As I have lived my own survivorship and spent the last few years deeply connecting with trauma survivors, I see three distinct phases of the journey.
Victim
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Survivor
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Thriver (and for some, Advocacy/Warriorship)
I think one of the most difficult breaks in the healing process is moving from the victim to survivor state. The victim state of mind sees the downfall with everything in life. Solutions aren’t on their minds, they can only see everything bad in their world. Any solution offered, the victim stage will say they’ve already tried it or give a reason why it won’t work.
When I was in the victim stage, I recall having a fear that if I healed, I would have nothing to spawn my creativity. I was so incredibly wrong. As I have healed I have created so much more and so many amazing things. The fear was a farce.
The Survivor stage includes a mindset of knowing we have survived and believing we can still survive. Survivor stage is a small exhale and sometimes the longest stage as we are learning strengthening and practicing wellness and self love. In the survivor stage we face our anger, fear, hurt and deep pains. This stage is a boundary setting stage and a period of strengthening our minds. In the survivor stage we are starting to see the world around us as a place of possibility. We are embracing our ability to heal and determined to do so.
The step from survivor to Thriver is a smaller one. When we reach the state of thriving we have come into a place where we have embraced that our past is actually the past and we don’t have to live there now. In the Thriver stage we don’t see obstacles, but instead, opportunity. As Thrivers we take our horrible situations and tend to barrel through them because we realize that all things do pass. We tend to write out and create through our moments of pain instead of projecting them on others or drowning in them. We have no issues enacting our boundaries and don’t care who gets mad about it, as we understand our right to put ourselves first.
In Thriver stage we are empowered to know that healing doesn’t mean we don’t still have impairments from our abuse, but that we can absolutely get through it. We don’t have to stay in it. As Thrivers we embrace that our thoughts will set a course for our days and we learn that positive perspectives and energy will change and often make rectifying problems much easier when our thoughts are rooted in solutions, acceptance and great possibilities. We accept moments and people as they are. We aren’t as easily offended. We learn to be and let be. We fight for things that matter and let inconsequential situations fall by the wayside.
For those in differing stages of healing, please know that it can take years to get through these processes. Please be patient with yourself. When you take the step out of victimhood into survivorship, congratulate yourself!! That is a MASSIVE step!
I used the processes that I introduced in my interactive journal “Becoming Gratitude”, to move from feeling like a victim, to feeling the success of changing my world view and the perspective of my own existence and surroundings. It absolutely re-wired my brain for the better, in just a short five minutes a day.
Another amazing book that, if the writing processes in it are followed, will help a survivor really begin to embrace their emotion freedom is “PTSD: Time To Heal.” When I found this book I was ecstatic. It confirmed to me that all the handwriting processes I had done were absolutely on point. Handwriting our pain is not only crucial, but the absolute best process to follow, as the brain must slow down to process through our pen. This book gets into the physiology of why handwriting trauma is a crucial part of the healing journey. You do NOT have to be a prolific writer or speller to do this work. You just have to actually DO the tasks!
Processing trauma isn’t easy. Neither is holding it inside. To be afraid of healing is akin to willingly drowning. Two major components exist in the survivor stage.
1. Being willing to do the work, WANTING to do it and reveling in moving towards being a Thriver.
2. Accepting and creating solutions and boundaries.
I believe every victim can become a Thriver. It is simply a matter of choosing to do the work that brings us there. I was sick of being in pain all of the time and tired of only seeing the negatives in my life. I grasped onto gratitude like a lifeline, and it absolutely changed my world view in just a few short weeks.
I hope you will give yourself the gift of healing. You deserve it. You CAN do the work, and you will be so much stronger for your fight and your life! Being a Thriver has empowered me in so many ways. I believe in you.
Hymns from my childhood occasionally pop into my mind, sometimes replaying over and over, like a broken record. One mental trick I use to make repetitive mind music go away is to try and remember the end of the song. Normally by the time I’ve tried to remember the end of the song, it has disappeared from my mind.
