Hello everyone and thank you for your replies. I went back and re-read my posts here and it is really interesting to me to see how thoughts evolve! One thing I've learned about posting thoughts themselves (like on social media or via youtube in a video) is that it leaves a digital footprint - and one that can be hard to remove or redact if one wants to.
Whatever mental state one is in can really evolve and change and when it comes to depression and emotional turmoil, one can say things they flat out don't mean or perhaps don't comprehend the seriousness of until later. I guess the main thing is to try and go in the correct direction and keep maturing, growing, and learning to love! Love is a huge deal that I've missed out on over the years. Love totally puts your focus in the right place or at least helps you and it's a great motivator for all things good.
Lately I've been working on my spiritual growth.
What has helped me on my spirtual healing journey as of late is talking with my Mom and a co-worker. My co-worker is die-hard Catholic and he was encouraging me to get back to praying. I told him that I always felt like I was talking to myself and didn't "get" it. He said, "Well you're supposed to view it as like you would talking to a loving father."
That hit home with me because I've never had a father I could talk to about all personal matters. It would always have to be a stranger or someone else so I just didn't do it. I would never talk about how I felt nor could I ask for help with any emotional/personal problems.
My aging mother and I were able to sit down and talk yesterday and it was a very nice discussion. In fact, a discussion that should have happened years ago.
So the bottom line is that as I've gotten older and started mellowing out, how I felt at that one particular time is not how I feel now.
Love is what it's all about and if you can't feel it, you need to work and gaining it by working through whatever is causing you to not be able to feel it. That's been a big problem for me and it's caused me to say and do things with nothing more than just logical approach to live seasoned with emotional turmoil from unresolved issues. When I addressed some unresolved issues with my Mom, the pain went away and I felt love come through. Same holds true with my wife. I hope many of you can experience this level of love and understanding.
I went on and addressed issues with Mom that I've had with the organization for many years. She listened and gave me some advice and after that, I felt so much better. You see, when you don't feel love, it's all too easy to start shooting arrows of blame. It clouds your judgement and makes you say things you wouldn't say when in a clear frame of mind. I must admit that many of the problems I've had with relatives, close family members, members of my congregation, and the WTBS stemmed from one thing - that was not being able to ask questions and an intense fear of reprisal for wanting to talk about it.
So my epiphany moment I had yesterday left me with love that I can feel for my Mom and Dad. Once being able to feel that, I now understand that living in ones choice of faith isn't a big list of legalistic dos and don'ts (as I had always thought), but rather it's supposed to be a loving guide of support to help us live the best life possible. I *finally* get it now and how to experience love for my family, aging parents, wife, congregation, Jehovah, Jesus, and respecting the direction from WTBS. I simply analyzed what I believe in and decided they are the closest thing to the truth I've ever found. Then I had to analyze my hurts and start to address them. It's uncomfortable as all get out, but it feels so much better afterwards.
I know people will probably heckle me for this update because it may very well not be the hoped-for bashing on the WTBS, but I'm glad to share my journey with you and explain myself about how I felt at one time and how I feel now. I feel deeply for everyone on this forum and hope that if you've been hurt by your beliefs, that you can reconcile them, experience love, and keep growing in it. It's something really special.
Thank You for reading!
silent
