The Soft Landing Pad

Navigating Nihilistic Despair

For many people, religion provides more than answers about the existence of God. It can offer an explanation for why we exist, what gives our lives purpose, and what happens after we die.

When those beliefs begin to change, some people may find themselves confronting an unsettling question:

If there is no greater plan for my existence, does my life have any meaning at all?

We use the term Nihilistic Despair to describe the emotional distress that can arise when someone feels that life has lost its meaning or purpose following a change in deeply held beliefs.

Nihilistic Despair is not a recognized mental health diagnosis, nor is it an experience everyone who questions religion will have. It is also different from philosophical nihilism, which does not necessarily involve emotional distress.

Psychologists have studied related experiences under the term struggles of ultimate meaning², including concerns about whether one’s life matters or has a deeper purpose.

A 2026 qualitative study involving 32 women who left fundamentalist Christianity documented experiences of emotional pain, identity disruption, and loss of family and community connections. On the other hand, participants also described resilience, freedom and opportunities for personal growth.³

When Meaning Feels Uncertain

Losing a belief system can leave behind questions that are difficult to answer.

If you once believed that God had a specific plan for your life, you may struggle to imagine what purpose means without that plan. If you believed in an afterlife, the possibility that life is finite may change how you understand death, relationships, and the time you have.

These questions deserve thoughtful consideration. They cannot always be resolved through simple reassurance or a change in perspective.

But losing an explanation for life’s meaning is not the same as losing the ability to experience meaning.

Discovering Meaning Without Certainty

One way to begin exploring meaning is to separate two questions:

Does my life have a purpose assigned to it by something beyond myself?

What makes my life meaningful to me and to the people around me?

You may not have an answer to the first question. You may never arrive at one, but you can still explore the second.

Meaning might emerge through relationships, creative work, curiosity, compassion, personal accomplishments, or contributions to the well-being of others.

In a 2024 study involving 24 former members of Christian fundamentalist religions, researcher Andreea Nica documented how participants developed new ways of finding meaning after leaving their religious communities. The study also described connections between this process and paricipants’ reported well-being.⁴

This does not mean rebuilding meaning is always easy or that everyone follows the same path.

You don’t need to discover a grand purpose that explains your entire existence. Sometimes, meaning begins with recognizing the people, experiences, and values that already matter to you.

Finding Your Footing

If you’re struggling with feelings of meaninglessness, you do not have to resolve every philosophical question before continuing with your life. Instead, consider starting with something small. Spend time with someone you trust. Reconnect with an activity you once enjoyed. Explore a subject that interests you. Find opportunities to contribute to something you care about.

You can also reconsider which traditions and practices from your religious past remain meaningful. Questioning their supernatural explanations does not automatically require abandoning the experiences themselves.

Allow yourself room for uncertainty. Your beliefs may continue to change, and your understanding of what makes life meaningful may change with them.

You do not have to know what your life ultimately means to recognize that something in it matters to you.

When Additional Support Is Needed

Feelings of uncertainty and sadness do not automatically indicate a mental health condition. However, persistent hopelessness, emotional distress, or difficulty managing everyday responsibilities may be reasons to seek additional support.

A qualified mental health professional can help you explore these experiences without requiring you to adopt a particular religious or philosophical perspective.

If you’re struggling, reaching out for help does not mean you’ve failed to navigate deconstruction successfully.

You deserve support while you work through difficult questions, regardless of where your beliefs eventually lead.

If you feel like you could benefit from additional support, The Secular Therapy Project can help you connect to licensed health professionals who use evidence-based, nonreligious approaches to therapy.

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Rebuilding Meaning and Purpose

For many people, religion provides a sense of meaning and purpose. It offers answers to questions like “why am I here?” and “what am I supposed to do with my life?”

But what happens when we no longer believe those answers?

Losing faith in a divine plan doesn’t mean our lives have lost their meaning. It means we may need to discover what makes our lives meaningful for ourselves.

Meaning and purpose don’t have to come from a higher power. They can come from our relationships, our values, and things we choose to do with our lives.

And we don’t need to have everything figured out to begin.

Finding Meaning in Everyday Life

Meaning doesn’t have to come from something grand and extraordinary. It can come from raising a family, helping a friend, learning something new, creating art, making someone’s day a little better, and countless other places.