After going through a personal situation a couple of weeks ago which opened up some old wounds, this happened with a song I had not remembered in over 20 years. I tried to use my “end of the song” method, but this song kept playing over and over and would not go away. These specific lyrics were the only ones playing repeatedly.
“This world is not my home. I’m just a passin’ through. If heaven’s not my home, then Lord what shall I do. The angel’s watchin’ me from heaven’s open door, and I can’t feel at home in this world anymore.”
Suddenly, my mind took a completely different turn. I found myself actually wanting to look at the differing lyrics of the many songs I was taught to sing repetitively as a child.
“What in the hell kind of lyrics are these, really?” I thought. The lyrics suddenly felt vile and suicidal. I had an urge to examine each word for exactly what they are.
I had never broken down gospel lyrics on a deep level like my mind was now doing. I had always blown them off with an eye roll.
In my teenage years, my older sister and I would get through church by adding “under the covers” at the end of the hymn titles and snickering quietly together. We had been taught about back-masking in secular music while growing up in a cult. For example, we were told that “Another One Bites the Dust” held a subliminal message telling us to smoke marijuana, but it could only be heard if the record was spun backwards. Also, they TOLD us what we “should” hear; literally gave us the sentence then asked, “Did you all hear it?” Well, now we do! That’s called suggestion. When suggestion is used on the mind, of course we hear and see what we are told we are supposed to hear and see.
Now that my mind is free from falling prey to suggestive phrases, I recognize them more.
So then, I recognized that something was terribly off with these lyrics going through my head. What were they suggesting? Christianity teaches that suicide is a sin. Here are seven different accounts of suicide in the Bible. Yet, this song is telling me that Earth is not really my home. I’m just passing through here, and that I shouldn’t feel at home in this world.
That was exactly how I felt when I was struggling with suicidal ideation. Now, I was hearing these same phrases in a gospel song as if it was okay to leave this world and even feel joyful about it.
How did this affect me as a child repeatedly singing these lyrics? What did it do to my mind in regard to my thoughts and feelings about death?
Hence, I set off on an exploration to find out how many gospel lyrics hold suicidal suggestions. What a confusing childhood, hearing and singing songs containing subliminal messages about sacrifice and suicide. At the same time, this religion was teaching me that suicide was a sin; a guaranteed ticket to hell.
Now, with clearer eyes, I was seeing the root in the mindset of why many humans might suffer with not wanting to live. How many of us grew up religious and abused and/or neglected based off this type of doctrine? How many of us sang these songs as children, day after day, year after year, sinking them into our subconscious, to live there, even if we felt we had deprogrammed religion but still struggled emotionally?
When I was feeling suicidal years ago, I had a meditative moment while taking a bath one evening. A voice audibly whispered in my head.
“Suicide is simply a program that was implanted into your cellular system by your abusers and the trauma you endured every day.”
I sat straight up in the bathtub. I had never looked at suicide as a mind control thought pattern infused by abuse. After this realization that I had actually been programmed to not want to live, I never struggled with suicidal thoughts again. My love for this life and its amazing possibilities grew inside of me. My refusal to allow my abusers to win created in me a mighty storm.
Shai Linne is a modern day gospel artist who gears his music toward the younger generation, teenagers and young adults. He has a gospel album entitled “13 Letters“. It has a spoken intro:
“Uh, soli Deo gloria, (Glory to God alone) uh. Once again. Thirteen letters! Yeah.”
We will focus on only one part of these lyrics: “Thirteen letters!“
We most often see it represented on the backs of the American dollar bill. There are 13 stars above the head of the eagle.
The Last Supper took place on the 13th day of the month, and the crucifixion occurred on Friday the 13th. The Knight’s Templar, protectors of the Holy Grail, the cup Jesus allegedly drank from at The Last Supper, were all slaughtered, on order from Pope Clement, on, yes, Friday the 13th. Judas was allegedly the 13th person to take his seat at the table during The Last Supper. Matthew says that Judas committed suicide after the crucifixion.
