Joy After Religion with Mary Ann Pack

Rebecca:

Welcome to Beautifully Bloomed, the podcast where we explore how to break
you out of the box of rules and beliefs that are holding you back from the
life you are meant to live. I'm your host, Rebecca Tervo. Join me as I
share mindset tools, coaching conversations, and human design to help you
uncover your unique gifts and create the life, relationships and business
you desire. So, hi Mary Ann. Welcome to the program.

Mary Ann:

Hi, I am so happy to be here with you, Rebecca.

Rebecca:

Well, thank you. So, today I want to talk with Mary Ann Pack and we're
going to talk about a faith transition story, since this is the stories
that we're talking about this year in 2022, on my podcast. So, Mary Ann,
just briefly tell us, how did we get connected?

Mary Ann:

We met through a coaching program with Darla LeDoux, and then we also
happened to be in the same Facebook group, Ladies Power Lunch. So people
knew who we were on each side and they put us together and we've been
friends ever since.

Rebecca:

Yeah. And I think they're like, "Oh, Rebecca's talking about things that
Mary Ann talks about. Maybe they would become friends."

Mary Ann:

Yes.

Rebecca:

I'm like, "Yes, and we have a good connection." We met up after that.

Mary Ann:

Absolutely.

Rebecca:

Today, I wanted to talk about, because I'm going through of my own faith
transition, faith crisis right now, and this is why people connected me
with you because you've been through something like that in the past. So I
want to start with, you were born into a religion is what I remember. What
religion were you born into?

Mary Ann:

It was a Christian, very traditional, very patriarchal. It was the
Assemblies of God and denomination. Pentecostal, very closed and very
controlling, very protective of whatever was coming in. The influences from
the outside world were very, you were very shielded from that because in
the kind of church that I was raised in, which was years ago...

Rebecca:

Yeah, years ago. What were the rules? I'm thinking of some of the rules in
our church, like you only hang out with people in the church, you should
only date guys in the church, you should get married in the church. Were
those some of the rules that you had to or?

Mary Ann:

Oh, absolutely. I mean, so much of your life was monitored and controlled.
What TV we watched and what we listened to, what music we listened to.
Growing up, rock music was just all a thing in the '60s and '70s. So I
didn't know half the artists that friends were talking about, because that
was so squelch, so controlled. Yeah, what we wear, how we did our hair, how
we could wear makeup or not, definitely who you dated. I didn't get to have
friends from school because they would taint me. They were very limited. I
had one or two that I was allowed to visit with, but it was very rare. If
anything conflicted with a church meeting, the doors being open, I didn't
go to the other thing. We had to be at church.

Rebecca:

Right. So you went to a normal school though?

Mary Ann:

Yes, I did.

Rebecca:

Yeah, so you went to a normal school. Did you feel like, this is my
experience, I felt really different than people [crosstalk 00:03:47]?

Mary Ann:

Oh, absolutely.

Rebecca:

Because I couldn't participate in the things.

Mary Ann:

I always felt like just a fish out of water. I never seemed to fit in and I
always felt very alone and really didn't have a friend as a kid until we
changed churches and went to just a little bit more liberal church and I
found-

Rebecca:

What age was that at that you went to a different church?

Mary Ann:

I was nine and the friend that I met at our church in the kids group was
eight. And we have been and best friends ever since. So, 50 some years
we've been together. Yet she is still in the church, loves the church, and
yet I have left and don't see it that way anymore. But we're both big
enough to be able to allow each other the freedom to live.

Rebecca:

Yeah. So this Assemblies of God, you went to this church from age nine
until you graduated from high school or did you continue on?

Mary Ann:

Oh, no. I was born in the Assemblies of God. I was born in that.
Grandparents were that, so they've-

Rebecca:

But you said age nine, you switched [crosstalk 00:04:56].

Mary Ann:

Well, we just went to a different church in the same denomination. We just
moved churches. Yeah.

Rebecca:

Yeah. So did you marry within the church and stay within the church?

Mary Ann:

Oh, yes.

Rebecca:

Okay. How many years did you stay within the Assemblies of God?

