They are shocked to find I am happy and in control of my life and I choose who to associate with.
I believe that taking responsibility for how we conduct our selves now, is essential if we are to move beyond anger and bitterness.
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when my wife and i hold exit meeting in our home this is what we attempt to teach former jw,
we don’t get to do it as much as we used to now that we are back in school for the summer
you see that nothing confuses a jw more than to see you happy- smiling and enjoying life,
sad to say in my exp many who leave are angry and feel no one is going to tell them how to live their life and so they chose either destructive behaviors or destructive relationship
i have had pioneer sisters in my living room where upon leaving the org --were throwing "Coochie" around like it was going out of style,
only to realize they don’t have to club it up now that they are our-
instead my wife and i teach folks to use their life to its fullest and so folks end up getting back in college, pursuing thier dreams they put on hold as a jw, being an actor, singer, dancer, volunteering to work in an abuse center,
going back looking at their cash and working on setting up a real retirement program, upgrading thier skills , and expanding thier circle of friends beyond jw and seeing that the wt lied about folks who are not jw as being wicked, yes there are bad folks ,but in my exp there are many more good folks
i teach folks to reconnect with their nonjw family and tell them you are sorry for being so cold to them all these years, and let them know you have left wt and in my personal exp and the exp of every single person i have worked with, thier nonjw family welcomed them with open arms
tell the folks on your job, you have left and they too will welcome you with open arns
one of the most important thing wt does is trap you into only having jw as friends and it is conditional, based on how many mags you sell for the month
the reaction of nonjw is amazing.----all my coworkers and nonjw family have been most understanding of how I treated them when they invited me to their functions and homes viewing them as Unbelievers or servants of satan as it were--
the most important thing one Must do before leaving wt is to start building a new clientele of friends,
for once jw find out you no longer want to sell books they drop you like a hot potatoe
when we left they had rumors of me leaving Lady “C” for a white woman, we were divorcing, instead we would see them in the mall and they were shocked we would speak and smile and they could not believe it, as a number of them would say:
“you all look so refreshed as if you just got off vacation”
And we would laugh and tell them – since stepping back from the demands of the org our life has been more refreshing
I used to ask jw, don’t we say we are the happiest folks on earth, Do you feel like you are one of them, can you name one jw who you know who feels he is the happiest person on earth
Instead they drag to meeting that they hate, go in service that they hate and study the same material that they hate- smile
As I tell folks the life of a good jw does not have any Down time, that is why they are always tired
Jw remind me of living in a hamster wheel always running and getting nowhere-