In a non-religious context, the number 13 was recently used in a suicide show entitled “13 Reasons Why“.
“How Great Thou Art” is a popular hymn that has been sung in churches for centuries. Children sing these lyrics.
“And when I think of God, His Son not sparing Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in That on the Cross, my burden gladly bearing He bled and died to take away my sin.”
In this song, the mind is subliminally being taught that without sacrifice, the individual is a sinful human being. Repetitively singing lyrics which instruct gratefulness that an invisible being horrifically sacrificed their own son on behalf of the individual, drives the point home. The individual no longer can deduct that this is, for instance, murder, and punishable by law. Instead the individual praises it.
Believing someone was murdered so that they could live, creates a deep wound of guilt in a person if they question or begin to reason the truth behind this. Instead, the repetitive program keeps them believing they have a responsibility to honor the human sacrifice that was the crucifixion of a man named Jesus.
The popular hymn, Great Is Thy Faithfulness, ends with this line:
“Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow, Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!”
Another popular hymn, Amazing Grace, ends with this lyric:
“When we’ve been there ten thousand years Bright shining as the sun, We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise Than when we’ve first begun.”
The key to these songs is the number 10,000.
The number 10000 is used 45 times in the Bible.
Saint Paul said to Corinthians: “for even though you might have 10000 slaves to look after you in Christ, you still have no more than one father”. (1 Co 4,15)
In this verse, Christian followers are referred to as slaves.
And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne . . . : and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands. [Revelation 5:11]
Indeed, ten thousand times ten thousand angels, which equals 100 million, symbolizes a great number. To sum up, there are numberless concourses of angels, an innumerable company of angels, and hosts of angels—all of whom are allegedly in the service of a God who requires humans should join this army as well.
Ten thousand guardian angels escorted Mary and Joseph during their trip to Bethlehem, for the birth of the Word, according to the visions of Catholic mystic Mary Agreda.
For the Chinese and the Mongols, the swastika cross (sign of salvation in their ceremonies) means the 10000 truths which concern the mysteries of the Invisible Universe, the Primordial Cosmogony, of the Theogony. It symbolizes the movement, the energy, the forward walking.
Hitler, inverting its orientation, used it as emblem of the Nazism.
“The Tao has fathered one, one has fathered a two, two has fathered three and three has fathered ten thousand“, wrote Lao-Tseu.
The song “What A Friend We Have In Jesus” ends with the following line:
“Soon in glory bright, unclouded, There will be no need for prayer— Rapture, praise, and endless worship Will be our sweet portion there.”
The word that is most important to look at is Rapture. What is the Rapture? According to North American Christianity, the rapture is the transporting of believers to heaven at the Second Coming of Christ. In regard to children, the Rapture is rarely talked about in detail. Children are likely to ask these questions:
When will the rapture happen? We don’t know Is it going to hurt? No, Sweetie! Do we fly into the sky? Yes. We will be taken up into the clouds.
At an extremely suggestible age, under five years old, when the mind is open to absorb deep into the subconscious, children are shown pictures of humans ascending up into open clouds. When these children grow into adults, they have been so programmed that humans will fly this way, that even as adults, they are unable to critically think into the scientific impossibility of this phenomena.
Likewise, they cannot logically break down the fact that the Rapture has been being promised to humans by other humans for thousands of years and has never happened. This is a very deep form of “death” programming when directed at a child, that at any moment of their life, a god could take them, but it will be a wonderful and painless death.
A child often adopts the adult’s “joy” as a way to comply and cope with the ideal, however, they rarely feel excitement at the prospect of death, even if there is some kind of heaven promised afterward. Don’t underestimate children. I knew very well as a child that the rapture concept equaled death for me.