Mary Ann:

I didn't leave the church until my mid 40s.

Rebecca:

Okay. I'm just curious.

Mary Ann:

I just turned 63. So I've been out for a while, but yeah, that was a hard
time.

Rebecca:

That is super interesting. Did you ever have questions when you were a kid
about anything? Did you, I'm just curious?

Mary Ann:

Oh, absolutely. I couldn't understand why things that looked so fun, even
square dancing in gym class, why is it wrong to want to participate in
square dancing? My mom would send me a note if she found out we were having
square dancing lessons for our gym class in grade school. Things like that
I thought, this just looks like fun. Why is this wrong?

Rebecca:

Yeah.

Mary Ann:

I had so many questions and I think mama didn't know what to do with me.
Even in talking with my sister years later, she said, "You were just so
much more of a deep thinker. None of us thought like you." I was the
youngest of the girls. My sisters were identical twins, just two and a half
years older than me. She was like, "We just never... They just complied.

Rebecca:

Did you ever think that, wouldn't it just be easier if I could just accept
this and just keep... I thought that all the time. I'm like, why can't I
just have the "simple faith" that they talk about and just go along and
just feel happy?

Mary Ann:

Yes, [crosstalk 00:06:44]. Yeah. I tried for so long to think, okay, why am
I so rebellious? Why am I the black sheep of the family and always the one?
I mean, spankings were a daily thing as a kid, and punishment and guilt and
shame and trying to coerce me into obedience. I just thought, wouldn't it
just be easier just to be able to comply? But I just couldn't.

Rebecca:

Just to feel happy doing that, yeah. Wouldn't it be easier?

Mary Ann:

I mean, even growing up or married or whatever. My first marriage raising
my sons, I homeschooled them all the way through high school. So it was
just like, oh, why is it so hard to be a submissive wife?

Rebecca:

Yes, I know in that part. I don't know if this was part of your marriage
ceremony where they said, "And the husband is head of the wife like Christ
is the head of the church." Even when I heard that and I was young, I don't
know how young you were, but I was only 21. I had just turned 21 when we
got married, which I think is pretty young. It was older than some of my
friends were when they got married. They got married when they were 18. So
I at least waited till 21, but it was really encouraged in our church to
just get married. That's your job as a woman. You get married, you have
kids, you take care of the house. So when I heard those words, I just don't
think they reign true for me.

Rebecca:

I felt like in our home, my mom was, I would say she, sometimes I used to
think she wears the pants in the house. I felt that way because she was a
pretty strong-minded woman, which I'm really grateful I had that because
many of my friends did not have that. But I'm just curious, okay, there's
that. And then you continue on in the church even when you don't think...
You raise your kids in the church even when you have questions. I'm curious
why for you, why do you think that happened? Why did you raise your kids in
the church?

Mary Ann:

Oh, initially, it certainly was because if I left the church, I'd be going
to hell.

Rebecca:

There's that fear, right?

Mary Ann:

Yeah, it's just this constant, constant fear that you're dragging along
with you. Because if I left, I would be leading my little family into hell
and I couldn't bear that on me. This was after having the boys, I'd always
struggled with depression. And I think all of that stems from the beliefs
that I was indoctrinated in because they're so toxic, they did not resonate
with my soul. There were so many of them that I thought, why do these feel
so bad? I know spirituality, my love for God should feel good. Why is this
so hurtful? Why am I so sick? And didn't know I was creating it. Why am I
constantly fighting this when... It heaps more guilt on you because you
think you are the problem, instead of the beliefs are the problem.

Rebecca:

Definitely, you are the problem. And shouldn't you just pray more or just
believe harder or just don't question it, just believe?

Mary Ann:

Oh, yeah. Because-

Rebecca:

[crosstalk 00:10:18] go repent of your sins.

Mary Ann:

Yes, absolutely. And crying was a daily experience for me because the
emotional trauma, you're constantly begging for forgiveness and crying your
eyes out. That's one of the ways I used to tell whether a service was good,
whether everybody was crying and in the altars. That was my rating for a
good service or not, and if we went longer than the service time.

Rebecca:

Okay.

