I make tea when guests come over. Even when I’m tired. Even when my brother is sitting right there. I do it without thinking, like it’s stitched into my spine.

And he, he reaches for the heavier suitcase when we travel, moves the furniture, opens the stubborn jar. Not because he enjoys it. Because that’s what men do, right? That’s what he’s supposed to do.

Muscle Memory of Womanhood and Masculinity

In moments when I can watch myself from the outside, I feel an odd kind of betrayal; like I’ve let go of the version of me who stands tall for equality, who earns her own money, who refuses to wait for permission. But when guests walk in, that girl disappears. The tea gets made. The house gets cleaned. My body moves before my brain catches up.

And he too wonders, sometimes, late at night, why he’s expected to be strong all the time, why asking for help feels like weakness, why carrying the weight of “being the man” feels so damn heavy, even when no one’s watching.

Wanting What We Were Taught to Want

Still, in the same breath, I want flowers. I want someone to walk me home when it’s late, to lift the heavy boxes, to pick me up from a shady auto stand. Not because I can’t do it myself but because somewhere, I’ve been taught not to want to.

And he, too, wants to be seen beyond the strength expected of him, beyond the rules he never chose to follow.

Perhaps it sounds a lot like hypocrisy but I believe this is inheritance. It’s centuries of conditioning tangled into the scripts we don’t even realize we’re reading.

Roles That Outlive the People Who Wrote Them

We like to think we’ve moved forward. That with a few conversations, a few policy changes, a few Instagram posts, we’ve left the past behind and well on our way to a “woke” future. But gender roles don’t vanish just because we understand they’re outdated.

They live in our bodies.

They live in our silence.

They live in the moments we don’t even notice.

You don’t remember learning them, but you follow them like a sleeper agent who was told the password.

“Clean the house before the guests arrive.”

“Don’t speak too loudly.”

“Expect strength from men, softness from women.”

“Smile. Nod. Serve.”

You were rewarded for being obedient and he was praised for being tough.

You were taught to soften your voice and he was told to speak with authority.

You were shown how to make a home. While he was told to provide one.

These things are not always taught with cruelty. Sometimes they’re passed down with care, under the guise of “protection,” “respect,” or “tradition.” And so we internalize them as part of our identity and they become who we think we are.

Psychology, Culture, and the Gendered Brain

Psychology calls this gender schema theory. Basically, it means the internal map we start drawing in early childhood that tells us how boys and girls “should” behave. These frameworks are shaped by family, media, religion, and culture. They tell us what’s appropriate, acceptable, attractive.

They might begin as suggestions but over time, they harden into expectations. And once those expectations are ingrained, they become habits- automatic, and unthinking. That’s why even when we know better, we often don’t act differently. But we’re just defaulting, not failing.

The toughest part is the cognitive dissonance because even when we know gender roles are outdated, there’s guilt in not following them. Like feeling selfish for not helping or cold for not nurturing. Maybe you feel some kind of entitlement for expecting emotional support from your partner. Or disappointed when they don’t fit the gendered fantasy that you thought you outgrew.

This push and pull makes us feel like frauds, like imposters. Because we say we want equality, but we still crave the emotional rewards of old roles: the chivalry, the service, the power.

Religion and the Divine Order of Gender

Every major religion has played a part in reinforcing gender roles. Perhaps not always maliciously, but deeply and consistently. Gender roles were never just about personality or choice. It had so much to do with order, survival, and in many cases, power. Over centuries, those roles got baked into traditions, reinforced by stories, and eventually passed down like family heirlooms.

Across belief systems, be it Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Sikhism or any other,  you’ll find gendered ideals:

The devoted wife.

The noble protector.

The obedient daughter.

The authoritative father.

And while some of these roles may have served a purpose in historical contexts, they too have, in many ways, outlived their usefulness and instead, become prisons.

Religion codified these roles into something sacred. This meant that disobeying them wasn’t just a simple rebellion, it felt like SIN.

Ritual became rule. Rule became virtue. Virtue became shame.

But even when we begin to unlearn what religion, tradition, and family once taught us, the residue doesn’t wash off so easily.

These beliefs aren’t just in sermons or rituals but in every pause when we speak. Shame creeps in when we disobey and we feel like we are betraying our lineage for simply choosing differently.

And so, even with awareness, we are heavy leaden with the weight of roles we no longer believe in, feeling torn between who we are becoming and who we were told we must be.

The Guilt of Knowing Better

Many of us identify as progressive, independent, and empowered and maybe we really are.

But why do we still feel a jolt of disappointment when a man doesn’t offer to pay? Why do men still feel pressured to be providers?

Why is it that even today, we raise daughters to dream big, but still teach them to say “sorry” too much.

Or tell sons to express themselves, but still stiffen when they cry too easily.

The truth is, we are quick to say “be who you are,” but we quietly celebrate when they stay in line.

And here lies the heart of the conflict:

We know the roles aren’t real. But we still feel guilty when we don’t play them. And the worst part is that, we sometimes resent others when they don’t play them either.

We expect ourselves to be evolved, but somewhere deep inside, we still want the roles to be filled. Maybe by us, by our partners, or by the world.