As children we cannot turn the idea of heaven into a tangible visual which we can see. We can only imagine what is suggested to us. This description of pearly gates and golden floors does not enter our minds when we are children pondering the death which comes with rapture ideology.
One of the most popular religious songs children are taught to sing is “Jesus Loves Me“. The last line of this song says:
“Jesus loves me! He will stay Close beside me all the way; Thou hast bled and died for me, I will henceforth live for Thee.”
Again, we see the reference to human sacrifice. The child is being taught that they should live only for a god, because this god did a very special thing for all humans. It instructed its own son to die for them. These lyrics anchor the belief that a very special human bled to death, something a child often sees on television or the internet as a traumatic visual that they understand from a pain and suffering perspective. Children are literal and will see it as such, regardless of the way a parent may try and sugar coat the bloody sacrifice of a super human named Jesus.
Have you heard the song “I’ve Got the Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy Down In My Heart?” Let’s look at the last line of this song:
“I’ve got the love of Jesus, love of Jesus down in my heart. I’ve got that opposition to conscription down in my heart.”
Conscription is a noun meaning “compulsory enlistment for state service, typically into the armed forces.” This religious song teaches children and adult citizens of our country that they must have opposition to the armed forces. A child is a human who has rights to grow up and freely make this decision. It should be a violation of their human rights to strip their minds of future career choice possibilities.
Children sing this lyric, most likely never being taught the meaning of this word. Evangelical religions such as Jehovah’s Witnesses or Sam Fife’s Move of God, for instance, have a history of teaching against joining the military and/or going to war for any other reason except God.
Cult leader, Jim Jones, used a children’s choir in his People’s Temple, to welcome new members.
Another interesting concept religion teaches, whether actively or by way of reading the Bible, is that Christians are descendants of a man named Abraham.
One song that is popular in this concept is “Father Abraham“.
“Father Abraham had many sons Many sons had Father Abraham I am one of them and so are you So let’s all praise the Lord.”
The origins of Father Abraham begins in the history of the Jewish people in Bronze Age times in the Middle East when God promised a nomad leader called Abram that he would be the father of a great people if he did as God told him. Jews regard Abraham (as he was later called) as the first Patriarch of the Jewish people. Abraham appears in Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Let your mind absorb that for a moment. These religions of separatism are actually quite linear in their history and belief. Yet, so many of them are killing one another. All three of these religions teach their children they are descendants of the same man. Which one is the real one?
Here, a child is shoved into subconscious confusion and an automation of trying to figure out or come into compliant acceptance that they are here as Christians to fight WITH the Jews because of this lineage or they are to fight AGAINST them and ALWAYS against the Muslims.
Outside of the Bible, there is no “family tree” lineage proof that all humans are descendants of a man named Abraham. If, in fact, all humans descend from Abraham, the dissection through religion would be the largest example of a dysfunctional family on a global scale.
“God is love. O God, a man You became; A cursed man to be, God, You died for me. Lord, You hung from a tree.”
It is fair to deduct, after researching the many lawsuits against secular music due to lyrics, that religious music is not exempt from having self-deprecating lyrics which dissect a mind’s ability to build its own independent self esteem and trauma free thinking. Singing songs about humans being hung from trees is another form of tonal death training.
Finally, I leave you with the platoon-like cadence that children are taught to sing, while being taught body motions to go along with the programming of being a part of an army for a god.
“I’m In the Lord’s Army“
“I may never march in the Infantry, (march) Ride in the cavalry, (pretend you’re riding a horse) Shoot the artillery. (clap hands together) I may never zoom o’er the enemy, (spread arms out and pretend to be a plane) But I’m in the Lord’s Army. (point one finger up to God) I’m in the Lord’s Army, (yes, sir!) (salute) I’m in the Lord’s Army, (yes, sir!) I may never march in the Infantry, Ride in the cavalry, Shoot the artillery. I may never zoom o’er the enemy, But I’m in the Lord’s Army, (yes, sir!)”