Mary Ann:

So if there was a lot of crying and...

Rebecca:

Yeah. What's interesting is I thought a lot about that crying stuff because
in our church, it was only, once a month, we had communion. Where you go
and repent and have your sins forgiven. So, that led to crying and the
crying of repenting. But I often think back I'm like, I am just an
emotional person anyway. So put a bunch of people around me crying. Oh, I
could get right in there and cry with them. Now, sometimes I'm not sure
what I'm crying about. I'm just watching them cry and I'm brought to tears.
So you could say in some ways, "Well, you were touched by the Holy Spirit."
And I'm like, "No, but that wasn't me. That was just me crying along with
the rest of them because that's what you do."

Rebecca:

I just learned, you just do this. This is what you do. I didn't really feel
spirituality in those moments as much as I was just crying with the rest of
them, I suppose. There might have been some relief if I was having a fight
with my husband and we hugged and we cried, maybe. I felt some relief in
those moments, but that was because of a specific circumstance in my
relationship. I've gone back to think about all those crying times. I'm
just like, that was so interesting. But I totally really get it what you're
saying about, because I felt like, why am I always telling myself that I'm
wrong always?. I'd have a thought, I'm like, oh, well, that's wrong. Don't
believe that. Ooh, don't even go look for the answers on that one because
the devil's talking to you. Just these different things that I learned to
believe about it. Did you have some of those experiences too?

Mary Ann:

Oh, absolutely. We really weren't allowed to read. Or even through school,
I could study whatever I needed to for tests, and I loved history and
archeology and the native Americans and I loved mythology. I loved Greek
mythology. Oh my, during those times, mama really monitored. You only learn
what you need to know for the test and you're done with it. No more study.

Mary Ann:

No more looking at that outside because that outside reading will taint
your walk, will libel to pull you away. I love sciences and there was no
way I could be a scientist that I really wanted. I used to say when I was a
little kid, I wanted to be a math scientist. That was my thing. That was
what I called it because I loved the sciences so much. There is no way I
could have gone to college for any science because scientists are atheists
and they will take you away from God.

Rebecca:

Oh, I heard the scientists are atheist things. Yeah, that's interesting.

Mary Ann:

So you know what I ended up doing? I ended up going to a Bible college and
have a biblical studies degree instead because I didn't think I could even
handle being on a secular campus, that I would lose my salvation.

Rebecca:

Yeah, interesting. Yes. As women, we weren't really pushed to go to college
anyways, but I did go to college. And we would've ever been encouraged to
go to a Bible college because none of that was the true Christian faith.
None of it.

Mary Ann:

[crosstalk 00:14:24] from the Assemblies of God. [crosstalk 00:14:26] a bad
college.

Rebecca:

Yeah.

Mary Ann:

So it's okay because it's the in preparation for ministers, for people who
felt like they were called into a ministry, whether it was music or
teaching or preaching or whatever. So it was a ministerial college.

Rebecca:

That's interesting. Well, the other thing that's different, I guess, is the
ministers in the church I grew up in were not, they weren't theologians or
whatever you would call them. They weren't just lay people.

Mary Ann:

They weren't educated?

Rebecca:

Yeah, they were just lay people. I mean, just lay people. No, I guess,
whatever you want to call them, but they supposedly hear from God as God's
talking through them. So again, I had a lot of questions yet we weren't
encouraged to even read the Bible on our own or any of that stuff. So going
to a Bible school, now that would've actually probably been considered
worse than just going to a regular college. Because now you're trying to
find answers of people who aren't, they're not real Christians. Anyways,
it's super funny to me when I think of those things.

Rebecca:

I have to admit that I took everything pretty seriously. I'm wondering if
people took it as seriously as me, as far as the words and the deeds, the
way we have to act. I was trying to be the good girl most of the time. I
want to be acceptable. I want to be in the community. I want to be loved
and accepted. So I have to follow these rules. That was my main goal. Let's
follow the rules. It had nothing to do with God. It was more like, I want
to be accepted by this community, and so these are the rules and I really
then had an eye for judging what other people were doing. I'm like, wait a
minute. How can you do that when these are the rules? And that's what I
feel like my whole time was about. It was like, there's these rules.

