by Terry 69 Replies latest jw experiences
I've been a high steel worker for over forty years, tell me, how about you and I walk on a 6" wide steel beam just three stories above ground?
Golf
Mmmmmm, sounds so tempting! You are too kind to offer! Don't think me ungrateful to refuse. But, I have to do my laundry now...........................
Course on the flip side you have those who over think their emotions and everything associated with them.....
One of the problems with our emotions is that we tend to describe them in terms of context instead of content. The result is that people think there are more emotions than there really are.
I believe we have four basic emotions.
1. Love (contentment, satisfaction, moving toward, attachment) These feeling tend to be gut related. Yes I mean intestines. We want to feel full. We want to be satisfied. There are no boundaries or conflict.
2. Rage (frustration) Muscular reaction. Clenched fist. Tight jaws. Blood to the stomach.
3. Fear (defense of self, protect boundaries, maintain status, jealousy is fear) Our brains and nerves are the system of dealing with "emergency". When people say they have to think about something before they give you an answer it is most likely going to be NO. Fear is at the basis of thinking.
4. Curiosity (the function of the sensory system. Orientation. Need for something New.)
We are lovers, doers, thinkers & seers. There is a system involved with each of these functions. That is the basis of our emotions.
It is a lot simpler than we realize. Some think that emotions combine to form a kind of palette with all sorts of subtle shades. That isn't how the body works. It can only experience one emotion at any given moment. However, emotions can often alternate rapidly and this gives the sense that they are mixing. They aren't mixing. You are mixing them in your thinking process.
I don't think there is much difference between JW's and anyone else. Everyone seems to have their own brand of ignorance and stupid beliefs.
Most of what we evolved to do (the big 4 fuck,fight,fear, & feed) has an associated emotion and we share it with all animals.
Terry, I just deleted a huge reply to your post.
But I agree whole heartedly that being a JW and in the borg for years impaires our thinking and feeling ability because for so long we are programmed to go against what we are really feeling and thinking.
Our personal thoughts are squelched, our personal feelings drowned by Watchtower cult teachings.
Enmeshment begins to happen.
Funny though, while the Borg can control our thoughts to some extent, the gut feelings, the body can refuse to obey the Watchtower Society.
For example, the many who suffer from anorexia and bullimia and fibromyalgia and other auto immune disorders in the borg may be suffering a form of body rebellion. What do you think Terry?
The reason I say this is from my own experience, so much ill health disappeared after leaving the Borg.
Anewme
Terry:
I agree with your post. On my journey out of that religion, I am making it a very important point to identify all my emotions and why I am having them at any given time. Some of them have nothing to do with the religion but have roots in my non-JW childhood but I can identify them as such. While active there, over the years I would find myself caught up in some controversy with somebody and I would be left asking myself "why am I having this conversation with this person?"
I came to realize that OTHER people there felt they could project their PROBLEM on to me. In all honesty, I can say that this didn't just happen there but it can happen on my job or anywhere else. I guess I may seem vulnerable or an easy mark to people who are emotional blackmailing types. Now, at least I am aware enough that I can see it happening and I tend to avoid these people. I will not placate a sick or a jealous personality.
I do not know if this is as true for men as it is for women, but a whole lot of nonsense is dumped on women throughout their life and it has taken me a lifetime to catch on. But, I guess it is better late than never.
LHG
Real good Post Terry, unless you are as stong as a bear emotionally and mentally, I think we all have the tendancies to run from what scares us, our fears, our worries and only when we can confidently look at our own weaknesses and deal and handle them, are we not afraid of our emotions. No one is an island, no one can completely control their emotions, not even the Christ and when Lazarrus died his emotions got the best of him. It is a matter of knowing our weaknesses and knowing the way we are made, Christ had no weaknesses and yet he wept and knew his power to raise him.
However he didn't fight it, he allowed the way he was made to control him to the extent that it did, knowing where to shut off emotions for the mental part is the most difficult thing to do.
abr
Oh so well put LongHairGal!!!!
As Witnesses we are told to endure endure endure nonending all sorts of sufferings! Years of Meetings!
Field Service! Freezing mornings on frozen door steps! And strange people you would normally have nothing to do with you find you are hosting in your own home or walking slowly door to door with or defending yourself in some way from. Am I making sense?