A human’s mind is a complex organ. Everything that it absorbs from birth, and through life, forms the way the human will develop. The subconscious mind is constantly running behind the scenes. It is holding everything it has absorbed since the day it entered this dimension. We can look at scientific studies of how music affects the fetus to understand deeper the importance of choosing tones and lyrics carefully, in a way which fosters a subconscious which is soaking in peaceful, calm and self-loving infusing.
In all, stay aware of your mind and what you allow it to be absorb. Guard your children and be selective of what they are exposed to as they grow. Allow them the freedom to explore the world safely, and may you explore this world safely as well.
1. STAY MINDFUL OF WHAT YOU WATCH/READ IN REGARD TO NEWS
I wouldn’t watch the news these days without a pen and a piece of paper in hand. Why? I’d need to take notes as to what is being presented TO ME. There are two phrases that make me shut down immediately toward a journalist who has taken upon themselves the ethical responsibility to investigate and report facts about important situations, doing so SEPARATE from their own personal opinions or thoughts on the subject. “Just the facts, please.”
The two phrases that make me turn it off, turn the page or click that X in the top right hand corner are:
“I think…” “My opinion is…”
This is not journalism. These are opinion voices.
I don’t care about a journalist’s opinion. Again, “Just the facts, please, along with fact checking to back it up would be nice.” I can form my own conclusions from facts.
Listen very carefully to what is being said by news anchors about what is happening in the world and your country. There is a side of NLP called Dark NLP. It is a neurolinguistic programming used from a negative angle to control your mind, the way you think, react and feel about a subject. NLP existed long before the trend of using it as a “therapy” tool. NLP originated in the 1950’s and soon became a very handy tool of the CIA.
Dark NLP is language purposefully used to skew your mind. It is filled with specific words and body language strategically inserted into information that is being fed to you visually and audibly.
A very simple example of the use of NLP by media is dropping name brands into music. Not only does the name brand pay for the artist to promote their brand, but the listener now feels a deep desire to buy and boast the brand in order to be “cool” like their peers/fans of the artist. That is a win/win for the music industry and the brand. Below is an exploration of the use of mind control techniques in music.
What is happening to your mind when you are engrossed with a speaker in all ways, from their verbal to non verbal language and the speaker is telling you possible falsehoods as if they are truths? Will you be able to spot signals of things you do not want sinking into your subconscious mind? If not, this video may give you a little kick-start into how you are fed repetitive sequences of information. This video is posted only for the purpose of showing you identical speech patterns through multiple news outlets across the United States.
News and NLP:
“In NLP the meaning of any communication is the response that you get.” David Snyder
NLP is not only verbal. It is also visual. Hand motions, facial expressions and body language is a science that is known to influence the average person’s mind even in observatory conversation. Mirroring is taught at sales seminars, where salespeople train to watch their consumer’s behavior and listen to their conversation so the salesperson can behave like them and seal the deal. This results in the sales target becoming comfortable enough to buy. It is rampantly used by politicians, pastors, self-help gurus and corporations around the world.
Peter Bull, from the Department of Psychology at the University of York, studied the use of hand gestures in political speeches. He includes some case studies in this fascinating abstract:
Mega-church pastor, Joel Osteen is one example of someone who uses both verbal and non-verbal NLP. These are techniques taught in pastoral schools. Learn them and become adept at spotting them. Joel’s most popular non-verbal gestures:
Joel Osteen using NLP to avoid questions and respond in a form of crazy making conversation in this interview with Larry King. It is important to listen to vocal tone, when his voice goes soft, such as when he says “they love God”. These are very subtle ways of creating an ebb and flow in a person’s emotions.
The Forbidden Knowledge Archive is an interesting 49-page thesis which explores the many facets of the uses of NLP. As with all information I share, I in turn urge you to do your own study, dive in, find and read information for yourself and draw your own conclusions.
