Letter to My Younger, Cult-Enamored, Self

I understand that you have found a group where you feel you belong, a family where you are loved, and a purpose to give your life to. But I ask you to hear me out and take some time to think about what I am to tell you.

First, let me talk about falling in love. Our DNA is so driven to reproduce that it will do whatever it needs to in order to make that happen. We will fall in love, float on that high, and be blind to the faults of our love interest. Our DNA succeeds when our love produces children. Once children are born, our DNA’s work is done. Although many people marry certain that they will stay together “till death do us part,” the reality is that our initial in-love high does not last and thus many marriages fall apart. That is not necessarily wrong. We humans make mistakes. We do not need to feel bound by any commitment that is no longer working.

In much the same way, you have fallen in love with the Children of God. You feel you must serve Jesus with them “until death do you part.” But as I advise you about marriage, you should wait out that initial high.

Second, I know you feel sure of your conviction, and feel compelled to join the Children of God right now, and I know the Bible verses you will cite. But consider how you would feel if your old friends read all the Mo Letters, including the Disciples Only publications. Could you proudly show them off, or would you feel embarrassed? Should you feel embarrassed about someone/some group you will spend the rest of your life with?

If you feel ashamed of those publications and don’t wish others to see them, perhaps they are not as godly as you think they are. What shameful things did Jesus preach?

Third, I feel compelled to tell you a little about neurology. As you are 16, the fact is that your brain is not fully developed. The control portion of your brain, the frontal lobes that allow you to assess decisions and envision consequences, will not be fully developed until you are in your mid-twenties. Since it is biologically difficult for you to see the consequences of this enormous life-decision now, wouldn’t it be better to defer this decision until you can?

Use those years to broaden your education. Learn as much as you can in as many areas as you can. Objectively consider other paths. When you are my age, you will be glad you did.

Why Self-Compassion is Important

"Lack of self-compassion manifests in a harsh and judgmental relationship with others. Many people believe that unless they are critical and demanding, they will be failures, unworthy of recognition and undeserving of love."*

Perhaps we feel we deserve to be harsh and critical with ourselves and beat ourselves up for misspoken words and mistakes made. I was used to such negative self-talk after years of practice. My mind was etched with deep familiar ruts of self-reproach. It only took a small mistake, or perceived mistake, for me to stroll down those old, comfortable paths of self-criticism. What's wrong with that? Didn't I deserve it for being such an idiot?

What I hadn't seen was the danger of that habit. Those worn pathways are the very thing that blocks compassion for other people. A mind effortlessly flowing to the trails of self-recrimination is a mind in which negative and critical thinking have become deeply ingrained habits. It then becomes natural to walk down those same rutted pathways when thinking of other people and their actions.

In order to be able to treat others with compassion, we must first cultivate a compassionate attitude towards ourselves. We spend more time inside our heads with ourselves than we do thinking about other people, and the pathways that we use during those hours are the ones most deeply ingrained. We have to create new, positive, mental pathways and to allow the paths of negative self-talk to become grown over and forgotten, which takes conscious effort.

This does not mean lying to ourselves, or living in denial of bad behavior, but rather an honest look at ourselves, doing all we can to make things right with those we've hurt, and then a sincere forgiveness of ourselves. After all, we, too, are vulnerable humans. 

"Understanding and accepting ourselves is fundamental in having compassion for others. It is hard to love others as you love yourself, if you don't love yourself."*

*The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World, Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, Chapter 25

See also: Guilt, It's Only Jesus, Self-Forgiveness, and The Past is for Education, Not Self-Reproach.

Conflict Management

Managing conflict was something that did not happen in the cult. It was not a skill that I ever saw exercised or developed. Certainly, conflicts occurred.

If the conflict had something to do with leadership, corrections for perceived mistakes, bad attitudes, and sins, were delivered harshly in the form of humiliating harangues that went on for way too long. These ended with “desperate prayer,” and then some form of punishment, generally in the form of reading assignments, was dished out. It was a win for leadership, a loss for the peon.

If conflicts arose in interpersonal relationships, in order to avoid the discomfort of dealing with them, I honed my avoidance technique. This went right along with the mindset of denial in the cult. I swept the problem under the rug by praying for the Lord to work things out and then tried to forget about it. "Giving problems to the Lord in prayer," as we were taught. Of course, this only left the conflict to fester, resulting in a loss for both parties. My second-choice technique was accommodation. I would give in to what the other party wanted, a win for them, but a loss for me.

I have only recently learned that conflicts are not to be feared or avoided, but that they can be managed successfully for both parties involved. Doing this requires me to have something that I never had before, something considered sinful in the cult, that is, enough self-esteem to realize that my opinion and my wants have just as much value as other people’s. I don’t have to be a doormat and allow others full reign in what they want. In fact, doing so is not helpful for anyone, and certainly not beneficial for the relationship involved.

Emotions are always present in conflicts, but they do not need to control us nor affect how we deal with the issues. Admitting whatever it is we are feeling, as dispassionately as possible, can help us to set aside emotions so that we can deal with the real issues of events or behaviors that need changing. We should own our emotions. They arise from within us. No need to apologize for them. We just need to realize that they have nothing to do with — and should have nothing to do with — the objective of reaching our goals.

When conflicts arise, and they inevitably will, we must identify our goals — what does each of us want to achieve? What goals do we share? Once those are laid out, it is not a given that one party must lose and one must win, nor that both parties will lose through compromise. The challenge is to find ways to collaborate so that both parties gain what they desire.

