Expert: Andrew - 6/21/2007

Question
QUESTION: When I went to visit a church and I want you to know they were ALL so, kind but, it's not the same unity. And also, they get a check for what they do. And ask for money 10 % which they say is required and then they go home. Don't get me wrong their was something I did like but I don't see the dieing LOVE for their beliefs. Would they die for Christ? Would the work without a paycheck? Would the deicate their whole life to a cause without money education? Live a very, very, simple life. THank You Joeanna

ANSWER: Dear Joeanna,

You haven't told me much of anything about your background. I can only guess that you are a former Witness beginning to explore the possibility of attending another church, and distressed with what you're finding in the course of such exploration. This is my guess, and the rest of my message will assume this is so.

I believe it is essential for a former Witness to spend significant time and effort on your own recovery work BEFORE you attend another church. Otherwise there is a significant risk that you will simply jump from the frying pan into the fire.

I think your distress results from not having done enough recovery work yet.

Jehovah's Witnesses are NOT just another church, as you well know. The impact on every aspect of your private and public life is immense. Other people switching churches won't understand this. They'll tell you just get over it and make a switch like they did. But they weren't dealing with cult mind control, and you are. So it takes more time.

In my opinion, former Witnesses must first reclaim their minds as their own and deal with many difficult issues before they can attend a church again. You were spiritually and psychologically abused in a "church". You have to deal with that in order to overcome it.

If you want to give your heart and mind to God, and do not see the value in reclaiming your own mind, try to think of it this way: If you are to give your heart and mind to God, you have to have one to give Him, right? If your mind is still stuck in Witness dogma (which it most certainly is if you were a Witness for long and have not yet done significant recovery work), then you don't even have possession of your own mind, so how can you give it to God?

For example, what you saw and appreciated among Jehovah's Witnesses as worldwide "unity"...is it really unity based on full agreement and a cooperative spirit, or is it uniformity where there is no choice, and therefore agreement is moot, and where spirit is squashed in favor of intellectual analysis of "spirit", therefore cooperation is mechanistic?

You may not look at this particular issue in the same way that I do, and that's ok, but I discovered after reclaiming my own mind that I do not value the Witnesses form of "unity" after all, and you might too. Until you allow yourself time to do the work to reclaim your own mind, you will never know what you actually believe.

If that is scary, then take it to God in prayer. He is still there as he always was, and God loves you.

You will find that once you begin to think your own thoughts and exercise your own values, there are many things about Witness practice that you would not choose. Take time to discover them for yourself.

Once I fully recognized how it requires deceptive manipulation, witch hunt mentality, and cruelty to children in order to achieve Witness "unity", I realized that it is not the "virtue" I once thought it was. It is an example of learning to accept something new, even though it was initially outside my comfort zone.

You may have observed passion for one's beliefs among Jehovah's Witnesses, but was that really LOVE that you saw, or something else? When I was a Witness, I really loved God, and I was in it for God, not for the organization; that's why I left an organization that expects me to treat the organization itself as God.

I'm sure there are many Witnesses who really do love God, and just haven't found their way out yet. And many former Witnesses who really do love God, and that's why they left. Perhaps you are one of them. It must be God you loved, not the organization. Otherwise, you would not have been able to leave. Those who love the organization as their "mother" cannot ever leave it, no matter how many doubts they must repress in order to stay.

So I trust that you love God and you probably always did.

But my passion for my former belief system, which you describe longingly because you saw it in others, was not really love. It was arrogant certainty, compulsive obligation, and presumptuously grabbing ahold of the minds of other persons trying to reorient them as I saw fit. So again once I fully appreciated what I was doing, I realized that "love" for my beliefs was not the "virtue" I once thought it was.

Real love is something that transcends belief systems. My real love is for God and my children and my fellow man, and that part has not faded as I got clearer about my former mental gymnastics.

As Witnesses, we were taught some very strange things about what LOVE is. The Witness leadership has to reframe and redefine love in order to do the hateful things they do in the name of a loving God. It will take you time and effort to remove that distorted definition from yourself. In the mean time, you are seeing the world through tinted lenses, and when you see members of other churches failing to show the same forced uniformity or the same fanatic passion for their belief system, you will put a distorted label on it.

This is why you need to spend time and effort on your own recovery before you can begin searching for another church.

In my case, with extensive time and effort spent on my recovery from Witness mind, including a face-to-face support group and reading a number of books and watching a number of videos and participating for hundreds of hours in Internet exchanges with others in recovery, I finally felt ready to look for a church SEVEN YEARS AFTER I STOPPED ATTENDING THE KINGDOM HALL.

And because I was ready, God allowed me to find one that felt spiritually and emotionally nourishing to me. It wasn't the first church I visited. I visited several before I found one that felt right; and I wondered if I ever would find one that felt right. Perhaps some XJW's never do. But it worked for me because I was finally in the right place in my heart and mind and spirit, and because I live in a major metropolitan area that offers many choices.