Lets face it. The news is meant to make you feel like shit. The world is ending. Everyone’s at war. A race war is coming. A civil war is coming. The economy is crashing. The list of fear-based information goes on and on. The commercials inserted between this continual rocking of your minds, not just in news, but in mainstream media in general, is a consistent up and down of humorous commercials meant to pacify you, coupled with brand based pieces geared to make you have buying urges, or fear based programming commercials such as, “if you have [this grave disease] you need this [pill] which will also cause another [grave disease], but there’s a [pill] for that” and so on.
Do you ever ask yourself where the positive mainstream news channels are? Have you ever asked yourself why there isn’t at least one mainstream channel in your community which reports only on the great things which happened in your area during the day? It’s because that won’t leave you in trauma, and that is an ultimate media agenda, to create and blast multiple traumatic scenarios at you every day, resulting in filling you up with fear and anger.
Real-time Murder Shows Lifetime Murder Movie of the Week Dramatic Reality Shows Craziest Police Chases Cops
The list of shows and news outlets which have increased over the decades is extremely long and disconcerting when it comes to the way media can make a person panic that the world is self-destructing, causing them to turn on one another, have increased social anxieties or severe isolation. Stay very keen if you choose to let yourself be subjected to mainstream media.
If fear is not the media’s agenda, then the public would simply be watching more positive media than fear-based media.
2. WRITE DOWN THE FACTS AND MISSING PIECES AS YOU HEAR THEM AND TAKE THE TIME TO CRITICALLY CHECK THEM
Remember that pen and paper I mentioned before? This is where it comes in handy. When you are watching, listening or reading the news, use mindful thinking. Listen to all versions of the story while writing down what you would consider facts.
How do you equate facts? I look at what would stand up in a court of law. I look for holes in the story, and then I research that hole. I go inside of it. Is there a missing piece? Why? Where is it? What is off with this story?
The key here is to ask questions. Question Everything. In doing so, you will be able to equate the truth.
Is there evidence, even circumstantial, upon which a case could be built? Does the story hold weight? Is it a story built off of someone said something that someone said, or are there experiencers being showcased telling their personal stories? If a news story, for instance, is about certain regions of the world or social constructs, write down your questions.
Then take the time to connect with people in those regions or social constructs, and ask them the questions. They are your counter weight to global news. Citizens in your community are your counter weight to local news. Social media can be used as a very good information source if you actually TALK to people, not just watch one minute videos, believe it to be truth, and then pass it on as truth.
When things began to really get worse between Israel and Palestine over the last few years, I purposely sought out through Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, average citizens like myself, who lived in these regions. I let them know I’m an American, and I want to understand their stance on this issue. I found out something very interesting. They all actually didn’t hate one another. They all wanted peace. They did not even express religious views about the conflict.
The patterned feedback I found in my conversations with people inside this conflict was that they all are just trying to live life, and were ALL most concerned about the peace and safety of their families. It convinced me that the issue is a political game and these people are simply collateral damage. This was never reported in American news, and undoubtedly never will. Yet, you could easily understand it by having simple conversations with the intent to listen and understand. You have access to people across the globe. Why aren’t you conversing with them?
I find there to be no excuse for individuals not having conversations that will help them understand the perspective of other individuals who are on the ground in certain situations. If you want to know what it’s like to live in poverty, talk to some poor people instead of watching the news. If you want to know about race relations, talk to people in your community. If you want to know about sexual abuse, talk to some survivors. If you want to know about cults, seek out those who grew up in them. If you want to understand politics, get into your community and see what is happening around you. What change would improve your community as a collective?
It hasn’t been hard for me to connect with people. If you are reading this, you are online. Therefore, it shouldn’t be hard for you either. What you must do, is the work. What you must do, is open your mind to the answers, and accept they may not match what you saw on the news. Accept that what you find may change your reality, and allow that to exist. It’s called growth and evolvement.