Rebecca:

Also, I found out I have a Libra moon. If you're anything in astrology, the
Libra, about being fair, things are fair and there's this justice. My
personality was all about being fair, everybody following the rules. If
these are the rules, why aren't we all following them? I'm just like, it
had nothing to do with God for me. It was like, I don't want to be kicked
out of this community. I too chose to raise my family in that. It's
interesting, the choices we think we're making, but we're not really making
for ourselves. I don't feel like I made it for myself. Do you feel like you
did?

Mary Ann:

No. It was always, there was a reason and it was never for myself. If I was
trying to obey or something, it was just because that's what I was told to
do and that's what I was told that will get you to heaven. So the more for
us, because it was a denominational Bible college that I went to, they're
the ones teaching what the preachers are going to teach. I love to
research, I love to study. So even homeschooling and my boys all the way
through, I would be studying during the hours that they would be working on
schoolwork.

Mary Ann:

So I'd have everything out in my strong concordance, in all my notebooks
and notes just because I love studying. So I could defend anything with the
scriptural references, but yet it wasn't resonating really with my soul. It
was still making me so unhappy and question more. So I got to the point
where I was just having enough, I had enough beating up in the church,
being beat up by the church, parishioners and ministers, because I would
ask questions and they don't like that.

Rebecca:

Yeah, they don't want questions. Because how are they going to...

Mary Ann:

Oh, no. Yeah.

Rebecca:

Well, sometimes there's not a good answer, is my thought about that.
There's not an acceptable answer or something. I don't know. So then what
happened? You left because of that?

Mary Ann:

Yeah. Both the gambit. We studied with Mennonites and then the other
direction we studied with Orthodox rabbis in Dallas. Actually, when it
finally came down to studying with the Orthodox rabbis in a home church, a
home group of us, a homeschool group had gotten together and started
looking at Judaism a little bit. That was actually easier. It started
making more sense that, oh, wait, I don't have to follow these rules. Wait,
I have more freedom than I knew. Then I really started questioning what my
beliefs were.

Mary Ann:

Over the years studying about metaphysics because I was so sick, these
toxic beliefs had so made me such a negative person. I was such a victim
mindset and I played the martyr so well. So I was making my body sick from
childhood all the way. By the time I crashed at 34 with two babies, I
thought, I'm not going to see my 40th birthday if I don't do something. So
I sought out natural health, but then I bought a book about all different
kinds of alternative healing. Oh my gosh, there was energy work and
crystals and [inaudible 00:20:36] and all kinds of things that were so
exciting that I had never been allowed to study before. We had moved away,
so I didn't have family around me. Nobody could tell me what to do.

Rebecca:

Yeah. What is that about?

Mary Ann:

That even began the questioning a whole lot even more intensely. And then
by my mid 40s, I was like, okay, I am so over this, I am so done. When I
walked out of the church, I lost all my friends because they were all
Christian homeschool families, and lost some of my family members and just
thrived in joy anyway. And it was like, my spirituality feels good. And two
weeks after I left, after our little family left, I realized, oh my gosh, I
haven't cried once since I left. I haven't had to beg for forgiveness and
just cry my eyes out to be so sorrowful. I already knew that I had a peace.
It was such a burden lifted.

Rebecca:

It was interesting. Because when you talk about Judaism and rabbis, I was
listening to this Jewish, I was going to say Judaism, no, Jewish rabbi
talk. And this is so funny because when I started allowing myself to open
up to listen to other people's beliefs, I even felt guilty about that at
the beginning. I Was like, this is so sinful. Oh my gosh. It's so sinful.
But anyways, I was listening to him talking. He said, "As Jews, we believe
we are born worthy." He said something like that. Christians believe
they're born sinful. And that really made an impact on me.

Rebecca:

I'm like, wait a minute. Wait, wait, wait. I don't have to believe that I'm
poor and sinful and I'm so terrible. The Jewish people don't believe that
about me. I'm like, what? I was like, oh, what if I could just start with
that as a beginning belief and then work from there? And that felt so much
better to me. It's just crazy. The other thing is being a life coach. I'm
sorry. Are you a life coach too, Mary Ann? I don't know that about you. Are
you a spiritual coach or a life coach?

