How My Formal Religious Background Has Now Shaped my Spiritual and Self-love Practice

Art Direction, Photograph and Edit by: Catie Menke. Model: Danielle Carruth.

Interview featuring: Regina Lawrence
Model: Danielle Carruth
Creative Direction and Copy by: Catie Menke

In my most recent interview, Regina shares how her formal religious upbringing has now shaped her spiritual and self-love practice.

CATIE: I want to start about by asking you what does spirituality mean to you?

REGINA: Spirituality has really morphed and changed throughout my life. I was raised in a very traditional religious, Catholic home and grew up believing in a power greater than myself. I have always believed in a god. But when I grew up, there were a lot of rules connected with that god and that gave me a lot of anxiety. Because for me, when you grow up in a world where - this is right and this is wrong - it gave me so much anxiety. I am a type 3 on the Enneagram. I am an Achiever. I am a Virgo. I am a perfectionist. Through that, I believe I had formal religious induced anxiety my whole life.

That lead to a conscious rejection and closure of religion in my 20’s. I realized I was experiencing a deep void within myself that I needed to understand more. I really do believe there is a greater power than me and that we are all here for a purpose and intention. My goal now is to live to that higher purpose. So spirituality to me is always striving to remember and to tune into my greater purpose. How can I live in the best version of that in this lifetime.

Art Direction and Photograph by: Catie Menke. Model: Danielle Carruth.

CATIE: Did something happen in your 20’s that caused the shift in thinking?

REGINA: When I graduated from Law School, I met this guy named Stephan. Stephan ended up being my partner for 5 years. He was a self-proclaimed atheist. He didn’t believe in God. He believed in science. And he was, and is, the kindest human being that I’ve ever met in my life.

He has such a caring heart for human beings yet he wasn’t raised in religion. He has a deep sense of duty to other humans and to the world. He inspired me to be like that. I want to care about humans like he does and not because some doctrine or religion told me that if I don’t I’ll go to hell.

CATIE: So, you have this shift from a formal religious background to a spiritual practice. And now, how do you feel self-love and spirituality tie together?

REGINA: Growing up in that super Catholic religion, I had such a lack of love for self. Like most teenage girls, I had so many insecurities with the way I looked and my body. I struggled with an eating disorder when I was in high school. I had no love of self.

And just like anyone else that doesn’t love themselves, I had this constant talk track of criticism. “You’re not good enough. You could be skinnier. You could be prettier. You could be better. You could be smarter.” And I was always so mean to myself inside.

As I started to question why I am here and figuring out my purpose, I found that I believe that we have souls. And I believe that our souls live many lifetimes. I feel that our souls have chosen this body and this lifetime for a very particular purpose. Like I said earlier, we aren’t here haphazardly. I think we are here with intention.

And so if my soul chose this body and this lifetime to live this mission, then why the fuck am I so disrespectful of this soul - and this body - and this lifetime? That has really opened my eyes to caring for my body so I can ultimately live out my mission. My body is the vehicle and I have to love and respect this body so much so I can carry out my purpose.

So the combination of spirituality and self-love comes from really realizing that I need to start loving myself in order to live out my greater purpose.

CATIE: I think it took me a really long time to care for myself too. I also had the negative self talk where I would say things to myself that I would never say to another human being. It took me time really to become my own friend.

REGINA: I think we all struggle. I think this is a human, woman problem that we all have. I realized that if I’m going to really start loving myself, that I need to start talking to myself how I want others to.

CATIE: So tell me about your self-love practice. What do you do to keep align to your purpose?

REGINA: I really changed how I thought about myself and how I talked to myself. The words that we say and the thoughts that we think create the reality of our life. 100%. So if we are living in our head and we are constantly saying disparaging things to ourselves, we are going to attract that energy into our lives.

I will not speak poorly about myself or to myself. I use to joke about myself and I realized the subconscious mind does not get sarcasm. The cells in our bodies do not get sarcasm. When we are sarcastically making fun of ourselves and being unkind to ourselves, our subconscious doesn’t know that it is a joke.

So that’s the most import self-love practice for me. I will never say unkind things to myself. And if I do because I’m human and sometimes we’ll do that, I quickly correct myself. Or if someone says something disparaging to me, I will correct them and tell them that it is not true.

CATIE: Good for you! Is that hard for you to do?

REGINA: It is hard! It’s creating a boundary with others and then enforcing that boundary.

That was the first big thing in recognizing my value as a spiritual being - and a human - and a woman. And then honoring that by the way I talk to myself and the way I think and how I allow other people to talk to me. I will not tolerate friendships, relationships, family members, anyone in my life to say anything disparaging to me because that affects my ability to do what I’m on this planet to do.

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