I am learning to trust myself, trust my own principles, instincts, without automatically measuring my thoughts and desires with the Church teachings. It's hard to trust you are moral enough to make decision without the suppoort of the Church's teachings. But I must say that as diffiult as it is, it is oh so invigorating!!!

Some people clearly do need an outside authority telling them right and wrong, but I don't buy into the claim that we are ALL sinners, that we're ALL doomed unless we do what religious leaders tell us to do.

Even when I was a good Mormon, I didn't figure out why so many of my fellow believers kept using church standards to measure every single decision, action, or whatever. Didn't they have any standards of their own? Didn't they trust their own instincts?

Then I figured it out. The church had trained them not to believe in themselves. Because the more people believed in themselves, the less they needed the church. The church NEVER wants you not needing the church, because then the church becomes irrelevant. What good then are leaders with no followers?

Do the police come to your house on such frequency that they know you by name? Is your IQ below 65? Are you an inmate inside a mental health facility (not counting ones designed to cure homosexuality)? Do you fashion furniture out of the body parts of dead women? If you answered no to all these important questions, then you probably don't need an outside force guiding your every decision. It's called being a responsible adult. Enjoy it.

Damn! I answered Yes to more than one of your questions. Now what? Go back to school, get rid of the meth lab in my kitchen, and buy all new furniture?

YES!! Trust yourself. That was a biggie for me. Everything I learned about the LDS Church in my examination of "what's wrong with this picture" reaffirmed that I could trust myself and I was correct to do so all along!!

Never allow anyone to discard your own innate trust of yourself.

The whole point of religion it seems, is to make you reliant on them for everything you even think about.

There is a great freedom in being responsible for your own thoughts, knowing you can change your mind, knowing you are the captain of your ship !

The more you trust yourself, the easier it gets.

Thanks everyone for your words. Slowly but surely I will conquer!

I love paradigm shifts! It means you've made a discovery. There will be changes. Usually for the better. Learning something new when I thought I already had it figured out. It's like moving to a new town, without actually moving. It most likely will bring some very interesting people in your life.

I once heard that the definition of being an adult is being able to give yourself permission.