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.

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.

The Past is for Education, not Self-Reproach

I think I am not alone in the undesirable mental habit of beating myself up for saying and doing stupid things. I woke in the night and as my mind slid into the familiar berating, I stepped aside and considered why.

My thoughts went back to my years in the Philippines. Each year on Good Friday, we see can a physical representation of this mental habit. Filipinos walk down main streets flagellating themself with whips until they collapse. Some go as far as to have themselves nailed to crosses for several hours. To my mind, this is absurd. What good can come of this?

Yet isn't that just the same thing I have been doing mentally? Self-flagellating as if it would do any good. Did it earn me merit? No.

The past is to be looked at for education, not as a breeding ground for self-reproach. Understanding, accepting, and honestly facing ourselves is vital to having compassion on others, not to mention essential for our own mental health.

To quote the Dalai Lama,

"When we treat ourselves with compassion, we accept that there are parts of our personality that we may not be satisfied with, but we do not berate ourselves as we try to address them. When we go through a difficult time we are caring and kind to ourselves, as we would be to a friend or relative. When we feel inadequate in some way, we remind ourselves that all people have these feelings or limitations. When things are hard, we recognize that all people go through similar challenges. And finally, when we are feeling down, we try to understand this feeling with curiosity and acceptance, rather than rejection or self-judgement."

See also: Guilt.

All cults are alike; each cult is unhappy in its own way

I just finished reading Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology. I had never heard of Leah Remini, never seen her on TV. I was in a cult. We didn't watch TV. Then after leaving, I had no interest in television, as I had such a hunger to study and learn after years in the intellectual desert that was life in the Children of God. Like Leah, I needed to rewire my brain. But unlike Leah, I had no support system, no therapists, no friends nor family nearby, just my own large brood of children that needed care and attention and money.

Reading Leah's story, I marveled at the similarities. Groupthink, which I.L. Janis defined as “a deterioration in mental efficiency, reality testing and moral judgments as a result of group pressures," is an essential feature in all cults. Scientologists, just like their COG counterparts, are “the enlightened ones,” the ones with privileged insight into The Truth. This privilege obliges members to spend hours and hours “improving themselves” through daily reading, frequent counseling, self-criticism, and criticism from leaders, with its resultant required confessions and, in the COG, united prayer sessions. Voicing doubts or criticizing leaders was cause for censure and punishment, demotion, hard-labor, humiliation, silence restriction, and/or wearing headphones listening to group publications.

I was horrified to read of the extent of the abuse that was heaped upon adults in Scientology, and its accompanying psychological warping so that the victims believe they are deserving of such ill-treatment. In the Children of God, although adults were subject to various types of abuse and constant exploitation, the real victims were the children. Especially the first generation born in the COG were subject to physical, emotional, psychological, and sexual abuse, coupled with educational and medical neglect. Like Leah explained about Scientology, the group's publications were deemed more important than mere academic education.

Scientology, with its courting of rich and famous celebrities, is wealthy, yet the rank-and-file members can find themselves bankrupt because of the amount of money the cult requires them to pay. Children of God members lived in poverty after giving up everything to the cult, being forbidden to hold regular jobs because they were too busy “doing the work of winning the world, that only they, as the chosen of God, could do,” and tithing at least 15% of the donations they raised. The very dedicated gave more.

I feel a kindred spirit to Leah, and I commend her strength and resolve in coming out of such a strong mindset as was instilled during her formative years growing up in Scientology.

Agreeableness

Agree and appease. That was my MO when it came to any conflict. Not taking a stand when faced with anger and abuse is high-ranking among my regrets. "Let's pray," was my go-to, like an alcoholic turning to the bottle when discord arose. Nod head in agreement, sweep problem under the rug, and hope it goes away.

Listening to a lecture by Jordan Peterson, I learned that agreeableness is a natural outgrowth of motherhood. We mothers are wired to be exploited — by infants. We jump when our infant cries, laying our own desires aside without a second thought. We strive to surround our babies with a calm atmosphere, to protect them, so instead of directly addressing conflict, we smooth the waters and keep things calm. This short-term solution is a poor technique for dealing with adults. It sets us up for exploitation, hard work, and low pay.

