How do we stop feeling like exjws? (page 3)

zen nudist

by realizing that we are all part of a single reality, we are many and we are one... JWs are part of what we were and still are. you are only EX in the sense of not identifying your current beliefs or practices with this group... but they are part of reality as it currently exists and there is no need to see them as other. reality is perfect unto itself until you compare it to something it is not and perhaps never will be... ideals are part of the brain washing tools that JWs use to guilt people into submission... ideals are rejections of reality as you find it with the claim that something unreal is superior. all ideals are made in igornorance of how reality actually works.

DanTheMan

welcome to the board, zen nudist! Interesting thoughts.

A Vietnam veteran has experienced something that can never be erased by time, therapy, just getting over it, whatever. Our experiences are what gives us our identity, for better or worse.

The WT makes it such a point to foster a we/they mentality. This sort of thinking is one of the biggest hurdles that we ex-dubs face - feeling integrated with a society that we once rejected and condemned, looking down our snobby fundamentalist noses at them. That emotional disconnect that I once felt for non-witnesses still lingers, and there are times (scary news stories are my chief cult triggers) when I dissociate and long for the soothing anonymity and oblivion of JWism.

Hang in there Brummie. If life wasn't painful and difficult, we would never learn anything, we'd just be bacteria floating around.

Special K

I wonder if what you experienced came by way of a "body memory" type of thing.

It happens to me..

A dream, a series of events, something in my everyday life.. and my body by way of the mind starts having those same severe feelings of being excommunicated, being cut off, abandoned, ..heat beats faster.. start feeling spacy and low...

It always passes once I tap into awareness and trace back to what I was thinking about just before this occurs.. or what has just happenned to me.. then I have a reason..

sincerely

special k

Aztec

(((Brumm))) We don't ever have to stop feeling like ex jw's! We just have to add more to it. Example:

I, Carrie, am an ex jw, a mom, a friend, a chat ho, a cartoon freak, a student of life, an extremely talented designer, a good daughter to my parents, a lover of bald men...LOL, etc. etc......

As long as that is not the only label you use to define yourself, there is no reason to stop being an ex jw. It's part of who you are and that's it. Don't give it too much importance or too little okay sweetheart? I actually thought long and hard about this response cause I was worried about you. I sometimes feel the way you described when my blood sugar drops rapidly. Take care of yourself okay?

Much love,

~Aztec

mouthy

Well as always! I am the odd one on board. An Ex Jehovahs Witness is ALL I am...It dominates my life.
I just had an Ozzie staying with me for 8 days -she stayed with me 37 years ago> When I was a JW-I tried hard to convert her it didnt happen Thank God!!!She has been drilling into me these 8 days...To stop being a EXJW -Just like she wanted me to stop being a JW...Years ago!!! She saw how I am sending out tapes, videos, phone calls , "apostate visits" She begged me to "DO things for YOU Grace-"' But I cant!!!! Am I a addicted freak????? ( dont answer all at once) I wish I could forget the Wt... I guess I cant forget how I messed up my kids lives, my hubby, my friends( that became JWs) O.K. So I am "down in the dumps Brummie ...... Not a thing I am always. but you asked the question >>>>my answer...Pass the crying towel please

zen nudist

you cannot change a single step that brought you to this point. call it reality, the universal unfolding, God's will, whatever you can identify with, but call it the reality of what DID infact happen. no one is anywhere else but where they find themselves at this very moment and no one can alter how anyone got here... there is no choice about how we got here, your options are ahead of you, but accepting how you got here is fundament to seeing clearly where you can go from here. Driving a car 100kph with your eyes focused mostly in the rearview mirror is not the best way I can think of driving.... that is exactly what you do when your mind is focused on every other what if or if only moment of the past and not paying attention to the living present moment. you are being haunted by a dead ghost, the past. it has only as much power over you as you give it. when your mind gets overwhelmed, tell yourself, I am here now, I cannot change how I got here and I dont know better than the universe... and no one else is superior to me, we are all exactly where we must be at this very moment and cannot be anywhere else. name what you see around you, focus your mind on the living present moment and banish those dead ghost memories.