Think about the people, experiences, and activities that make your life feel worthwhile. What matters to you? What brings you joy? What kind of person do you want to be?

These questions don’t always have easy answers, and our answers may change as we grow. But exploring them can help us discover what gives our lives meaning.

Finding meaning and purpose is only one part of building a fulfilling life. Our relationships, sense of belonging, and feelings about our own beliefs can also shape our well-being.

Research suggests that these factors can be just as relevant to nonreligious people as they are to religious people.

Creating Your Own Purpose

Meaning is about what makes life feel worthwhile. Purpose gives us something to work toward. For some people, that might mean raising their children, helping their community, protecting the environment, or making the world a better place. For others, it might mean learning a new skill, building something meaningful, or simply becoming a better version of themselves.

Your purpose doesn’t have to be assigned to you. It can be something you choose.

And you don’t need one great purpose that defines your entire life. You can have many purposes, both large and small, that change over time.

Nonreligious Identity and Well-Being

A 2025 study by Frost, Edgell, and Miller explored how being nonreligious relates to people’s happiness, life satisfaction, and overall health.⁵ The researchers found three important things:

1. How You Feel About Being Nonreligious Matters Most

People who found comfort and strength in their nonreligious beliefs tended to report greater happiness and life satisfaction. Those who experienced stress or anxiety about being nonreligious tended to report lower levels of well-being.

2. Community Makes a Difference

People who attended events or activities organized by atheist, humanist, or other nonreligious groups tended to report greater life satisfaction and better overall health. While this doesn’t prove that joining these groups makes people healthier, or happier, it suggests that finding a supportive community can play an important role in our well-being.

Finding community doesn’t have to mean joining an atheist organization. Friendships, volunteer groups, hobby clubs, and other communities can also offer opportunities to connect with people who share our interests and values.

3. Labels Matter Less Than Experiences

Whether someone identified as an atheist, agnostic, or another nonreligious label was generally less important to their well-being than how they felt about being nonreligious and whether they participated in a community.

However, people who had recently become nonreligious were more likely to report anxiety about their lack of religion. This suggests that the transition away from religion may contribute to feelings of anxiety for some people, although the study cannot tell us how any particular person’s feelings will change over time.

Atheism and Agnosticism Aren’t Silver Bullets

It’s important to remember that being nonreligious doesn’t automatically make someone happier or less happy. It’s also important to remember that leaving religion doesn’t mean we suddenly have all the answers.

We may still struggle with loneliness, uncertainty, grief, or questions about our place in the world. These are human experiences, not problems unique to religion or nonreligion. What matters is how we respond to these challenges, how we build relationships, and how we create a life that reflects our values.

Rebuilding Meaning Takes Time

If you’re struggling to find meaning after leaving religion, you don’t need to figure everything out today: start small. Spend time with people you care about. Explore interests you’ve always wanted to pursue. Find ways to contribute to something that matters to you.

Give yourself permission to question old beliefs, explore new ideas, and change your mind. You may even discover that some of the things that gave your life meaning before leaving religion still matter to you today.

You don’t have to replace everything you’ve lost. Sometimes, rebuilding means recognizing what was meaningful all along.

And perhaps most importantly, remember that your life doesn’t have to serve a cosmic purpose to be worth living.

Your life can have meaning and value, even when you’re still struggling to recognize what that meaning might be.

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Finding Community and Support

For many people, religion is more than a collection of beliefs. It is also a community.

Religious communities can provide friendships, shared traditions, emotional support, and a sense of belonging. They bring people together to celebrate important moments, support one another during difficult times, and build lasting relationships.

When someone’s religious beliefs change, their relationship with that community may change as well. For some, leaving religion means losing friendships, familiar traditions, or places where they once felt welcome. Others maintain close relationships with religious friends and family members, even when their beliefs no longer align.

Whatever your experience, meaningful relationships and a sense of belonging are not exclusive to religion.

When Relationships Change

One of the most difficult parts of religious deconstruction can be navigating relationships with people who still hold the beliefs you’re questioning. Friends and family members may struggle to understand your changing perspective. Some may respond with curiosity and compassion, while others may react with disappointment, fear, or rejection. These reactions can be painful, especially when they come from people you love and trust.