“If you heard it on the internet, it’s probably true.” Abraham Lincoln
3. HAVE THE ABILITY TO HAVE A MULTI-PERSPECTIVE VIEW
The way I separate the “wheat from the chaff“, so to speak, is a combination of listening to my intuition and letting it work in sync with a mind clear of anyone’s influence, including my own. I look at information from all angles. I don’t immediately take sides. I investigate. Once I’ve done that and deducted the truth, then I make a decision if I want to take a stand, walk away or simply observe and hold space.
Take politics for instance. I make a point NOT to follow any one side. Why would I ever immerse myself into situations which are focused on being devise when I can move in an Independent arena, taking no sides, and instead, focusing on politicians working on issues which are important to me? I may support a politician on some things and not others and decide not to vote for them because what I don’t like overshadows what I do like and vice versa.
I’ve watched people shouting about the blue and red, and I realize what I’m observing is America’s re-play of the 90’s Crips and Bloods battles, only the politicians’ drive-by shootings are their disinformation and defaming of one another.
If it’s not okay for the streets, it’s certainly not okay for any institution which is ethically supposed to be committed to having the best interest of the people at heart.
If you can’t have a multi-perspective view, you may be looking at a situation from your own trauma foundation mindset. This can result in you projecting your own traumatic experiences into someone else’s situation. This is very self-deprecating behavior. Please don’t take on other people’s situations as your own. I talk with dozens of people about a myriad of things, from select friends in war torn countries to individuals in my own community who are struggling, to trauma survivors, veterans and more. While I care very much about their well being, I also keep my critical thinking intact and remember that their situations are not my situations. So I am able to listen, observe and not let it turn me into a triggered ball of tears. I do so on my terms and in my own time.
Being able to have a multi-perspective view will also help you see holes in stories, because you are using your critical thinking mind instead of running solely on emotion that is being projected from unresolved personal traumas. Gain the ability to look at a situation objectively over time. With keen eyes and an open mind, you can see the truth for exactly what it is, even if it goes against what you have been told you’re supposed to do/believe/be.
4. DON’T BE A FOLLOWER
One of the worst things a human can do is become a follower and stay complacent in that space. People become followers for many reasons. Some follow an institution or a cause because it makes them feel relevant.
For example, I know of anti-cult “experts” who claim to be know everything about Scientology if that’s what’s trending. Then they’ve moved now to knowing everything about Jehovah’s Witnesses, because that’s what’s trending. They will move on to whatever other new cult subject comes up when that starts trending. But they are NOT experts on these cults. They are people adept at trying to stay in the spotlight. This is not an intention rooted in having anyone’s best interest at heart. That is the behavior of a follower with an ulterior motive disguising themselves as a leader.
Someone with the motive to let truth be known and to help without needing recognition, for instance, would know there are dozens and dozens of Jehovah’s Witnesses on social media speaking out and would encourage the media to talk with the experiencers to get the truth. Understand the myriad of people with agendas that serve only them or their latest book. Research the people you are following. Read everything about them and get to know who they truly are. Talk to people who have had experiences with them and listen to their stories. As humans, we have an innate ability to know truth vs lies when we don’t deny that ability within ourselves.
Others follow because they’re terrified to stand alone. Some follow because they love the frenzy of being a part of a big crowd. While I believe in peaceful protest, there are some protests that have held so many people in frenzies, I think about how many individuals they could have helped if they had taken those plane tickets and hotel money and poured it together into a support fund.
The women’s march in Washington DC would be a good example of this. Almost a million women bought plane tickets to the 2017 march. They financially supported the airlines. They financially supported the vagina hat maker. They financially supported the hotels, hostels, motels and/or Air BnB’s they stayed in. A million women spent almost 1000 dollars or more apiece to gather and protest.
Let’s do that math: 1,000,000 x 1000 = 1 BILLION dollars. Let me repeat that. 1 BILLION dollars.
