ve always wanted to give myself fully to something bigger than me - God was that something, and I thought this personal development company was the vehicle to do that because I was so jaded (and, it turns out, ignorant) of Christianity and the Catholic Church

I was convinced I had found the place to give me the answers I sought.

I wanted nothing more than to know "God" and give my life to Him.

I was taught ways to "align with the divine" and embody traits like love, compassion, and peace, and I have had amazing experiences with these traits.

But those experiences were all they were. Once I had come out of them, there were no real guidelines for embodying and living my life in alignment with God, not to mention any real definition or way to relate to the idea of God.

However, there were many rules regarding engagement with the community, which I later realized were a way to control everyone.

The only guideline for living with God was to align with your "Higher Self" and stay connected to the "Source." You must embody states of love, compassion, and peace as much as possible to do these two things.

To do this, I would need to "drop all other patterns" of anger, shame, guilt, sadness, etc., that didn't align with the "higher states." This was a never-ending "working on myself" process, and that was the game. It was completely self-absorbing and primarily focused on myself.

Throw in the fact that the organization was led by an "all-knowing enlightened guru" who would guide you through the infinite complexities of this ultimate goal of embodying higher states or becoming "enlightened," who was also miraculously immune to all the innate dysfunctions of being human.

I climbed to the top of the organization, saw behind the curtain, and finally decided to leave when it became very clear that this was more like a pyramid scheme - it wasn't about empowering people to live their best life; it was about making them dependent on a system of "working on themselves" forever. And it was not about getting aligned with GOD. It was about connecting with an experience of God through accessing different "high frequency" states like love and peace. These were all facilitated by meditative and esoteric energy practices.

At its core, it manipulates people using the incredible experiences of God's creation but never leads them to a relationship with God himself. This ultimately helped me understand the big difference between being in a relationship with God and being in a relationship with God’s Creation.

God vs. God’s Creation

Although my experience was extreme, there are many other versions of modalities that have similar themes of engaging with God's creation vs. God.

Some examples include:

• Nature immersion

• Chanting & meditation

• Breathing practices

• Psychedelics

None of these are bad in themselves, but when used as a substitute for God or in isolation, they can be very dangerous.

As Thomas Aquinas noted, God is ipsum ese, which is being itself. This means everything you experience in the world is God's creation, but it isn't God.

It's very easy to turn God's miraculous creation into gods. This is exactly what the Bible refers to when it talks about false idols.

In these common spiritual practices of this personal development community, the experience itself is worshipped. The more extraordinary the "experience" you had during a meditation, the more revered you were. This left most of the group feeling like they were doing something wrong, which was also used as an opportunity to sell you on another program to fix what was broken.

It also became self-evident that having a family directly conflicted with this proposed path to enlightenment, which manifested out of the Enlightenment idea of individualism. It was communicated directly to me at one point and became evident throughout the higher levels of teaching.

Safe to say, it was very troubling when it was proposed that I'd have to choose between my family and my relationship with the divine. This is something that I have found to be very prominent in "Spiritual Practices." The core tenant and focus of many spiritual practices is the Individual and having infinite freedom within oneself to create your unique relationship with the divine. A combination of the idea of Individualism that emerged from the Enlightenment Period and the idea of non-attachment gone haywire.

This type of relationship with the “divine” is referred to as “Non-theistic Spirituality.” Buddhism would be an example of this because its core teachings do not require belief in God or gods. The path to enlightenment (nirvana) is achievable through personal effort, meditation, and wisdom rather than devotion to a deity. The organization I was a part of was a variation of this.

The focus on the individual’s freedom over all other relationships manifested towards the end of my time with the organization. My relationship with my wife, Eve, was getting increasingly strained. All types of manipulation were going on, pinning us against each other. It was awful. I would have destroyed my family if I had stayed with the organization.

The irony is that if I had stayed and destroyed my family, I would have been celebrated and revered in the community. It would have been proclaimed that through my “devotion,” I was an example of commitment to enlightenment.

No More Spirituality, Science Will Take Me To The Truth

At this point, I was once again very turned off by the idea of spirituality or anything related. I sprinted toward hard-core science. I felt that the best thing I could do was anchor myself to the facts, seek the truth, and eliminate all the ambiguous nonsense that seemed to dominate the spiritual realm.