We can do this by working out a plan together, respecting each other’s wants, and brainstorming how we can get there. The focus should be on changing events or behaviors, not people. The overall goal is mutual gain. Working together is the best way to help us both achieve our respective goals, a true win-win — and a win for mutual respect in the relationship.

Thanks to Professor Michael Dues and his enlightening course,
Art of Conflict Management: Achieving Solutions for Life, Work, and Beyond.

Abnormal Normal: My Life in the Children of God

After five years of writing, editing, and reflection, my story is finished. Click on the post heading for more information and link to purchase. (Featured Post snippet.)

My intention in writing this story was to both open the public's eyes to what the cult experience is like and also as a warning. I was a young, idealistic, and naive girl who fell in love with the ideology of the avant-garde group of hippies living "like the early Christians" that was the early 1970s Children of God. I had no idea how deep the rabbit hole was into which I so blindly tumbled, nor how dreadfully long I would remain in that "abnormal normal."

This link will take you to Amazon to see more.

It is not a happy story, but it does have a happy ending. 

Self-Forgiveness

"Have you forgiven your younger self?" an old friend asked.

Although remembering my mistakes and the hurt I caused others will probably always bring me pain, I can finally say that I have forgiven former self.

Through my years of study I have gained insight into why I acted the way I did and why I made the decisions I did. This understanding has given me a measure of compassion for my younger self. 

Continuing to carry on my shoulders regret for the harm I have done by my involvement with the Children of God helps no one. I gain no spiritual merit for that sort of martyrdom. It's best to just apologize, do what I can to make up for the hurt I've caused, and move on.

My passion for learning—born from the desire to make up for the dearth of meaningful input during my years in the cult—has remodeled my brain in healthy ways. Rather than dwelling on my past mistakes, my dislike for myself, and other gloomy thoughts as had been my habit, my head is filled with new knowledge from the books I've been reading and the courses to which I've been listening. There is no end to new things to learn. 

Another pertinent point is that having lived longer than my parents and two of my siblings, I feel a very real sense of my own mortality. There are projects that I would like to complete in my remaining years on this earth. I don't have time to wallow in regrets.

"Never yield to remorse, but at once tell yourself: remorse would simply mean adding to the first act of stupidity a second." Friedrich Nietzsche

Moving On

It's been over a year since I last posted anything on this blog, and I guess you could say I have moved on.

In the intervening time, my focus has shifted and with that, new life has been breathed into me. I have latched onto a new vocation and my energies have been directed into new fields of study. When first entering this new field, I was shaky, lacking in confidence, and unsure of myself. Gradually, as I learned more and received considerable sincere praise for my work, my assurance grew. I have reached the point where I no longer need hear praise to prop up my self-worth. Although there is always more to learn, I know I am smart and good at what I do. That is saying a lot for a former "Bible woman" to whom "any sense of self [was] abhorrent to the Lord," to quote Berg. Or better yet, "I am a worm and no man," as the much-lauded Psalmist, David, wrote. (What a bizarre religion where self-worth was sinful!)

Having a strong focus seems to have caused everything in my life to fall into place. It has given me a sense of security and purpose, as well as engendering strength and confidence. I have noticed that I am relaxed now, freed from my former rushed mindset, where I was always feeling I was doing too little too late, carrying the weight of the the many wasted years in the cult that I wanted to make up for. This freedom has affected many aspects of my life, one of which is being on time. Now I delight in the lack of pressure I feel when early for appointments, trains, buses, etc. I leave in good time, so that I can enjoy all of the journey. I have found that I can be more in the moment, having rejected the mental storm of busyness, and mostly letting go of thoughts of the past and future that so eagerly war for attention in my head.

I dare say that we all need to have some sort of focus—a purpose or a goal—in our lives in order to be mentally sound.

See also, Hope.

Returning to the Stanford Prison Experiment

Ben Blum, in his article The Lifespan of a Lie, sets out to put to rest the findings of the Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE). He suggests that the reason we have collectively embraced the lesson of the SPE—that environments strongly affect people's moral decisions—is because it lets us off the hook for bad decisions. In other words, we cannot be held accountable for immoral behavior if it was our environment, not ourselves, that caused us to act as we did.

Seemingly at variance with his viewpoint, Mr. Blum goes on to write about an attempted replication of the SPE. Emphasis added by me:

"According to Alex Haslam and Stephen Reicher, psychologists who co-directed an attempted replication of the Stanford prison experiment in Great Britain in 2001, a critical factor in making people commit atrocities is a leader assuring them that they are acting in the service of a higher moral cause with which they identify — for instance, scientific progress or prison reform. We have been taught that guards abused prisoners in the Stanford prison experiment because of the power of their roles, but Haslam and Reicher argue that their behavior arose instead from their identification with the experimenters, which Jaffe and Zimbardo encouraged at every turn. Eshleman, who described himself on an intake questionnaire as a “scientist at heart,” may have identified more powerfully than anyone, but Jaffe himself put it well in his self-evaluation: “I am startled by the ease with which I could turn off my sensitivity and concern for others for ‘a good cause.’”"

An important lesson that we can draw from the Stanford Prison Study, Haslam and Reicher's replication, Solomon Asch's experiments on the bandwagon effect, and other studies on social norming, is that people generally conform to what they think they are expected to do, and much more so when that expectation comes from an authority figure. The COG employed the highest and most absolute authority of all, God. Following the words of our "prophet," David Berg, created an upside-down, morally abhorrent, alternative reality within COG Homes and was the root of abuse and exploitation within the cult.

See also, The Power of Ideology.