How do I process grief or anger about my religious or spiritual upbringing?

Rumi knew betrayal and disillusionment—the breaking open that comes when what was supposed to hold you lets you fall. This is not something to rush past or pretend didn't happen. Your anger is real, and it often contains truth that needs naming. The ancestors in faith weren't perfect; their institutions weren't either. You can honor what was genuine in your formation *and* grieve what was painful or constraining. This is the work: to separate the longing for the sacred from the human hands that sometimes held it poorly. Don't turn away from faith entirely because one version wounded you—that's like refusing water because you were once nearly drowned. Instead, sit with the specific hurts. Write them down. Feel them with someone you trust. Then ask: what am I still hungry for? What did I long for beneath the pain? That question might lead you toward a different expression, a truer practice, teachers who can meet you more honestly. The relationship with ancestors in faith deepens when you stop pretending the past was other than it was. You're not abandoning them—you're claiming the right to seek more truthfully than they perhaps were able to.