do you like yourself?
is there a lot that you would want to change about yourself?
(personally, i think i'm alright).
thanks serendipity, I know it's stupid to keep beating myself up and that things will turn out OK but it's taking me a while to get through this.
On the plus side, I seem to be damn fine in interviews and have the ability to make decent friends who actually care about me. I can't be all bad!
has anyone here ever just gotten so sick of it all that they just packed up their belongings and pets and left?.
did you know people in the place that you went to?
how did you find work?.
I have had a life long pattern of packing up and moving away -
at 18 when I left school I packed up and moved in with a friend so that I could leave home and leave the JW's
at 27 I left Plymouth to move 200 miles away to find work and live with my girlfriend
at 33 I left the UK and moved to Australia for a bit of adventure and to find a better place to raise a family.
The move to Oz took a bit of planning because of the hassle getting a permenant residency visa but every other move has been by the seat of my pants and relatively unplanned - mainly following job offers.
It is tough to start again in new places but I was lucky that this time I made some online friends through an expat website and through here before I left. Those friends have made up the foundation of my life now and helped us through some really tough times since we moved to Oz.
Finding work is easy if you are prepared to do anything to put a roof over your head, I came here with the view that I would drive trucks or clean pools if I had to, as it happened I landed a good contract within 2 weeks of landing here.
Was it worth it in the end? hmm.... well we certainly aren't as financially well of as we were in the UK but we have a nicer house and I have the opportunity to do a job I will really enjoy. I think it is worth it for the quality of life and the good friends I have made here.
do you like yourself?
is there a lot that you would want to change about yourself?
(personally, i think i'm alright).
I'm having a tough time of things right now and am feeling like a complete twat. I blew a really good job which has left us significantly exposed financially just months after taking out a big mortgage to buy a house. We want to start a family and I have seriously put that in jeapordy by being irresponsible and self destructive but I hope that the opportunity for reflection will help me put right the character flaws which have caused the problem.
I had an interview yesterday and it looks like I have landed a new job but the money is alot less than I was earning as a consultant so things ar egoing to be very tight for a couple of years.
How do I feel about myself? I'm beating myself up pretty bad right now
i am at a point in my doubt and recovery process where i feel almost completely agnostic.
i am an empiricist; evidence required, please!
) of what i was taught as a witness has been discarded.
You really aren't alone, the conditioning that the JW's use as a control mechanism is an easily wielded but incredibly damaging form guilt/fear. You are conditioned to fear everything outside the organisation and to fear stepping outside of the organisation because you will be removed from god's love and die at Armagheddon. It's the same with shunning, if you make waves and argue you will have the love of your family withdrawn and you will be ostracised. You don't believe it all but there's still that nagging doubt of "what if I made the wrong decision" but that will pass as you see wll the holes in what they teach and realise that god wouldn't be that egotistical or petty.
It takes a while to get through, personally I went through what you are going through now and became agnostic, rejecting the JW teachings entirely. I wasn't sure that there was a god, couldn't pray, had a pretty nihilistic view of the future and didn't believe in life after death. As time goes on you reexamine everything and can pick and choose the bits you believe and recognise the bits that are hogwash. In the mean time you feel a bit cut loose and unsure what to believe, don't worry, the feeling passes along with the anger you feel towards the congregation.
Sooner or later you find yourself at peace with yourself, more sure of what you believe and able to examine it all a little more objectively. What conclusions you come to depend on your perspective and your experiences but you will reach a point where you feel more at ease.
Relax and enjoy the journey, it is very liberating
Steve
jeez, i have just moved to melbourne, aus and goddam the dubs here are proactive!!
i have been bailed up once on the train to work early on a saturday morning, outside parliament station on another saturday morning and 5 minutes later walking down the street by 3 gorgeous chicks using their charm..oops radiant spirits to flick off the mags.. maybe there is a price on my head......
I'm in Perth but may be coming over to Melbourne to work if I cannot find a bloody job here soon!
"my 'walk', in short, was one big struggle with "fleshly desire" and a boat load of guilt hanging over me.
this pretty much describes my life on a daily basis.
despite the advertising, jesus doesn't make you free.".
that's interesting, I felt alot of guilt during my time as a JW and this is part of what has kept me away from organised religion since my disfellowshipping and even made me doubt the existance of god. Only recently have I managed to shift some of those feelings of guilt - reading "How good do we have to be" by Harold Kushner helped alot and made the point that god would never be as petulent or as harshly judgemental as most Christian churches make out.
I understand why religions use guilt as a control mechanism, after all it is an easily weilded weapon and has a deep seated and lasting hold on people. What angers me are the feelings of self loathing and the years of misery it can cause.
are there any freemasons who post here?
if you don't want to add to the thread then feel free to pm me.. one of my close friends is a mason and has encouraged me to consider joining but everything i have known about the masons in the past has been negative - all bigoted jw speak.
from what i have researched they are a fraternity who hold near christian moral values and cannot understand the vitriol the witnesses hold for them.. i have also seen pictures of rutherford's grave in a masonic cemetary so cannot understand why they would aim such negativity against a group which their founder belonged to.. can anyone shed any light on this?
Are there any freemasons who post here? If you don't want to add to the thread then feel free to PM me.
One of my close friends is a mason and has encouraged me to consider joining but everything I have known about the Masons in the past has been negative - all bigoted JW speak. From what I have researched they are a fraternity who hold near Christian moral values and cannot understand the vitriol the witnesses hold for them.
I have also seen pictures of Rutherford's grave in a Masonic cemetary so cannot understand why they would aim such negativity against a group which their founder belonged to.
Can anyone shed any light on this?
ok i know growing up that psychics were a big "no-no" "because they get their information from the demons" but i have to admit that i have had a few readings in the last couple of years... i have consulted a few times with two different psychics.
i am amazed at their accuracy.. for instance, my fiance was looking for a job about a year ago so i consulted with this psychic and she told me he would find a job with a company that has the letter "w" in it and that he would be very successful there.
in fact he did find work with a company with a w in their first name and only after being there a year he got a huge promotion.
we both had a reading done recently from a psychic, she was very detailed and right on the money. I have also had readings done by charlatans who were a bit poo.
5 right now. I lost my job last week but I have an interview tomorrow for a job paying 30% less than I was on in my last job.
I saw a therapist this morning and she helped me work through some stuff but I still have some miles to travel.
i tried it for the first time this weekend and had a blast!
to do this you need a hand-held gps device and a compass.
go to the web site below and enter your zip code and it will give you a list of nearby caches with their corresponding gps coordinates (latitude and longitude).
we used to go letterboxing on Dartmoor years ago, same sort of principle except that the box would have a rubber stamp in it and you would collect as many stamps as you could.
Does anyone still do that?
