Religion to Realness

This week’s Spiritually Sexy newsletter is all about the journey from religion to spirituality and how understanding the difference can change your life.

Let me get personal for a minute—I grew up in NY in a diverse family with roots that stretched across Puerto Rico and Cape Verde. My grandmother, Guillermina, or as we called her, Norma (yes, that’s where my name comes from), was Puerto Rican with long, beautiful black hair. Her husband, my grandfather Carlos, came from Cape Verde but had to change his last name to fit into this country. They came to America in the 1940s, looking for a better life, but the reality was they had to hide who they were. That’s the first crack in the illusion of freedom this country sold us.

Fear is what they were taught, and fear is what they passed down to my mother—Catholic, old-school fear of God and life. But here’s the kicker: they never even raised their kids with the truth about where they came from. My mom grew up thinking she was Portuguese, hiding her African roots because that’s what she was told. But she was a rebel in her own right. She whispered to me to always question things, and even though she raised us with the same fear she was taught, she never got mad when I questioned religion.

See, from a young age, I knew something was off. Religion never sat right with my spirit. I had discernment early on, but it took my “big age” and a real awakening to understand why. That awakening? It flipped everything I thought I knew upside down. It had me questioning everything—my family, my culture, my beliefs. You go through this, and suddenly, you feel isolated. The rules and restrictions of the religion I was raised on, the prayers, the rituals—they felt empty. I was raised to love my neighbor, to turn the other cheek if someone slapped me. But that didn’t sit well with me. I was raised to keep family secrets and not call people out, but guess what? That was never me.

Right and wrong was always clear to me. I’m not perfect, but I’ve always been solid. Fear was never my thing. If I believed I could do something, I did it. So when I had my first real awakening, I decided to dig into my ancestry. That’s when things started making sense. Cape Verdean family members I’d never met reached out to me, and I learned the truth about my heritage and spiritual birthrights. It was a whole new world. Suddenly, I understood why I’ve always had such strong discernment and why I’ve always been a seeker of truth.

Here’s where the journey from religion to spirituality gets real. I realized that Christianity and Catholicism, like many religions, were used to indoctrinate and control my people. But now, as I’ve embraced spirituality, I see religion as a tool—one that was originally ours before it was weaponized against us. Being spiritual gives you the freedom to use those teachings without being bound by them.

Spirituality isn’t about rules and fear. It’s about freedom, truth, and using what resonates with your spirit. It’s about acknowledging the wisdom in religion but not letting it define or control you.

This week, let’s get into it—the good, the bad, and the ugly of how religion has shaped us and how spirituality allows us to reclaim that power. How do we navigate this journey from fear-based belief systems to spiritual awakening? And most importantly, how do we use these tools to empower ourselves and heal generational wounds?

With love and light,

Pearl