One of the first places I studied was the work of a Stanford Neuroscientist named Andrew Huberman. I became obsessed with his podcasts. I must have consumed dozens of his podcasts discussing emotions, dopamine, exercise, sleep, creating goals, etc. I also studied Steven Kotler's work on the FLOW State and became a certified coach in Flow. I was surrounded by scientists who were focused on seeking the truth! This is where things got interesting,

Flow State & Spirituality?

When studying the FLOW state in depth (defined as a mental state where a person is completely absorbed in a single activity or task), I noticed that its characteristics sounded eerily familiar to spiritual experiences. I was intrigued because the Flow Research Collective is heavily based on scientific evidence.

Some of the common traits that were reminiscent of these spiritual experiences were

• Effortless

• At complete peace

• In complete control

• Completely present

• Intrinsically motivating

• Altered Time Perception

• Loss of Self Consciousness

This was the first potential bridge I found between the “spiritual” and “science.”

Simultaneously, I immersed myself in the work of Dr. Gabor Mate and took a few of his online courses. Gabor Maté is a renowned Hungarian-Canadian physician and author who has written extensively on addiction, trauma, stress, and mental health.

Gabor Mate taught me the value in every way of being, regardless of its seemingly destructive nature. He had worked with some of the world's most addicted individuals and, through his incredible technique of Compassionate Inquiry, would engage with these "addicts" and uncover the utility value of their addiction.

This did something miraculous: It allowed the individuals to receive grace by showing them that they weren't doing anything "wrong." He showed them that they were simply trying to eliminate the incredible amount of pain they were in, that they had good reason to feel.

From this space, he helped them address the actual problem and compassionately move towards solving it in a new way. Much of solving the problem was voicing what happened out loud in a safe space that wouldn't judge them for how they were managing it.

This was radically different from how it was handled and portrayed in the personal development organization I was a part of for 10 years. There was no shaming or belittling because they hadn't "dropped this destructive pattern" yet. Gabor never told them they weren't "doing the work" enough.

I have found this incessant beating up of oneself for not embodying the “ideal way of being” very common in personal development.

The Person Who Unlocked the Door

However, Dr. Jordan Peterson was the gentleman with whom I felt an incredibly strong resonance. Jordan Peterson is a Canadian clinical psychologist, professor, and author widely recognized for his thought-provoking views on psychology, culture, and philosophy.

I started by listening to his podcasts and consuming much of his YouTube content, and eventually, I started engaging with some of his courses. His persistence and relentless pursuit of the truth were exactly the path I wanted to take. I didn't want to move forward from ambiguous spiritual truths that were true ONLY because some self-proclaimed Guru or enlightened master said they were.

Part of the JP content I consumed exposed me to other intriguing individuals, like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins. These two gentlemen were at the forefront of the atheist movement and seemed to use reason and intellect to pursue the truth. I was particularly intrigued with Sam Harris because of his focus on morality, with the absence of a man floating in the sky telling us what to do.

I read Sam Harris's book Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality without Religion, downloaded his app, and performed his guided mediations. Now that I was anchored to truth, I felt safe again and could finally move forward.

Yet, weirdly, if I was completely honest with myself, something was still missing.

After about a year or two of studying, reading, and consuming hundreds of hours of Jordan Peterson's content, I became aware of a series he had done on the first two books of the Bible: Genesis and Exodus.

I figured this would be interesting. Someone I greatly respected and who was on a similar path of seeking the truth was going to analyze a book that has been at the cornerstone of society for millennia., through the lens of psychology, philosophy, and neuroscience.

At this point, I knew Dr. Peterson was skewed toward Christianity, and I had never held that against him completely. I had seen him debate Sam Harris and, later on, Richard Dawkins—two of the leaders of the atheist movement—which I always found compelling. The Genesis series seemed like a great opportunity to get inside his take on all this "God" and "Biblical Stuff."

The Bible?! Really?!

I started with Genesis Lecture 1: "Introduction to the Idea of God." The title already had my attention. As I listened to Dr. Peterson discuss his intentions, the text, and his perspectives on what he was reading, I was hooked. His meticulously meticulous approach to dissecting things and explaining his thought process without avoiding the tough questions was music to my ears.

I ended up listening to all 35+ hours of the Genesis lectures.

And I didn't stop there.

Next was the Exodus Series, which was taken to another level.

He brought on a panel of brilliant minds from many disciplines to discuss their reading. The expertise ranged from theology to biblical studies, philosophy, history, literature, mythology, political science, and law. These individuals also included practicing Catholics, Christians, Jews, and individuals who did not follow any religious practice.