Now that my children are grown, I realize it's time for me to grow up, too. I need to decide what I want out of the years I have left on this earth, and I need to leave behind my habit of always putting others first which has made me vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. 

Although it's been a challenge to find a sense of my own desires, one is crystal clear. I want to learn.

Guilt

After leaving the cult and the initial jolt of horror looking back at the wasted years, as the mist finally started to clear from my mind, I was flooded with paralyzing guilt. Unshakable guilt. Part of this could be due to my Catholic upbringing, but wherever it came from, it was nurtured and grew to overwhelming degrees in the cult. 

I felt I could never apologize enough to my children. Yet even their kindness, understanding, and forgiveness did not make a dent in my self-condemnation.

Each day was filled with self-recriminations. How could I have? I've ruined my life and my kids' lives! It's all my fault! I hate myself!

In spite of my niggling self-talk, I studied and listened to audio courses and did what needed to be done each day. I had a lot of kids and responsibilities, so much of the day I was too busy to think. Finally, some light broke through.

First of all came the dawn. This guilt only shows that I am kind-hearted. Psychopaths do not feel guilt.

With that foot in the door, knowledge and realization started to trickle in. Guilt is a waste of time. It does no one any good. It is not productive. I am paralyzed and wallowing. 

Then came the hunger to learn and the resultant study to find out why I had joined and stayed. I worked to build new pathways for my brain. I had to make a conscious effort to not walk down the well-worn path of self-loathing and recrimination, to deliberately work to change the self-flagellation after any perceived mistake into the more productive, I can learn from this and do better next time. And I had to forbid myself from saying, I hate myself.

That may sound childish and silly, but through all those years in the cult I believe I remained a child in many significant ways. Just like an alcoholic turning to the bottle in times of discomfort or confrontation, I turned to the magic of prayer. No facing down problems, no dealing with issues, just "give it all to Jesus" and keep on. There can be little maturity in such an approach.

Finally, I faced the obvious fact that I will need to live with myself for the rest of my life, so it behooves me to get along with myself. To be kind. To treat myself as I would a friend.

As the Dalai Lama has said, self-compassion is closely connected to self-acceptance. More than acceptance, it is actually having compassion for our human frailties and recognizing we are vulnerable and limited like all people. Understanding and accepting ourselves is fundamental in having compassion for others.

Dear FGAs

I am sure, you, like me, joined the COG filled with zeal and enthusiasm. We were going to make the world a better place - to win the world for Jesus. With the best of intentions, we sacrificed, gave up everything. As the years passed, and more and more "strange truths" entered our canon, our "radical prophet" led us down paths that were harmful to ourselves, and more egregiously, to our children. But we didn't notice, so twisted was our sense of normalcy.

Today, our children are grown. Tragically, some have felt they had to take their own lives. Some struggle, not fitting in anywhere. Some have gained a measure of success. Some have been very successful.

If your children have succeeded, perhaps you're tempted to pat yourself on the back, "it's because of the way they were raised, the opportunities the 'faith life' afforded them." Maybe others realize, like myself, that if they succeeded, it was in spite of how they were raised, not because of it.

Maybe you don't want to look back at your life. "It's in the past," you think. "We should 'forget those things which are behind.'"

But, could that just be an excuse for denial? An unwillingness to face the horrible truth? A resistance to dealing with the cognitive dissonance of the truth clashing with your image of yourself as a "good person"?

How much have our decisions affected the lives of our children? Do they still suffer? How have they adjusted to the real world, after being raised in an environment where their "normal" was anything but normal? Imagine the gut-wrenching feelings of abandonment, of being used, of missing out on a normal childhood. They see their peers, and they can't help but compare their upbringing. Do they wonder how their parents - the ones they loved and admired - their first role models - could have raised them so? What can they say when someone asks them innocent questions like, "Where are you from?" or "Where did you go to school?"

Have you talked with your children about their childhoods? Have you asked them how they feel? Have you sincerely apologized to them for the abuse they suffered, whether it be physical, sexual, or psychological? Or for the neglect - educational, medical, financial or otherwise?

Or do you feel you are not to blame, because your "heart was in the right place"? "God looketh on the heart." And besides, it's all in the past? Or perhaps you and your children have put your personal histories away in a box, compartmentalized, and agreed to never open that box, never speak of it.

