Posts by Introspection

Hi XBE welcome. Personally I don't have too much use for beliefs these days. I mean sure, it helps in practical things like how to fix my computer, but in terms of spirituality I see no point. Now this may sound confusing but I'll try to explain where I'm coming from.. For example, someone who leaves the organization concludes that "religion is all bad, all religious people should be cast into gehenna" - that's also a belief. (naturally they are far from all good either, which means in the absolute sense none of them are "good" - but then neither is the guy making the statement) Actually I say beliefs are okay, as long as you recognize them for what they are. It's ONLY a belief - you know what I mean? I don't see how it has to do with spirituality in the final analysis, though. I mean hey, you can program a computer to "believe" something, but does that mean it's spiritual? Some might debate this and what they would be debating is the definition of the word spirituality, but I trust you understand what I'm getting at. Now sure, I would agree that killing people and stealing and such are bad ideas as others have commented, but heck I don't take that position out of BELIEF.

And that really follows into your concern about the pedophile situation. Frankly I don't think it's about an issue of policy, I mean really if you just have a heart how can you tolerate that kind of crap? I think atleast part of what's happend when a situation like this exists is that people have a insensitive or dead heart if you will, being caught up in their beliefs. It's pretty straight forward when you just step back and take a clear look at it, but what seems to happen is people end up wanting to defend their identity of being a witness or any other religion or non-religion because their sense of self is tied in with those ideas, which is to say it is tied into their beliefs, rather than being connected with their figurative heart as we say. In a sense, they've sold their soul for a belief, and it really doesn't matter what the belief is.

35

How do ex-JW's actually choose another religion?

by buffy in

jw
friends

ok, here's my question.

how do you go from being a jw to being a whatever (methodist, lutheran, etc.

) i've been invited to go to many churches with friends, but, i have no desire to ever set foot in any church.

Introspection

By the way, I wanted to mention that I didn't set out to find a group to join or even a spiritual community. The interesting thing about the message they had wasn't even that it's particularly profound like you get this feeling of awe "Ohhhh! That's soooo true!" but I thought to myself "Huh, this guy is telling it like it is."

35

How do ex-JW's actually choose another religion?

by buffy in

jw
friends

ok, here's my question.

how do you go from being a jw to being a whatever (methodist, lutheran, etc.

) i've been invited to go to many churches with friends, but, i have no desire to ever set foot in any church.

Introspection

How do you go from being a JW to being a whatever (Methodist, Lutheran, etc.) I've been invited to go to many churches with friends, but, I have no desire to ever set foot in any church. I want no part of any organized religion at all.

Well, I don't really have any interest in being anything other than what I actually am, and in that I have no choice anyways so I guess I don't think about it too much. As for being part of any organization, being at a church, reading the bible or whatever wouldn't make you a part of any religion, just as it doesn't make you become anything.

All talk about religion, organization etc. only addresses the form of your spirituality anyways, it does not address spirituality itself. I should think that anything that can be considered spirituality addresses what you are as well, that is to say your nature. Now I don't mean that in a conceptual, belief driven way, but very directly as it manifests in everyday life. In view of that I can appreciate that most people would want to find a spiritual community, people who are in essence mirrors of that true nature, because we are the same after all. It may be rare, but I know it's possible to be in such a community without the aspect of religious belief since I happen to be in one. Now it may seem like it's nonsense if there is no beliefs, but is more beliefs really what you want? In my community there isn't even a formal membership, you just show up if you want. We get pretty silly too, the teacher have been known to qualify his comments with statements like "all this is really just crap." (from the absolute perspective, as all concepts are only relative) But going back to the idea of your true nature, someone recently said to him "you really can't teach this can you?" and he said "no, how can I teach you what you are?"

My advice to you is to take in any advice you care to, and then forget about it. Don't choose from any particular ways of going about this in a mechanical fashion and follow it like a road map, but just get some sense of it and then act out of nothing, which is to say just act as you would naturally.

20

Ignoring trauma may be healthier

by MegaDude in

interesting article on yahoo news today that suggests repressing your emotions may be healthier than venting them.

i have my doubts about this, but here's the article below that i found at: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=570&ncid=753&e=1&u=/nm/20020924/sc_nm/health_stress_dc

stressed out?

Introspection

Hi everybody. First of all, I feel like I need to respond to the comment "why relive a nightmare" - while I can appreciate where this is coming from I would have to point out that any processing is a matter of taking the life out of the nightmare, in effect seeing that it is just a dream. That, of course is more of a permanent solution and will most likely take some time, and that's fine. Even if someone says I just don't want to deal with it at all, I say that's fine, that's how you feel now. I think everything begins with accepting yourself as how you are now, but that includes accepting times when you happen to be remembering those experiences, and that is when you can make the decision of whether you want to process it or repress it, naturally, because it is actually coming up. In fact, this may seem contradictory (I call it paradox, it sounds nicer) but if you should choose to repress it, accept that. It's simply what's going on with you, just accept whatever is happening with yourself.

I think the issue of time is an important point. It seems that the way most people think about how to deal with things is it's not good to put things off, to procrastinate. Of course, what actually happens in reality is that most people are not the type that makes these business like executive decisions immediately, hell if that's the case there would be no need for therapy of any type, you just drop it. Again I say it's for each individual and at their own time if they should even choose to process a trauma. I'm sure there are people out there who doesn't even want to have the words Jehovah's Witness cross their mind, and for that reason they wouldn't be with us on this board. They may go through life avoiding it altogether. While I might say something along the lines of this discussion to a person like that, of course ultimately the decision is up to them. But of course the fact is, you never know just what exactly will happen - even about yourself. People who cling to the idea that their stuff can never be dealt with or again the other extreme, it can be dealt with and it MUST ALL be dealt with NOW - are ignoring this basic fact of life. Just see what happens. This is what I mean when I speak about identification, thinking about yourself a certain way, that it'll never change and that's how you are or how a certain thing is. If that's the really the case, there's no need to think about it. Another way of saying the same thing is just enjoy your life as it unfolds, don't let it become a series of judgements about how you think things are. Where's the enjoyment in that?

