One of the most common unconsciously driven fears that many people in our culture have, and are perhaps totally unaware of, comes from the bombardment of traditional Christian teaching. This teaching is portrayed over and over again, and it is in our psyches. Whether you are a nonbeliever—if that is even possible, for you are still a believer of what you do not believe—or you are Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Wiccan, or any other religion, you are still not spared the image of Jesus being brutally killed and hanging on a cross. This image is everywhere.

The retail cross industry is bringing in billions of dollars—crosses with Jesus hanging on them and crosses that are empty. This is a fear-based and patriarchal way of looking at life that programs and trains all of us on a deep level to believe with fear that if you are a good person ordained by God, you will be killed. Don’t get close to God because you could be murdered. If you draw attention to yourself because you can perform modern-day miracles, eventually people will hang you on the cross and leave you for dead. If you are a good person, you will be betrayed. If you are a good person, you will be abandoned.

When we believe this, we ultimately betray and abandon ourselves. We “hang” in our lives, somewhere between being good and being bad, in just a safe enough position so we will not die, while all the time we are dying from not truly living.