But differences in belief don’t always have to mean the end of a relationship. It may be possible to maintain meaningful connections by focusing on shared values, respecting differences, and establishing healthy boundaries.

You do not have to agree about religion to care about one another. At the same time, you are not obligated to remain in relationships where you are repeatedly mistreated or pressured to abandon your personal convictions.

You deserve relationships built on mutual respect, not unquestioning agreement.

Building New Connections

Finding community after leaving religion can take time.

In a 2019 study involving 24 people who left Christian fundamentalist religions, researcher Andreea Nica documented the challenges participants faced when rebuilding their social relationships. The study also described how developing supportive, nonreligious social networks contributed to their reported well-being.⁶ Other research has found associations between participation in nonreligious organizations and greater life satisfaction and self-reported health.

But finding community doesn’t necessarily mean joining an atheist or humanist organization. You might discover meaningful relationships through volunteer work, community events, hobby groups, educational programs, or activities you already enjoy.

Some people find belonging in explicitly secular communities. Others develop close friendships with people whose religious beliefs differ from their own. What matters is finding people with whom you can share experiences, develop trust, and build meaningful relationships. You don’t have to begin with a large group. Sometimes, a single supportive friendship is a valuable place to start.

Finding Support Along the Way

If you’re questioning your religion or struggling with changes in your beliefs, you don’t have to navigate those experiences entirely on your own. There are organizations dedicated to helping people explore religious doubts, connect with others who have shared similar experiences, and find additional support.

Recovering from Religion provides peer support for people experiencing religious doubt or adjusting to life without religion. Its services include telephone and online conversations, support groups, and educational resources.

The Secular Therapy Project helps connect people with mental health professionals who use evidence-based, nonreligious approaches to therapy.

You may also find support through trusted friends, family members, local community organizations, or professionals who respect your beliefs and personal autonomy.

There is no single type of community that everyone needs, and there’s no requirement to identify as an atheist, agnostic, or secular spiritualist to deserve understanding and support.

You Are Not Alone

Religious deconstruction can change how you understand yourself, your relationships, and the world around you.

Some connections may become difficult to maintain. Others may grow stronger. And along the way, you may discover new friendships, communities, and opportunities to belong.

You do not have to rebuild your entire social world overnight. Start where you are. Reach out when you feel ready. Give yourself permission to develop relationships that reflect who you are today, even as your beliefs continue to evolve.

A soft landing isn’t a place where someone tells you what to believe next. It’s a place where you’re given the freedom, support, and time to find your footing.

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Download the Brochure

The Soft Landing Pad is also available as a free, printable brochure.

Download a copy for yourself, share it with someone who may be questioning their faith, or print a few copies to make available in community spaces, libraries, and other places where they might reach someone who needs support.

Sometimes, knowing that understanding and support are available can make all the difference.

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References

1. Cole, M. C. (2025). Religious deconstruction: The process, themes, and psychosocial dynamics of deconstructing evangelical beliefs and practices [Doctoral dissertation, Adams State University]. ResearchGate. View publication ↩︎
2. Exline, J. J., Pargament, K. I., Grubbs, J. B., & Yali, A. M. (2014). The religious and spiritual struggles scale: Development and initial validation. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 6(3), 208–222. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0036465 ↩︎
3. Manley, L., Zippay, A., & McCoyd, J. L. M. (2026). Trajectory of deconstruction among fundamentalist exvangelical women: Implications for social work. Families in Society. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/10443894251390587 ↩︎
4. Nica, A. (2024). Meaning-making and well-being among exiters of religious fundamentalism. Journal of Contemporary Religion, 39(2), 249–269. https://doi.org/10.1080/13537903.2024.2359298 ↩︎
5. Frost, J., Edgell, P., & Miller, M. (2025). Varieties of nonreligious experience: Expanding understandings of nonreligious wellbeing. Sociology of Health & Illness, 47(5), Article e70060. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.70060 ↩︎
6. Nica, A. (2019). Exiters of religious fundamentalism: Reconstruction of social support and relationships related to well-being. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 22(5), 543–556. https://doi.org/10.1080/13674676.2019.1636015 ↩︎