Hi, my name is Erik Stoop and welcome to Voice from the Wild, a channel dedicated to exploring questions around life, spirituality and what it means to become a healthy human
As a youngster I got involved in drug abuse, which led me down a path of addiction and other destructive behaviour. Although I would say that I had been a Christian all my life, it was really at this point that I started to explore religion as a way of dealing with my addiction, but through a gradual process, I began to discover that many of the mainstream ideas around God, the Bible and spirituality didn’t exactly work for me anymore.
Years after becoming a so-called born again Christian, I now feel more comfortable identifying as “Spiritual but not Religious”. I still believe that the great spiritual traditions hold the answers to some of life’s toughest questions, but I believe that the way in which these traditions, particularly Christianity have been institutionalized has made them somewhat dull… at least for me, someone with a yearning for something truly transformative that goes deeper, much deeper than egoistic religion.
I like to think of my own journey as a journey that took me off the beaten path and into a kind of wilderness and in many ways, I’m still there, wrestling with my faith as I navigate my way through life and it is from this place that I share some of what I have discovered with Voice from the Wild.
I’m really doing this because I am interested in these topics and therefore I enjoy talking about it to whoever is willing to listen. I spent many years doing public speaking in rehabs and I also hosted a support group / Bible study group for people struggling with addiction. I am passionate about sharing ideas that have helped me along my own path of recovery and personal growth with others in the hope that someone else might benefit from it as well and I trust that you will find value in what I have to share.
Thank you for visiting my Voice from the Wild and please do subscribe to my YouTube channel and you can follow me on Facebook.
Much love,
Erik