We feel like imposters in our own beliefs and constantly feel like we’re betraying something but we’re just not sure what.

Gender Role or Sex Role? Words That Define Us

Some roles are written into our bodies: chromosomes, hormones, anatomy. These are sex roles.

But most of the roles we live come from stories. Stories that shape our gestures, expectations, desires. Stories about what it means to be a woman or a man, soft or strong, nurturing or assertive. These are gender roles- taught, repeated, enforced. It’s what is stitched into lullabies, textbooks, temple rituals, and sitcom punchlines.

Some schools of psychology and sociology lean toward this understanding: most of what we think of as “natural” behavior is actually modeled, rewarded, and reinforced. In other words, behaviour is built, not born. Biology may set the stage, but culture writes the script. And we’ve all been cast before we even knew we were in a play.

How We Begin to Unlearn

You don’t need to burn the kitchen down just because you found yourself doing the dishes.

You don’t need to exile your dad or rewrite your childhood in a rage.

You don’t even have to stop liking flowers, or wanting someone to walk you home.

But you can notice.

You can pause before you perform.

You can ask: Is this who I am, or who I was trained to be?

You can name the double standards.

You can say no even when your upbringing tells you to smile and nod.

You can be both: loving and loud, soft and self-defining.

Because that guilt, the friction and the ever present internal tug-of-war is not a sign of failure but a sign that signals you are waking up inside a system that wants you asleep.

We might still make the tea. We might still carry the heavy boxes. But we’ll do it awake.

The post Why Do I Still Want to Be Picked Up From the Auto Stand? first appeared on SUNGJEM AIER.

I still say grace before meals. I still pray before bed and after I wake up just as I did growing up on Sunday school benches, youth services, memory verses, and sermons about heaven and hell. Even now, as an adult living on my own, some habits are stitched so deeply into my religious routine that they feel automatic.

But somewhere between those childhood rituals and adult reality, something else crept in, too. Something heavier, quieter. Harder to pray away.

Growing Up Faithful in a Fearful Mind

For so many of us raised in religious homes, adult anxiety doesn’t always come from trauma in the obvious sense. Sometimes it’s quieter. Sometimes it’s the soft, persistent fear of not measuring up. Of being watched. Judged. Left out of the “kingdom.”

See, religious anxiety isn’t always loud. Sometimes it shows up as perfectionism. Overthinking. The constant replaying of conversations, scanning for the thing you might’ve said wrong. Sometimes it’s that urge to confess thoughts you haven’t even acted on, just in case.

I’m not saying religion is the villain here. I’m still a believer practicing my faith the best way I know how but growing up in a setting where doubts meant weakness and suffering was just “God testing you” ? Yeah, that tends to leave a mark.

The Lingering Weight of “Goodness”

It starts small.

When you’re a kid, it’s just the rules. You follow them because you’re told they keep you good, pure, worthy. But over time, “goodness” stops being about actions and starts becoming something you attach to your identity. Something fragile that you can lose.

And sure, guilt has its place. It reminds us where we’ve strayed. But when you learn it through the lens of sin and punishment, it becomes something heavier. It turns into chronic self-surveillance. And suddenly, what was supposed to be a source of comfort becomes an endless loop of trying to be “better,” “holier,” “more worthy.”

As a therapist and as a Christian, I’ve had to spend years untangling those knots. Asking myself where my faith ends and where fear begins. Learning how to keep the rituals that bring me peace while unlearning the ones that keep me small.

Religious Shame, Learned Young and Carried Long

Religious shame is different from ordinary shame.

Because when morality is tied to your worth as a person, mistakes stop being moments. They become identities. You don’t just mess up. You ARE messed up.

Religious shame prides itself in telling you that certain parts of you- your curiosity, your feelings, your doubts- are wrong for simply existing. And even years later, when you know better, when you’re actively unlearning it all, there’s still that quiet voice whispering, “But what if you’re wrong? What if you’re bad after all?”

The Therapist’s Religious Dilemma

Because isn’t the whole point of helping people… to help people? Isn’t empathy supposed to stretch beyond our personal beliefs?

Faith should never be a filter for who deserves care. And yet, in spaces like ours, where religion isn’t just part of the culture, it IS the culture, those lines blur way too easily.

Whichever one you listen to; it’s all the same lesson.

Rewriting the Rules

This is the complicated part for me.

After over a decade of learning how the human mind works, how it breaks, how it bends, how it heals, the more I started to see the tangled threads between religion and mental health.

No matter what your faith looks like, a lot of us are carrying this invisible pressure to be good enough. To earn love. To avoid punishment. To belong.

I’ve also seen the good- the hope, the structure, the peace that faith can bring. I still experience that myself. But I know now that it’s okay to separate faith from the fear and control that sometimes come packaged with it.

And more than anything, you are allowed to stop proving your worth.

Where I Find Peace Now

And if that relationship makes you feel anxious, afraid, or unworthy? It’s time to reimagine it. Because peace shouldn’t feel like a reward you earn for behaving perfectly. It should be the ground you stand on, no matter what.

But that’s just me, in my Baptist life, in my Christian ways.

And when you find that…

The post God, Guilt, and the Quiet Panic of Growing Up Religious first appeared on SUNGJEM AIER.