Understand this also, the future you think about is a distorted mirror not a window. the goals you are currently persuing are not ahead of you, they are desires pushing you from the past, more ghosts... take each moment as it comes, one heart beat at a time, one breath. examine your body, see if you are holding it tight without realizing it... relax, you are where you belong, not where you wish you were... all of us are.

there are two hells and one heaven.

not getting what you want

getting what you want

wanting what you get.

you figure out which is which.

Singing Man

The Witness's took advantage of the human need for acceptance and unity with a group, then made by-laws to hold over your head as threats to expel you and shun you once they have you absorbed into their quagmire of misplaced loyalties.

What a sad and disgusting place to find your self seeking God at. If your a tender hearted person you can surely be hurt by such groups as the Witness's. I have found myself finding rest for my soul by attending certain meetings at times from say the Baptist they are very easy going kind hearted group of people, I go when I need some spiritual tenderness where I will not be treated like I am soiled clothes. You what I like about the Batist before and after the service you can if you want drink coffie and donuts and talk and laugh and relaxe. Now if you tried that at a Witness meeting they would draw and quarter you.

Perry

SixofNine summed it up best I think.

Now sure, perhaps as witnesses we somehow lessened, or even avoided these feelings altogether, but then again, we were lobotomized three times a week!

I think those are normal feelings.... unlike the non-feeling life we once led.

Perry

maybesbabies

Zen Nudist, first of all, welcome to the board!!! Second of all, you make a very good point!!! The only problem is that while we may accept this reasoning through our logical minds, it is difficult to process through our emotional minds. Logically, we know that we must put the past behind, that the future has yet to materialize, and that the present is the only reality that exists. But emotionally, the past still has it's hold on our current thinking, and the hope for the future is marred by the past. We can only project a future that is in line with what we have learned from the past, therefore we cannot envision a change that we do not know we are capable of!!!!! I understand the pain and longing that come with being part of something that you cannot regain. It is the feeling of being wanted and needed, of being part of something greater than yourself. For me, being on this board has brought that feeling back to me, maybe not as intensely as before, but still in a significant way. I hope that maybe just being loved may bring a feeling of connectedness for Brummie, as it has for me. Brummie, we love ya dahhhling, and we understand. The past still does hold sway, but the future has limitless possibilities for breaking the mold and being the person you want to be!!!!

zen nudist

** But emotionally, the past still has it's hold on our current thinking, and the hope for the future is marred by the past.

Many think that emotions are different from thoughts as if they were opposites, but the fact is that all thoughts have an emotional component and all emotions are likewise a function of ideas and beliefs.

Think of emotions as symbols of energy which moves a motor [your body/muscles etc], beliefs are the regulator of that energy. it is not a seperation between belief and emotion but between irration beliefs which seek to move your body in ways it cannot go, like into the past and the future vs rational beliefs about what can be done right now... the more irrational your belief or demand on yourself or the universe the stronger the emotional energy you have within you trying to move your body where it cannot go... an analogy is your car is moving down the highway and you throw it into reverse... your car will not stop moving forwards... but the transmission may start losing parts all over the place and you will feel some really bad things .. .this is how these irration emotions effect us too...

these emotions have NO hold on your current thinking beyond what your beliefs give them... it is bad habits of thought, misunderstandings of how thoughts and emotions are tied together, etc. which cause these bad feelings. Through Zen I have found many techniques and practices which break these bad mental habits and help form new and more beneficial ones.

Everything you do in one way or another tries to bring your back to a state of contentment.... but when the dis-ease is mentally based, there can be no other cure than changes of thought pattern.

it takes time and effort and that is why it is called practice, but like anything else, the more effort you put into it the easier it gets.

How do we stop feeling like exjws?

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