10

The Swingle Singers

by Farkel in

jw
friends

.

thanks to a very good friend, i have the swingle singers back in my life again, after being without their company for a good 25 years.. if you don't know who they are, your life is missing a great experience in genuine culture.. farkel.

.

Introspection

Is Lyman one of them ...?

20

Ignoring trauma may be healthier

by MegaDude in

interesting article on yahoo news today that suggests repressing your emotions may be healthier than venting them.

i have my doubts about this, but here's the article below that i found at: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=570&ncid=753&e=1&u=/nm/20020924/sc_nm/health_stress_dc

stressed out?

Introspection

They were also asked questions about coping style -- whether they ignored their anxiety or tended to dwell on it.

Gee, isn't this like saying "Do you ignore the big bleeding gash in your head or do you pick at it?" Lets just list both extremes and decide if either of them are good.

Many people have done studies on how to cope with stress, and results are mixed. But Ginzburg and colleagues cited studies that suggest that if the patient does not go too far into denial, repression may work well.

Welll... It's one thing not to dwell on something, repressing it is something different altogether. Most people have atleast brief periods where they are not thinking about the trauma don't they? As bad as a given case may be, it's not like a continuous stream of trauma day and night, you get the drift. What about something as simple as dealing with it when it comes up, rather than forcing something to happen and digging it up when it's not even coming up, or again to the other extreme - repression?

"Prior studies report that repressors tend to perceive themselves as competent, self-controlled and having adequate coping skills," Ginzburg said.

... and is that supposed to matter when it comes to the reality of whether they are actually competent, self-controlled and having adequate coping skills? I am suspicious of this too, just by virtue of the fact that it smacks of the typical one sided attitude. Things happen in their own time, for each person. I can understand how it can bring temporary relief, but maybe the question is whether you care if your mental health is based on reality, or nice things you can tell yourself. I would certainly think that due to the nature of the disorder it would make sense to take time to work on it, but if they really think this is a true solution maybe they are in denial. Maybe repression "works", but how does it work? What is the nature of that work? Another thing to consider is that the whole mechanism of repression is like using pain killers. There is a reason why you are experiencing the pain. You might as well just take a bunch of aspirin for that big gash in your head, it's the same principle. It has a place, but without putting it in perspective it's just ridiculous.

20

We live in a beautiful world...

by The_Bad_Seed in

jw
friends

.

...thats all i had to say for today.

goodnight.

Introspection

It's very real to me and I hope to experience the true beauty and wonder of this one day, God willing....then I too can say we live in a beautiful world without feeling so much pain and guilt.

I see where you're coming from Nakedmvistar. Of course, there is a certain beauty even in your pain and guilt, simply because it is born out of love. As far as I'm concerned you're also a part of that beauty, even if you may not think so.

6

life and death

by larc in

jw
friends

when i was a young man, i didn't think about death.

in my 20's, i thought life would go on forever.

now, that i have lived 6 months longer than my father, and my wife is faced with a life threatening situation, my views are quite different.. i have to ask myself what i want to accomplish before i die.

Introspection

Ah, those two things.. Not to get too abstract about it, but I guess you can say that to me you can only really live if you let the past die, I don't mean from years ago but each moment, and seeing life with that newness constantly just ... brings it to life!

Today I ran into a JW friend that I used to hang out with a bit back in the day, and although he wanted to know what's up with me as far as going to meetings and things are concerned, I found myself pointing back to love as the important thing even though he was reiterating many of the party lines. At one point he was questioning my spiritual well being by not being at the meetings and I asked him: 'Do you think I would be having a conversation like this with you if I needed a void to be filled?' and 'How often do you have a conversation like this with active witnesses?' So I'm afraid I wasn't following the apostate example of bashing his belief system into a pulp, (though I gave him atleast one thing to think about, probably wasn't wasted on a psych student) but I think it basically ended on a positive note. On the other hand, it could very well be that on a psychological level I didn't make a very big difference, but as we talked for 3 hours I think somewhere down the line he might remember the conversation and even be comforted by it if his world comes crashing down on him. Who knows, he may be a witness for the rest of his life, but even if that's the case maybe something as simple as pointing to love will make it worth living.

14

D you meditate?

by Lost Diamond in

jw
friends

i went to a seminar yesterday for work on how to manage stress.

the speaker was great...he is dr. mees, author of "wake up, america".. he stated how our diet, exercise, and meditation are very important for our own health.

he described the damage cocaine does to the heart muscles, which cannot be repaired and compared it to the damage stress does as well.

Introspection

There is a difference between meditation and stress reduction techniques, which can often be modeled after and even called a type of meditation. Nothing wrong with those, but meditation was not originally designed with this in mind, and sometimes you might have the side effect of seeing the truth about something that you don't want to see. (be careful here or rather be honest, as many of us know this can be a devastating experience) Of course, ultimately true meditation is not a separate practice but just a way or the way of life. Real meditation is something like an accepting attitude, whatever that arises, even if it is bad posture, bad breathing or some emotion we categorize as negative, it is allowed to be experienced rather than pushing it away or using some kind of mind trick to get rid of it. So in fact, meditation doesn't get rid of any of these experiences, (if we're talking about the basic core that is essential to any technique that can be really called meditation) you're just not bothered by them. You may still experience pain, but you don't suffer from it. If your goal is only to get relaxed, kick in the parasympathetic nervous system and get rid of stress and be healthier, then there are plenty of other things you can do.