This was another investment of over 35 hours of these incredible humans breaking down this ancient sacred text.

Listening to this 70+ hours of content, my mind was continually blown.

While working through these series, I was also introduced to Bishop Robert Baron and Father Mike Schmitz, both of the Catholic Church.

Bishop Barron was first introduced to me by one of my clients, who mentioned that I should listen to this guy. At the time, I wasn't too keen on the Catholic Church, so I never actually listened to anything she sent me.

I encountered Father Mike Schmitz for the first time when I wanted to understand the difference between a Catholic and a Christian—something that I was embarrassed not to know since I was raised Roman Catholic. I later learned Father Mike was doing a “Bible in a Year Podcast.”

While going through the Genesis and Exodus series, I realized how ignorant I was about the Bible and realized I have no idea what this book is?!?! That is when I engaged with Father Mike's Bible In a Year, which I am still going through.

Because I was an avid listener to JP's podcast, I noticed that Bishop Barron appeared as one of his guests. This was the first time I had delved into the Catholic ethos in over 25 years, so I approached it with great skepticism.

Once again, to my surprise, the bishop did not turn me off. It did help that Jordan Peterson directed the conversation, and it wasn't some commercial trying to convince you to "Come to Jesus to be saved!" I would have been out of there in a heartbeat.

The podcast is "Bishop Barron: Christianity and the Modern Age." It was a very stimulating conversation that combined intellectual rigor with personal reflections.

Bishop Barron's humility and willingness to own the major downfalls of the Catholic Church, not only in the scandals of the 1980s and ‘90s but also their failure to communicate the essence and beauty of the Catholic tradition to my generation, impressed me. He even complimented Jordan Peterson by saying he has probably brought more people to the Bible in the last few years than the Catholic Church has.

My intrigue continued to expand.

It's Time to Poke My Head Back In

I thought that if Bishop Barron represented the intentions and stance of the Catholic Church today, maybe it was time to revisit a Sunday mass and see what was happening.

I began attending Mass this past summer, and the first few times, I would say I was cautiously optimistic. I've always enjoyed the music and singing in church, which immediately gave me a familiar sense of peace.

As I sat through the Mass, I realized that I didn't understand what was happening. Why were we doing the things we were doing throughout the Mass? It dawned on me that all those years I had gone to Church, I had been just going through the motions, not truly understanding why I was going and what I was doing.

I went to my two known sources and watched Father Mike's and Bishop Baron's mini-courses on the Mass. This led me to take their courses on the sacraments—baptism, Holy Communion, Reconciliation, Confirmation, Anointings of the Sick, Holy Orders, and Matrimony.

As I learned about these things, I wondered if I had learned them and forgotten them, if I had been taught them and not paid attention, or if they had not been taught this way.

I continued to attend Church with this deeper understanding of what it was about and found myself having more profound experiences.

As of the writing of these words, I have yet to make it through a Mass without tearing up and, in some cases, weeping profusely.

It reached a point where I felt like it was time to go to Reconciliation, which I was better educated on after taking Father Mike's and Bishop Barron's courses. Reconciliation is the sacrament of healing, also known as confession or penance.

I was very nervous. It had been a while, and I tried remembering what I was supposed to say when I walked in. The one thing I remembered was, "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been X time since my last confession."

Well, for me, it had been multiple decades.

I went in, kneeled, and said, "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been decades since my last confession."

The priest then asked me to confess my sins.

I took a deep breath, and . . . the floodgates opened.

I began crying to the point where I could barely speak.

The priest was very supportive and did his best to help me articulate any coherent words. I honestly don't remember exactly what happened after this moment. He continued to console me and hold space for my sadness. We somehow closed the session, and I left. I felt a massive sense of relief but also felt incomplete and confused.

What was that all about?!?! I wondered if I had done it, I didn't say anything, I just cried the whole time.

So, over the following few weeks, I reflected on my experience, did a little more homework on the full confession process, and decided to return.

This time, I'm going to do it properly!

I even rehearsed the prayer multiple times, which you say at the end of the confession, called the "Act of Contrition, " which I had completely forgotten.

When the day arrived, I went to the church, entered the confessional booth, and said, "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been a few weeks—well, really a few decades, because I'm not sure that last one counted since my last confession." I told him what happened last time and that I was ready to do it properly.

I took a deep breath and . . . waterworks!

I started crying again and could not get words out.