Mary Ann:

Yes. In and around, I'm an author and a spiritual medium. I have [crosstalk
00:23:02] but yes.

Rebecca:

That's what it is. We'll talk about that at the end too. But being a life
coach, I felt even in some ways, when I went for life coach training, that
I was going off the straight narrow path and that some people thought I was
very weird. And already, I'm weird now. I'm going to be let astray, which I
guess now I've been let astray, now they have their proof. But you know
what I mean? But what it helped me to do is open myself to new ideas that
I'm like, well, these people aren't bad people. Why should I believe that
they're going to hell or any of that, right?

Mary Ann:

Yes, absolutely.

Rebecca:

I don't get it. Why should I believe any of that stuff? But it helped open
my mind to learning that, well, there's a lot of different beliefs and you
can have your own belief about what those beliefs mean. You can even have
your own belief about those people. So it was just fascinating to open my
mind up to being more accepting and more compassionate and less judgmental.
Oh my, it gets really tiring after a while.

Mary Ann:

It's very, very exhausting.

Rebecca:

I got tired. It feels like this heavy burden that you have to carry around
of judging everybody, judging yourself. They're going to hell, I'm not
because I have to keep doing this stuff. Yeah, I'm over that. I forgot why
I started this story. But, I don't know, in your story, what we got to is
that you left. I'm curious, so now that you didn't believe that you're
going to go to hell if you leave your church, what is the new belief? Did
you feel like, oh, no. Now what is the new thing I'm going to believe? Or
what do I believe about afterlife? You know what I mean? All those
questions that you could have.

Mary Ann:

Right. Well, even before, because I had that alternative healing book that
I was studying, it also talked about some mindset stuff and metaphysics. So
years later, then I started touching into Louise Hay's book, You Can Heal
Your Life, metaphysics. How our emotions affect our body and our health and
that we created all and that we can heal it with a mindset shift. So, that
was eye-opening in itself. I could go down her emotional list and all the
diseases I had and they just fell right into place. And then after that,
when I really started looking at my beliefs and I thought, gosh, a lot of
these don't feel good. What do I want to believe? What would feel good to
my soul? Then I started looking at that and I started studying with Abraham
Hicks. I found them.

Mary Ann:

I think it was just, again, my spirit just was a calling in these mentors
and teachers and coaches that being able to get a different perspective to
listen to someone who is declaring themselves infinite intelligence,
source, being spoken through by a woman's voice. Again, to be able to use
your voice as a woman. Because that was so squelched in my life. Then to be
able to start speaking up for myself or speaking my truth and saying, I
don't believe those are true. This is the truth for me. I had to start
evaluating those beliefs and letting them go, or maybe just tweaking them.
But some of them, you literally have to just let go and believe something
that resonates with your soul. I think the first thing, I was starting to
understand that I was not innately sinful, that that wasn't real. The first
time I heard Abraham Hicks... Can I read this quote to you out of my book?
Because it's the very first quote in my book and it's from-

Rebecca:

And is this your book?

Mary Ann:

This is my book that I-

Rebecca:

I thought you were going to say Abraham Hicks. Okay, yes.

Mary Ann:

No, no, no. It's just because this was their quote that made the profound
shift when I realized that I was not innately simple. They say, "You are
joy looking for a way to express. It's not just that your purpose is joy,
it's that you are joy. You are love and joy and freedom and clarity
expressing, energy, frolicking, and eager. That's who you are. So if you're
always reaching for alignment with that, you're always on your path and
your path will take you into all kinds of places. You are pure positive
energy that translates into the human emotion of joy."

Mary Ann:

When I heard that, I kept replaying it, replaying it, replaying it because
I was like, this is what I want to believe. This resonates with my soul. So
now years later, coming to be a joy advocate because my spirit guides the
many, tell me all the time, tell them of their goodness, tell them of their
innate goodness. Tell them that they are joy in the flesh, they're joy
embodied.

