I Found Spirituality Outside of Organised Religion, That’s How I Sustain Myself.

The world has a lot of moving parts, and sometimes it feels like you’re drowning, and every day is a battle to keep your head afloat. Even when you’re going through some of your worst moments in life, the world doesn’t stop. You’re expected to show up, you’re expected to heal, to move on, to be normal again.

We all cope with the pressures of life in different ways, but in this part of the world, people often turn to a higher power, to a God if you will, and to the church, for a feeling of community and to make sense of the chaos. Personally, I do not subscribe to organised religion. I was born into an Anglican household, with hymns, special prayers, and rotational reverends (pastors) who left after every 3 years. If you know how Anglican churches run, you will know it is not the best way for a child to build a relationship with God. It was rigid and boring.

Organised religion has been a fundamental part of human history for thousands of years, providing comfort, guidance, and a sense of community for millions of people around the world. However, I have opted to disavow the notion of organised religion altogether for many reasons which I will not delve into, but in my personal experience, beyond being too rigid, dogmatic, and often limiting personal freedom and expression, religious institutions have shown ME they are not too concerned with the spiritual well-being of their followers.

So how do I sustain myself? The answer is, through drugs and my belief in the universe. Let me explain.

A few years ago, I came home and took the staircase to my apartment on the second floor, and when I got to my apartment my heart was racing, I figured it was just a symptom of being unfit, so I sat on my bed to wait it out. Two hours later I was still having heart palpitations, and it felt like I couldn’t breathe, so I called my father and explained what I was experiencing.

He reached out to our GP who told him to ask me to rush to the hospital. On the ride to the hospital, I felt like I was minutes away from death, as I was still struggling to breathe. When I arrived at the hospital somewhere in Gwarinpa, I was quickly taken to a room for an electrocardiogram (ECG) which was a test used to check the heart’s rhythm and electrical activity.
No, I wasn’t having a heart attack, I was having the first of many panic attacks. I was eventually diagnosed with severe anxiety. My anxiety came with physical manifestations, so I was prescribed benzodiazepines (benzos) to help relieve the anxiety and it helped for a while. However, the thing about benzos is that they are super addictive, so I couldn’t take them forever, I had to figure out other ways to sustain myself and curb the crippling effects of my anxiety.

The following year I moved to Lagos, in an attempt to go back to the way things used to be, in search of something other than this drug to keep me sane. In hindsight, I’m not sure moving to Lagos in search of sanity was my smartest decision. In my search, a friend invited me to [redacted] church, one of the big, new school churches on the island.

I went in with an open mind, and because she played a role in that church, we didn’t sit together. Beyond not connecting with the preacher’s message, and feeling out of place, the funniest thing happened. During the announcements, first timers were asked to come out and I did. By the time I got back to my seat, someone had stolen my phone from the little pouch where I had kept it. What a first-time experience right? It got worse because the phone was unlocked, and the culprit began texting my friends on WhatsApp asking for ransom in return for my phone.

My friend and I reported this to the church by the way and their reaction was pretty much “sorry for the experience”. Obviously, what I sought didn’t reside in those walls. I had a couple more failed attempts to find a haven in the “house of God” as it is often called but they were also futile.

So, on my own, I decided to tune out the noise and embark on this journey myself. I talked to the universe, about my worries and fears, and the more I did it, the more sense it made to me. No one truly understands your life, and you need to find what works for you. I do not doubt the existence of a higher power, however, I do not concern myself with how you choose to refer to a higher power – God, Allah, Buddha, and more. To me, it’s the all-encompassing universe. It gives me comfort to know that there’s something greater out there that listens to my pain and shows up for me every day.

No matter how we choose to get through it, we all face struggles, chaos, and the same revolving door of life. And yet, somehow, we keep going. We keep showing up, day after day, finding the strength to carry on. That’s the beauty of the human spirit, and that gives me hope, even on the darkest of days.