It's hard to face, terribly hard on the ego to admit we were part of a harmful organization. We were duped. We were exploited, as were our children. The Family was not the best place in the world to raise children. We failed our children by not protecting them. And by continued association with the group, we were complicit in the abuse others suffered.

To realize that the cause we sacrificed for, that we gave years of our lives to, was nonsense that resulted in harm to the ones we love most in the world is shattering. Horrifying. Paralyzing. It shakes us down deep in our hearts. We can lose all equilibrium.

But it must be done. It must be done for our own sake. To face reality. To learn. To grow. To mature.

And more than even for our own benefit, it must be done for our children's sake. They need parents who love them, who support them, who they know will have their back. Who are going to be honest with them. Who they can trust.

Children naturally love their parents. Imagine the difficulties they must face when talking to their parents who still cling to their own righteousness and to the righteousness of The Family.

Our children need parents who are mature, who face their mistakes, apologize, learn from them, and grow. Let's be those parents.

"Just get over it" — Words are Cheap

During my brief time in the US, a new friend, who had left the COG about twenty years prior and had since grown into the most wonderful Christian I had ever met, convinced me to try prayer with her prayer group. 

I sat in a chair in the center of the room. People gathered around and laid hands on me. I'd been through this before. Many times. This was commonplace in the cult. Praying the devil out of me for various sins and my failings and weaknesses. This time was supposed to be different.

I was told to "forgive myself." "Breathe out and let go of all of that."

It was just not so simple.

It is not easy to pull out the tendrils that had grown within me for thirty long years. I couldn't "just get over it" and move on. The effect was too much a part of me. I needed time. And what I didn't know then, I needed knowledge and understanding.

I could have compartmentalized, fallen into blind denial, claiming, "it was all in the past," and "Jesus looks at my heart." But I couldn't. I knew it was a cop-out.

I looked to self-help books, but the advice I got to "love myself" went nowhere. "Stand in front of the mirror, look yourself in the eye, and say, 'I love you.'" Uh. No. It seemed a stupid, childish bandaid — and impossible. I had messed up my life and my kids' lives. That's a lot of guilt with not much room for "self-love."

Aware that I couldn't stay in this cloudy limbo for the rest of my life, I started to study - mainly audio courses when I drove, did housework, or walked, and those became my salvation — real salvation.

The realization of how I had been used and exploited began to dawn. There was a lot of anger that I needed to get out, and I had no one to tell. I wrote it down in a notebook.

As time went on, I gradually was able to understand, and through understanding began to lay aside the crap that I carried from those years. I finally started to grow and mature — which maturity had been stunted in the cult.

Only through understanding could I begin to find freedom from my past.

Abuse seen as "a labor of love" - a new take on the Milgram experiments

I wrote about the Milgram experiments in reference to why people engaged in Flirty Fishing in the COG here.  

This speaker talks about revisiting those experiments and coming to a slightly different conclusion - one that is even more terrifying - people harm others when they believe they are doing it for love. Shades of the Manson Family killings.

Why Education?

Why does someone who leaves a cult or high-demand religious group need education?  

1) To make up for lost time.

For me, it was 30 years of starving my brain for input, only feeding it cult publications and the King James Bible — my poor neglected brain! There is so much in this world to learn, and I learned nothing of much use for those 30 years. 

2) To stimulate brain growth and restructuring.

The need to constantly submit to the will of "God" and your leaders, the arbitrary corrections and public humiliations, the ever-present financial struggle, the virtually non-stop work because of "the shortness of time," the utter lack of space to call your own, and the countless other stresses of cult life all compounded to rob the brain of its ability to produce new cells.  

To undo this damage, the brain needs stimulation and exercise. And not just any stimulation, but serious concentration and study. New pathways need to be forged, and that requires focused mental effort.

3) To "unlearn" cult intuitions and reactions.

Living in a delusional bubble develops intuitive thoughts and natural reactions that are simply wrong. These need to be "erased" and replaced by more common-sense reactions.

What cult intuitions? For example:

• I brushed off conflicts with a "Let's pray," telling myself that "God will work it out," instead of learning to negotiate and deal with disagreements and disputes. 

• I dismissed any encouragement, "If anything good comes of me, it's only Jesus. I am bad." The brain already has a negativity bias, so this one slides by easily without question and can develop into self-loathing.