So my advice to you, Joeanna, is "don't rush yourself". Give yourself time, seek out support, work to overcome the past. Only then can you begin to craft a new future for yourself.

If you decide that your recovery requires professional support, look for a professional who has experience with recovery from cult experiences. Not all counsellors do. Please at least get some form of informal support like a discussion group or an online chat. The project you need to undertake is too big to do it alone.

There are lots of kind and supportive former cult members out there who are ready and willing to help you along the way. Some of them merely switched from one cult to another rather than really reclaiming their own minds, so they'll want to preach to you in order to promote their flavor of the month.

But remember, nobody can tell you what you think but you. You have to be free to discover for yourself what you believe without pressure, or it's just artificial again.

Best wishes,
Andrew

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thank you, yes, I have been on the fence for about four years now, it's not easy it COST dearly, but one thing I do enjoy is freedom to think but, that took longtime I still get panic attacks and feel afraid that I am disobeying God I so, much miss my friends and family and I cannot make relationships. I prayed this morning about returning home were I live all around JW. I ask myself could I endure all the shunning again. Only my Father in heaven can direct me. I lost and my life is going know where. I thought perhaps I can go back to the Hall knowing now what I do know. I would be so, different. I truly LOVE God. I know what you mean about the organization that's how this all started. When I did research on the first father's Orgien was excommunicated for believing different so they did try to keep unity too. But, they couldn't. The early church would actually kill people if they didn't believe in the trinity. JW only treat you like your dead if, you don't believe the way they do or if you openly speak. So, I have enough faith in my God to direct me to where he want me to worship him. I waiting for him to answer my prays. I know writing to you is going to direct me away from the organization. But, I have had witnesses coming to my door here at my daughter's home in Knoxville, TN. and I listen to these elder's and I saw humble voices which I appreciated because I have seen control freaks in the past who have taking my life and almost destroyed my mind. They even wanted to know what I was thinking about them!! And I would obey without question NOT anymore! But, I still LOVE the organization, am I making sense. I tried going to church I don't believe I can or ever will be involved in church. Yet, I long to help people and serve God. I have so, much, to give back and I don't have much time left. Thank you Andrew for listening. I do feel closer to Christ, now when I started reading just the Bible I found how much Love Christ has for us too and how much love his disciples had for him. I though if he is just Michael the arch angel why didn't he just say it? The Jews new who Michel was. will that's all I have to say about it. Take care J

Answer
Dear Joeanna,

> Thank you, yes, I have been on the fence for about four
> years now...

"On the fence" I suppose means that you have been inactive as a Witness but could not bring yourself to withdraw your moral support from them. I was on the fence like that. My training as a Witness had taught me that my eternal life was at stake, and leaving the Witnesses would mean turning my back on God, which I simply could not do. So despite massive evidence that the organization was not what it claimed to be, I was stuck, unable to move forward, for a long time. That's why I prayed to God and asked for an answer, "What should I do?"

> it's not easy it COST dearly, but one thing I
> do enjoy is freedom to think but...

"It cost dearly", as in losing everything, your faith, your community, your family & friends. I understand. When we've put all our eggs in one basket, as the Witness leadership insists we do, the cost of leaving becomes immense. This is why many cannot leave even when they don't believe anymore; so instead they just repress their doubts and their souls become more and more twisted over time. I understand the cost. I have lost everything too. Yet, to me, my "freedom to think" was worth it. Having my soul no longer twisted by repressing doubts and being able to start a journey of honest discovery and healthy social relationships was worth it. Yet the cost should not have been so high. It is a travesty that they set up such devastating walls to keep people in.

We lost everything in order to keep our souls. Perhaps this is "the one pearl of high value".

> that took longtime I still get panic attacks and feel
> afraid that I am disobeying God...

I understand panic attacks. I had panic attacks while sitting in my seat at the Kingdom Hall. My fear was that an elder would tap me on the shoulder (once again) and take me aside and dress me down, not because I had done anything wrong, but because he had some unresolved personal issue, such as jealousy that I had been a Bethelite and he had not. My soul knew of the distortion and travesty among Witnesses before I knew consciously. Yet I continued on for several more years faithfully until God gave me a way out.

> I so much miss my friends and family and I cannot make
> relationships.

Family cannot be replaced, but friends can. It's not that you 'cannot make friends' but rather the "social skills" which worked in the artificial Witness environment do not work in the real world. So you have to learn new social skills. It can be done, though it will take time. This is part of your recovery process. There is work to do, but you can do it. Now that you have seen the other side, you would have to twist your soul even harder to fit back into the small box the Witnesses require you to fit into mentally. That might be easier socially, but at the cost of your spiritual, emotional, and psychological health.

Or you can keep and enhance your health by learning better social skills now and then use them to make new friends. This time real friends who will not turn you in for the slightest infraction.

> I prayed this morning about returning home were I live all
> around JW. I ask myself could I endure all the shunning
> again.

Do you believe the bible where it says "God is within you"? I believe there is a spark of the divine within each of us, and therefore it is an insult to God to treat people the way Witnesses do. So self-respect (refusing to kowtow to insultes from the elders) is not rebellion against God, it is a way of honoring God.

