They try to spoil everything for you! Before I was ever a JW I practiced Hatha Yoga for years and loved it! It did nothing to my brain but relax it, and helped my body immensely. When I first heard "we don't condone yoga, it's dangerous - Satan will overtake your thinking." well, just another thing I went along with that didn't make a lick of sense to me. I'm still struggling with how I could have been so duped. I've recently joined the YWCA for exercise, and think I'll join their yoga class. Or maybe a class somewhere for older folks would be safer. I hope I find out that joining the Y is a no-no too - then for sure I'll continue my membership! Such a rebel .. hee hee LNO
LifesNotOver
JoinedPosts by LifesNotOver
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Yoga. Evil practice?
by Darkknight757 inas our fade continues, the wife and i have decided to take up "the forbidden practice of.......yoga"!!!!😱.
i was quite skeptical at first but so far it has really de-stressed our life in quite a spectacular way!!
not to mention the physical benefits.. anyone else try yoga or a similar discipline?
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LifesNotOver
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My daughter graduated Bachelor of Arts with First Class Honours yesterday.
by Xanthippe in.
stash: /intesoft-inc.appspot.com/post/867be77a3c2f41bd8d3b930cbfb629c0.html
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LifesNotOver
Your daughter is a beautiful accomplished young lady, whether right way round or not. I'm sure you're very proud of her and she can feel free to feel proud of herself too. Enjoy your life!
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LifesNotOver - Part Four
by LifesNotOver inso ... i don't know if any of this is even of interest any more, i know i'm getting kinda bored with it :) so many other more interesting stories out there.
anyway, limped my way through 17 years being a jw until now.
not a good jw mind you.
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LifesNotOver
Hey everyone - I want you to know I keep pouring over your notes to me and want you to know how very much you're touching me and helping me and strengthening me. I feel the love!I have to make this quick because my husband's just left the house to go and quit his job (nothing to do with all of this) so he'll be back soon and around the house all the time, affording me very little privacy. Dang it!
I'm looking into getting professional help. There's online help at Crisis Centre, I went on and had a quick online chat with a counsellor yesterday and she directed me to a couple of affordable counselling places. Said there's lots of help out there for me, I just have to reach out for it.
That's it for now - love you guys! Lifes not over!
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LifesNotOver - Part Four
by LifesNotOver inso ... i don't know if any of this is even of interest any more, i know i'm getting kinda bored with it :) so many other more interesting stories out there.
anyway, limped my way through 17 years being a jw until now.
not a good jw mind you.
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LifesNotOver
So much to consider! Thank you!
Cangie - thank you for sharing your story with me. It made me nervous, which says to me to pay close attention. A reminder that one can never be sure of another's reactions - I needed to be reminded of that. I was already thinking that next time he and I spoke about it, that I wouldn't let myself be cornered again like I was last time, that I'd be close to the door if I wanted to leave. And that didn't scare me! I'm in some kind of denial. I don't know where I'd go. I have no family close by, have no worldly friends. The only friends I have are you guys! And I wouldn't even consider the elders - I tried that before on other occasions about stuff and learned my lesson there, for sure. Soooo, looks like I need to what? back to being as calm and clear and sure when I speak to him as I can be. Twelve years ago I got myself out of this pickle of a relationship by running away, three years later right back into the pickle jar. TTATT - the truth about the trap is more like it!
And if I decide not to try to get away, live a lie, that's soul destroying for me. I find myself just hoping he'll die soon so I'll be free to enjoy my last few years on this earth. yep, folks, I'm in a bad place right now. I'm sorry, this is me venting. Journaling is helpful, sure, but somehow it's more cathartic when there's someone listening. I need counselling, don't know where to get it. LNO
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LifesNotOver - Part Four
by LifesNotOver inso ... i don't know if any of this is even of interest any more, i know i'm getting kinda bored with it :) so many other more interesting stories out there.
anyway, limped my way through 17 years being a jw until now.
not a good jw mind you.
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LifesNotOver
Saename - yep, you hit the nail right on the head. I'll have to give this some real thought. You gave me something solid to consider, some action I can think of taking, rather than going round and round and round in my head. Think of a plan, think it out carefully and clearly, and implement it not too quickly but not take too long either. I overthink things and get all bogged down, trying to imagine every scenario and prepare for it, control it. Last time my husband and I spoke I lost my cool, and it pretty much blew up in my face. I'll think about where I went wrong and try to find a better way. This time at least I have a better idea of where he's coming from. And that will help me. What am I afraid of, you ask? His anger. Not physical, but hIs words. And last time he stood over me just screaming at me and red-faced, I did feel threatened, but that's the kid in me, he's never come close to hurting me physically. LNO
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LifesNotOver - Part Four
by LifesNotOver inso ... i don't know if any of this is even of interest any more, i know i'm getting kinda bored with it :) so many other more interesting stories out there.
anyway, limped my way through 17 years being a jw until now.
not a good jw mind you.
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LifesNotOver
FayeDunaway - thank you for your kind words! Means a lot to me. It's taken this long to figure out your name - very clever! Now I smile whenever I see it.