Rebecca:

Yeah. Even listening to your voice say the quote, it just feels so, like
it's just lightning. Oh, it feels good, that joy thing. Thank you so much
for reading that. I love Abraham Hicks stuff, by the way. It's just
amazing.

Mary Ann:

Yeah. That quote totally changed my life. I had been studying with them for
a while and I think it was just allowing me to finally get to the point
where I could actually accept that statement about me. So it took me a
while. I didn't hear this off right at the bat because it wasn't the right
timing for me. I wasn't yet believing that I could be joy embodied because
I'm actually an extension of who source is in the flesh.

Rebecca:

Yeah, exactly. To wrap this up, I just wanted to say that when you said
something about being where you are or not the right timing or something
about not being able to hear that at the right timing, I think there's a
process. And I think I'm in that process. There's a process of
deconstruction, or whatever you want to call it, where we do have to take
the time to feel all the grief for all those years, all the grief for all
the years, and all the grief for the things that I probably taught my kids
that I don't want to have taught my kids. All the things and being able a
process through those emotions first, before sometimes you're ready to open
up to all the great possibilities. Right? And so [crosstalk 00:30:30].

Mary Ann:

Oh, absolutely. Even when I was studying, when I was during that time of
deep, really deep questioning, my gosh, if you leave the church, what if
they're telling the truth? What if I would lead myself and my family into
hell? What if it was real? And oh, the agony and the grief and the tears
that were shed over those years, those last years before we decided to
leave the church was just, sometimes just agony.

Rebecca:

It is. And then that's why for me, it's important for me to go on this
journey of learning the truth for myself. It's like, well, what is the
truth? If I don't think that's the truth, what is the truth? And it's okay
to question it all and just learn a bunch of things and wonder about it.
I'm just actually enjoying this part right now for me, it's just fun. It's
like, oh, [crosstalk 00:31:27]

Mary Ann:

And your truth is different from my truth.

Rebecca:

Yeah. We're all different.

Mary Ann:

And that's okay.

Rebecca:

Isn't that great? The beauty of life is everybody can have their own truth.
And can we all still live together in peace? Which is really, as we've seen
in '20 and 2021, how awful it is to live with all these conflicting beliefs
that people are so strong about. So my goal is, could we just live knowing
we have different things to believe? That's the part of the beauty of life.
We're all different. If we are all exactly the same, I think it might be
rather boring.

Mary Ann:

Oh, very, very boring.

Rebecca:

I think we could have these conversations and have fun talking about
different things. So Mary Ann, where can people see you or reach you or get
to know your stuff or learn about your book?

Mary Ann:

Oh yes. They can visit my website. Mary Ann Pack, just by name,
maryannpack.com. Or if you're looking for any of the... This is the first
in a series of books that are coming, this is the first one that we just
launched this month of January, the month of January. So you'll find all
the information on wearejoybooks.com.

Rebecca:

Yeah.

Mary Ann:

So that'll be the first, there's several already, the works that are coming
out this year. We're going to do them about quarterly. They're all lessons,
but they all have integrative prompts after each lesson so that it actually
is like a coaching program. And then there is also a way to coach with me
in the joy matrix, which is a membership. We'll be going through these
books as they come out. It's just some support for people who are having to
remember themselves into the wholeness of who they are. Bring all those
broken parts and all the hurt parts, the parts that don't want to be
exposed, but the parts that are questioning and then the parts that find
the glimmers of hope and joy. So when we come into the wholeness of who we
are, that's when we're living the joy of who we really are and that thrills
my soul

Rebecca:

Living the joy. Okay, that sounds amazing. Thank you so much, Mary Ann.

Mary Ann:

Absolutely. Thank you.

Rebecca:

This was a great conversation.

Mary Ann:

Oh yes. I love it. I love it.

Rebecca:

Hopefully it helps a lot of people. All right. If you enjoy listening to
this podcast, please go subscribe so that you get notified of all the
future goodies that are coming along. While you're there, please leave me a
review and let me know what you think. So excited to share this with you,
and can't wait to talk to you next time. Bye.