• I was besieged by guilt if I were to do anything outside of the prescribed behavior of a cultist; that proclivity towards guilt needed to be shed.

Being aware of the multitudinous unnatural, knee-jerk reactions developed during cult years is the first step to laying them aside.

To actually "unlearn" these intuitions, a complete rewiring of the brain is needed. Because neural-plasticity is competitive, we need to put forth effort to learn in order for new connections to be built. In so doing, the old pathways will gradually fade and the space they had taken in the brain will be rechanneled by the new, fresh brain maps. That conscious focus on learning stimulates new cell growth in the particular area of study, as well as vitalizes the entire brain.

4) To understand.

"The unexamined life is not worth living." (Socrates)

I made bad decisions in my life. It is deeply painful to realize yet must be faced. How did this happen? Why did this happen? What can I learn from this experience?

To deny the reality of years wasted is to continue to live in a bubble of delusion.

Know Thyself

When I first broke ties with TFI, it was as if my head was filled with mist. Of course, I didn't realize it at the time. As I wrote in Adjustment, my mind was dominated by the slow realization that I had wasted years of my life, and worse, given my children a godawful childhood. The overwhelming guilt of these actions was growing by the day. On top of that, mental confusion.

As I look back now, I shake my head at my naivety and foolish efforts. I realize though, that we only know what we know at the time. We cannot know what we don't know. And I surely didn't.

What do people need, then, after they leave a high-demand cult (or "New Religious Movement" as TFI likes to call itself)? Education. Concerted efforts at concentration and learning. The strength to face up to the reality of the bad decisions made. 

Recently, I've spoken with a few still-loyal cult members. How do they view their pasts and the abusive history of the group? "It was in the past!" alluding to the verse, "Forgetting those things that are behind..." (Philippians 3:13)

Even many ex-First Generation Members (called in cult lingo, FGA's) use that same tactic of denial, which is simply the refusal to face reality. I can see why ex- and current cultists would not want to stop and examine their lives. The horror of a life wasted is too much for the psyche. Their self-narrative of being a "good person," a "sacrificial missionary," won't hold up. So we tend to hear excuses from the ex-FGA's, such as this all-too-common justification, "My heart was in the right place. God looks at the heart." As if intention is all that matters.

But it isn't.

Hope

I recently came upon some information that was quite encouraging. A psychologist named Dean Simonton discovered that what had been thought as age-related cognitive decline was not actually a function of age, but rather a function of disciplinary age, in other words, how long a person has been in a specific vocation or area of study. People who change careers or foci are able to rejuvenate their brains. 

Another psychologist, Marian Diamond, confirmed this. Further, in her research on aged rodents, she found that a rich environment made for more synapses, stronger connections, and even more neural growth.

Interestingly, this finding also ties into research on addiction. Rats given two water bottles, one with just water, one with water laced with heroin or cocaine, would generally choose and continue returning to the drugged water. Researcher Bruce Alexander found, though, that addicted rats that were moved to new cages containing toys and tunnels and friends seemed to become "happy" and voluntarily left the drugs, choosing to drink only from the water bottle. Meanwhile, the "unhappy" rats, alone and unstimulated, continued on with their drug use.

In short, he found that lonely, isolated rats turned to drugs; happy, social rats had little interest in them. This overturned the conventional wisdom on addiction.* 

Exercise is also a factor in brain plasticity and growth. According to Carl W. Cotman and Nicole C. Berchtold, "Voluntary exercise can increase levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor and other growth factors, stimulate neurogenesis, increase resistance to brain insult and improve learning and mental performance... Thus, exercise could provide a simple means to maintain brain function and promote brain plasticity."**

Of course, I regret all the wasted years in the cult, but I am heartened that all is not lost. My brain has not deteriorated beyond help. By devoting myself to new areas of study, exercising daily in a variety of ways from walking and climbing to swimming and weight training, and opening my mind up to a vast variety of input, I can still make progress and not necessarily become a doddering old fool.

* Addiction:  The View from Rat Park, Bruce K. Alexander, 2010
** Exercise:  a behavioral intervention to enhance brain health and plasticity, Carl W. Cotman and Nicole C. Berchtold, 2002