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LifesNotOver - Part Four
by LifesNotOver inso ... i don't know if any of this is even of interest any more, i know i'm getting kinda bored with it :) so many other more interesting stories out there.
anyway, limped my way through 17 years being a jw until now.
not a good jw mind you.
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LifesNotOver
Hello again. So ... I don't know if any of this is even of interest any more, I know I'm getting kinda bored with it :) So many other more interesting stories out there. Anyway, limped my way through 17 years being a JW until now. Not a good JW mind you. Oh, I always behaved myself ugh! , but never really got into it, never really believed, oh, I know - lukewarm and Jehovah would vomit me out or something?Nice, hey? Well, now I'm even lukewarm-er, bordering on cold. Oh, I know, I'm among those who have "cooled off", and I like it! And now I'm babbling.
I was slacking off meetings and service more and more until this past year I've been to only a handful of Sunday meetings at the Hall, never comment, no service whatsoever, no mid-week meetings. Just listen in on the phone and if it wasn't for my husband I wouldn't even do that. I can understand now why the pressure to do all that stuff, once you start to take a breather it feels so good you want more, and before long the mind-controlled mind starts to clear and you can start to think for yourself again, and you have the time to think, and you have the time to read other things and you have the time to find a support group such as this! They rob you of your time, they rob you of yourself until you're just an empty shell and they fill you up with their garbage and condemn you if you don't want to be a trash can, spewing your garbage everywhere and on everyone - oh my! - should I delete that last bit? There goes the old guilt trip again - be nice!
So, my husband is much more "in" than I ever realized. Because he constantly picked fault, I didn't think he'd be so hard-nosed about my findings. My mistake. He's digging in ever deeper. It was all about people's flaws, and minor things like him wanting to keep his beard, not anything deep like things to do with the Governing Body, or the teachings, or the bible. He can't even discuss my new thinking and my new feelings with me - he goes right off the deep end. I've written before about him yelling at me that I was an "Apostate Witch" and he couldn't live with an AW and he'd rather be dead so he rode off on his motorcycle to kill himself - he was back in 2 hours - yeah, I know. What can I say? He loses it sometimes!
So he's determined to be a better spiritual head, that he takes responsibility for letting me down. So now the elders have taken to dropping by, and my husband insisted we attend a family study group at someone's home the other night, and I'm getting these phone calls from concerned sisters. Argh!! My husband insists he hasn't said anything to anyone, and he probably hasn't said anything that will get me into trouble i.e. about this forum, but has said enough about me being "oh so discouraged" and depressed and in so much pain from my back, etc. that they've finally clued in that this "weak" sister is in danger of "falling away" and they could be held accountable by Jehovah for never befriending me all these years.
I know I keep writing with so many quotation marks, and that's because I don't want to sound like them anymore but need to when I write about it all.
I feel like I should be getting to the point of why I'm here. I keep writing and now it's like I've written myself into a corner. I want help and I want to contribute, but feel that without my background you won't be able to help. Although you've done remarkably well up to this point, thank you!
In a nutshell - I want out of this cult and my still-in husband doesn't want me out and has a conniption fit whenever the subject comes up. I'd disassociate if it wasn't for him, I'm just so sick of it! If I were to disassociate he'd be miserable and make my life a misery. Wait, no, maybe I wouldn't even jump through their hoops at all. Just stop having anything to do with them. I haven't made any so-called friends, so there'd be no one I'd miss. I have no family in the truth, never have. I don't have the option of separating from my husband or I might take that route too.. I did that several years ago, even divorced, but we remarried.
I know for some there's no hurry to solve this, but in my case I feel there is, because of my age and maybe my mental health. I don't want to spend much more time on fading or whatever, I want to start living and stop pretending I'm just "so depressed", all that brings on is more "encouragement" - encouragement! humbug! it's guilt-tripping and pressure pure and simple.
So how does one live a double life? I know there are many on here who are. I'm not being dramatic when I say I feel like I'm DYING inside, feel like I want to throw up, when I'm at a meeting (or even listening on the phone), or when newly-interested-in-me sisters phone and want to come by, or when newly-interested-in-me elders drop by, or when I join my husband in prayer, or when he wants to read the daily text together, or when we listen to the governing body's monthly blurb.
Right now, this minute, I wish my husband would simply walk out on me. It's harder to have him around than not. That's not possible though, he's too needy! Plus we'd both be in the poor house.
That's my rant for now. I would love to hear from anyone, positive posts only, please. I'm normally pretty strong, but very fragile right now. LifesNotOver
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Kids continue to leave in droves - so what is the organization's grand plan? This
by sir82 injws have one of the worst, if not the worst, retention rates among their kids.
i've seen numbers from 65% to 88% who leave, never to return.. you'd think this would be a priority amongst the leadership, right?
where do tomorrow's leaders come from, if the vast majority of kids leave the organization?
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LifesNotOver
I know! I know! Let them have facial hair (that's already happening), then tattoos, then dating, then ... ???
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LifesNotOver
Funny!! Do you have one for "Stop Thinking!"
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LifesNotOver - Part Three
by LifesNotOver ini just lost another long post - husband walked in!
this is very frustrating, but not your problem, it's mine!.
i was writing about how i was non-religious my entire life until my mid-fifties when i was nabbed!
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LifesNotOver
notalone - I have sent you a pm. Thanks!