This time, however, the priest was able to get some coherent sentences out of my mouth, and I could express some of the things that weighed heaviest on my heart. He could tell I had a lot I was trying to work through, so he offered to meet privately to help me make sense of what I was feeling and thinking - which was very helpful.

He also said that he would absolve me of all my sins because he saw that I was truly in a state of repentance and contrition, and he did so at that moment.

Then it was my big moment! Time to recite that final prayer I'd been rehearsing. I took another deep breath and couldn't remember anything.

Then I noticed that the prayer was right before me (apparently, I'm not the first person to have forgotten it). I read the words on the paper, and the priest asked if I'd like him to perform the absolution of sins once again. I immediately said, "Yes, please!" and told him I probably needed two.

I have been consistently going to Church for the last few months. I go every Sunday, but I have also found the weekly 30-minute masses helpful - it is a perfect way to keep the main thing the main thing daily.

From the Mouth of Babes

In addition, as I have been on my journey of seeking Truth, my 16-year-old son Christian had been intently watching and observing. Not only would he be considered an “old soul,” but when it comes to an analytical mind, someone who has many questions and follows reason to the Nth degree, I have not found many people quite like him.

SIDE NOTE: Christian was blessed to be very adept academically but wanted to be home-schooled to study and explore the topics he was most interested in. He has always been a kid who was more drawn to intellectual conversations than what most 16-year-olds are talking about. I wrote about our decision to allow him to drop out of an elite program that would have earned him a college degree by the age of 18 to pursue his passions in my newsletter, "How to Set Up Yourself & Your Children for a Fulfilling Life."

He was deeply involved in studying politics, philosophy, God, and atheism. After some time, he asked if he could attend Church with me to learn more about it. After a few visits and many philosophical conversations, he told me he wanted to join the Church.

I was amazed at how obvious it became to him that joining Christianity was the most rational decision after his intense study of seeking the truth by studying the disciplines of philosophy, psychology, politics, and theology over the last few years.

Current State & My Experience in a Nutshell

At the time of this Newsletter, I am still pursuing my faith through treason and questioning, seeking to understand better all there is to know about the rich tradition of Christianity and the Catholic Faith, and continuing to study history and philosophy.

I am on Day 150 of Father Mike Schmitz's "Bible in a Year" and Day 31 of his "Catechism in a Year," I am listening to Jordan Peterson's recently released analysis and discussion of the Gospels.

The benefits that I can tell you that I have received from the last 6 months of reconnecting with my faith are as follows:

1. Accessing a relationship with God instead of His Creation.

2. Trusting in God and freely surrendering to his plan for my life has been freeing and exciting.

3. Letting go of the need to control everything and have all the answers to every problem.

4. Knowing I was not built to live alone, like every other human, I was designed to live my life in partnership with God.

5. Experiencing a daily sense of resolve and peace anchored to the core of who I am. A peace that differs significantly from the fleeting moments of peace and the dissociated sense of peace I experienced through my spiritual practices.

6. I am relieved that I don't need to figure it all out, that I am perfectly imperfect as a human, and that although I will strive to live up to Jesus's example and walk with God, I will fall short. As long as I stay humble and open to learning and growing, I will continue to access the love and support God has relentlessly offered me.

7. Access to a more grounded state of confidence and humility. Knowing that the gifts I have and share with the world are from God, and when I can manage to get out of the way, God's love can expand and work through me.

As I write these things, a part of me still believes the words I am writing. If I am completely honest, there was a time when I heard someone talk like this. I would laugh at them. I would immediately dismiss them as weak and delusional, to the point where it would annoy me and even make me angry. I am very grateful not to be inhabited by that spirit any more.

For those interested, below are the resources I leveraged to facilitate my understanding and the relationship I am currently cultivating with God. These are great starting points for those interested and an opportunity to go DEEP like I did.

Great Starting Places

Bishop Barron on Jordan Peterson's Podcast for First Time

Father Mike - Bible in a Year (you can also download the Ascension App for free to listen to it)

Bishop Barron’s Guide Through the Gospels

If You Want a Deep Intellectual Dive

Jordan Peterson | Biblical Series: Genesis

Jordan Peterson | Biblical Series: Exodus

Other Great Resources

Father Mike’s Ascension Press

Bishop Barron’s Word on Fire Institute

I plan to continue sharing my experiences and explorations of theology, philosophy, psychology, and spirituality this year. As well as share practical ways to apply all these ideas in your daily life.

Wishing you a Blessed 2025!

Matt