Its all so out of control!!!
We need to protect ourselves from all the weirdies and the religionists telling us what God thinks and what we should think!
Why do you think I am now living as a hermit up here in the mountains? I kid you not. We are buying property six miles north of here too.....10 acres wild mountain lion country. I would rather deal with mountain lions than with people anymore.
FREEDOM IS PRECIOUS!
Anewme
Anewme:
Thanks! For so long, I used to think "is it ME???" Then I realized that wasn't entirely true. Now, I analyze things and don't just accept abuse or people's assumptions. Maybe in time I'll let up. But, for now, my brain is in a de-programming and RE-programming mode.
I will not accept other people's negativity. I don't blame you for wanting to be away from people.
LHG
Terry, your topic here speaks to exactly the "blinding burst of emotion" that I posted about yesterday, and so perhaps this thread would be a better place to offer my introspection.
First of all, the "I died inside 30 years ago" was exactly because of the indoctrination to which you referred: I had absolutely no "emotional firewalls," and so my experiences at Bethel left me utterly devastated and emotionally bankrupt. However, I was able to 'hold on' for a bit longer, because I was so convinced that the WTS was right about 1975, and then everything would be all right. However, even then, and increasingly afterwards, I was more and more "forcing myself" to feel what I had once been...that deliriously happy and focused and satisfied youngster. Oh, sure, there were moments, many moments, in my life when I did feel that way again, but that was due to circumstances, not due to an internal dynamic.
But I've come to realize that a big part of all this, perhaps even the biggest part, is that I was never "given" those emotional tools to begin with--not insofar as that the WTS denied them to me, but because my parents (especially my father), were unable to give to me what they themselves did not have. They've told me that themselves, and apologized...though my response, and my feeling now is, that they can't be blamed for not giving me something that they didn't have in themselves. Nevertheless, the combination of being raised a JW and being raised by "defective" parents combined to make me what I am today: severely emotionally deficient (if you take my meaning).
As one consequence, when I do reach out to trust someone, I by nature trust without question and without reservation...thereby laying myself wide open for disappointment. And, ya know, I've come to think that that's just the way it's going to be for me until I die...not necessarily all bad, but certainly a set-up for more painful experiences.
Anyway, I've ranted on long enough.
Thanks for this thread; it had given me pause for thought.
Craig
Our emotions are not a source of information
to me our emotions are a very good source of information about ourselves and others it talks about our weakness and forces.
and yes to me emotions begins with values too :
it is so true that one way to get read or reasoning about a big emotion (as the emotion is ours = so totally about ourself) is to see it as an answer about our values about ourselves and others. if we have to deal with it (good or bad) the only way to get there is to forget about ourselve first so you can see things objectively as an outsider (in knowing that we know a lot about ourselves - then it's all about sincerity).
If we can't forget about ourselves when we have big emotions ... we are not able to be objective (so many things can be mixed about the "why" in front of a "What") ... we follow them wherever they lead us (good or bad) ... but the information by then can be very biased.
Take a simple example the one which most talking "anger": forget about yourself and the probleme is solved ... no emotion left ... then you can analyse "why" from the outside in checking yourself and the others in lots of different perspectives. Then you think about yourself with all those new informations and you have way more weapons to fight against (or to enjoy the emotion if it is a good one).
That's why since we had this jokes with my friends about the "shame is good methode" (put whatever probleme you've got in "shame's" place in this sentence) it became on the long run, way more easy to deal with big and bruptal emotions in the most short notice possible. Because it allow us to accept it at first and for instance laught about ourselves (I mean If needed give it even more weight against yourself / to the point it is just not bearable or not justified this way but just laughable - but in this process you already have argument which says IT IS NOT THAT BIG).
That's a methode to forget about ourselves in the most enjoyable way. And since we don't take ourselfves, anyone or anything to seriously from that ... we can think way more objectivly in this state about ourself, anyone or anything.I've got read of my anger against my father when I realiased how stupid it was for me to put so much weight on him (he was my first and my last big emotional issue). He was not stupid (well maybe he is but I don't care anymore at all) ... but I was to feed my angers (related to him) ... That's almost a year ago and with this anger againt my father a lots of angers (that in fact was related to him) just disapeared.