May you find strength and support without having to endure the torturous social pressures of the Witnesses again. I found such support, and I believe you can too if you look in the right places.

> Only my Father in heaven can direct me. I lost and my life
> is going know where.

You have taken the girl out of the Kingdom Hall, but not the Kingdom Hall out of the girl. It is very common among former Witnesses to feel lost this way. You have been deworlded.

I understand that sense of loss and uncertainty. It seems as if there are no answers to be found. Give yourself time, do your work, get the support you need, and you can make it through this. The Sufis have a saying, "Confusion is the beginning of enlightenment". What if this sense of loss you are feeling is a tunnel you have to pass through in order to reach the light?

You are in a very vulnerable place. Too vulnerable to accept guidance from any human. Go to God in prayer, and expect him to answer. He will answer if you patiently demand an answer.

> I thought perhaps I can go back to the Hall knowing now
> what I do know. I would be so, different.

This is what I meant about fitting your mind back into a small box. You have begun to grow in your perceptions and worldview, and it would be much more difficult now to go back.

> I truly LOVE God.

I can see that. And he loves you even more. Don't let anyone tell you different. Count your blessings, Joeanna. Open your heart to new blessings, and watch for them; and God will show you he loves you. But you have to open your heart to the possibility first, and stop believing you are disapproved as the Witnesses teach, or you will not be able to see blessings when they come.

> I know what you mean about the organization that's how
> this all started. When I did research on the first
> father's Orgien was excommunicated for believing different
> so they did try to keep unity too. But, they couldn't. The
> early church would actually kill people if they didn't
> believe in the trinity. JW only treat you like your dead
> if, you don't believe the way they do or if you openly
> speak.

I can see you were a true believer, not just someone who went along with the crowd. So was I. When people say things about God, people like us feel it. We care. That's why I feel so strongly when people label God as hateful. He isn't. He's shown me first hand that his way is so much higher than the way of the Witnesses. That is my "witnessing".

> So, I have enough faith in my God to direct me to where he
> want me to worship him. I waiting for him to answer my
> prays. I know writing to you is going to direct me away
> from the organization.

Excellent. Don't let anyone else tell you what to believe about God. People have agendas. They want things for you. The Witnesses want to save your eternal life so badly they'll use deception and manipulation in order to do so.

It's true, even me. I want you to heal and find freedom the way I found it; but that doesn't give me the right to tell you what to believe about God. You have to be free to discover that for yourself.

> But, I have had witnesses coming to my door here at my
> daughter's home in Knoxville, TN. and I listen to these
> elder's and I saw humble voices which I appreciated
> because I have seen control freaks in the past who have
> taking my life and almost destroyed my mind. They even
> wanted to know what I was thinking about them!! And I
> would obey without question NOT anymore! But, I still LOVE
> the organization, am I making sense.

Yes it makes sense to me. The organization has been your community and safe haven in a dark world. Yet you have discovered that control and mind games from them and blind obedience from you are not the way. This is hard. I'm sorry you have such a hard experience to deal with.

Ask God what to do.

> I tried going to church I don't believe I can or ever will
> be involved in church. Yet, I long to help people and
> serve God.

It is much too early for you to be involved in a church, because you have to finish reclaiming your own mind and recovering from your past experience first. Ask God how to best serve him during your recovery period.

Look for ways to help people, and you will find them. You are now in a position to empathetically offer support to those who are travelling this hard road with you. Maybe you can help some of them. That is, other people who have been deworlded: Others in cult recovery, the homeless, those who come from a broken family, etc. Helping others is a very good way to help heal ourselves. Thank you for this opportunity.

> I have so, much, to give back and I don't have much time
> left.

I know you have a lot to offer. Trust that you will have the opportunities you need to give. You cannot make a rose grow faster through impatience. Be gentle with this rose as it grows.

> Thank you Andrew for listening.

Thank you for reaching out for support. The call for support and the answer are both gifts to one another, as it should be.

> I do feel closer to Christ, now when I started reading
> just the Bible I found how much Love Christ has for us too
> and how much love his disciples had for him.

You and I have been taught to shame and judge. By "judge" I mean to withhold compassion from those whom we don't approve. Yet you are seeing that God's way is much higher than that. Love is everything. God is love. I'm so glad you're finding that.

> I though if he is just Michael the arch angel why didn't
> he just say it? The Jews new who Michel was.

Perhaps God has allowed you to see just enough of the inconsistencies of your old belief system to nudge you off in a new direction. It isn't a system of fixed beliefs that takes us to true spirituality and connection with God. Fixed beliefs get in the way of faith and wonder and humility. Love and connectedness transcend beliefs.

One is only the superficial trappings of faith, and the other is the deep substance of faith. You're well on your way. Keep working at it, get the support you need, open your heart to God's blessings, and give it time.

You are not an enemy of God. Never let anyone tell you different.

Best wishes,
Andrew