How can a million women not take a billion dollars and actually create action to help one another, but they can organize to wear vagina hats and vie to be on the news? Why can’t the average American woman look at that with critical eyes and see how counter-productive that was in the larger scope of how those finances were used?
Would those same women have donated that money if that had been an option? I believe some of them would have, but I do not believe the majority of them would because that wasn’t their intention. Their intention was simply just to march and say they were there as if it was a political Woodstock. This is a follower mentality, in that they are not clearly thinking about the best plan of action for their agenda or the best plan of action for the finances they’re willing to invest into their cause.
Do you see the problem with American society here? I do. It’s action vs. attention. Attention, too often, wins.
Americans are used to protesting, but many are not used to doing on-the-ground work to actually help the causes they are so passionate about. Instead, they spend a few days worked into a frenzy and then head back home to continue on with their lives. Be careful of this behavior in yourself. Be willing to donate your money to help someone in your community in regard to causes you are passionate about. Make that money WORK with education and support. That will last someone a lifetime. Action changes lives.
Group think is a dangerous ground to tread on. It is a quicksand which often builds blinders around a human’s eyes so that the person can only see what the group wants them to see.
We must gain the ability to stand on our own two feet and stop following along after other people’s beliefs. We must re-tie the strand that connects us to our individuality and clear thinking. If we all look into our own lives and focus on PERSONAL change, this requires NO following at all. It simply requires work and motivation to be SO incredibly strong that no group nor gust of frenzy can shake you.
5. TAKE A BREAK, DAMMIT!
Turn those damn electronics off. Shut that computer down. Put that phone in the other room. Turn off the news notifications. It is OKAY to take a break. In fact, I beg you to take a break if you cannot clearly see the world outside of yourself with open eyes. If you’ve become one-sided about issues, you may want to ask yourself why? No issue is ever one sided. When in doubt, shut it down.
If you are being pushed into a personal negative mind space as a result of what you are seeing or hearing, give yourself a break.
Get into nature and take a walk. Turn on some music and dance. Bake something. Go play some pool. Go to a movie. Do anything except watch the news, read the news or deal with social networking. Clean up your feed. Un-follow anyone who you feel may be posting triggering opinions. I just went through a major social media cleanse on all of my networks. Now, when I sign in, I’m seeing who and what pertains to my passions. I have to tell you. It felt good.
You are ultimately in control of what you watch and what you take in. You are in control of when you turn it on or off. You are simply in control. The moment you believe you are not in control is most likely a signal that you need to take a break and re-ground yourself into your own reality so you can regain your inner balance.
Your reality is hopefully rooted in your own path; your own healing, your own growth and especially your own personal community. Inside of us is where true change begins; when we continue to promote healing and resist falling prey to fear frenzies, a very easily used mind control tool, given a wide open platform by the internet and media, we realize that beyond the trauma, beyond the social triggers, is a possibility for teaching moments and healing. This starts with the conversations we have with ourselves. our children, friends and family, and dedicating ourselves to a healing path.
So please, please, take a bubble bath (those aren’t just for chicks, by the way). Invite a friend over for dinner and a board or card game. Watch a funny movie alone. Clear your mind. Sit with a sunset, a sunrise or beneath a tree.
Take care of yourself and your mental health. We cannot carry the weight of the planet’s pain within us. Before you dive into anyone else’s trauma, make sure you are grounded into your own healthy reality.
There are ghosts in my view. I am traveling hallways. We are coming back for you. Your breath quickens as you wait. Will your heart give in to the ache; the secrets you hold? They rot your insides, you know.
We are your shadow self.
Every deed, word, blow and theft of innocence lurks inside the remnants of your biological cells. You never considered that hell would come from those you desecrated.
When we come, we are a pack without a leader.
We have no need to follow, holding hands side by side, we yell, “Red Rover, Red Rover, come on over!”, and we smile. You taught us to rip at each other’s wrists, remember? Danger as an entertainer. That was your pleasure.
There were the games we played in secret, away from your judging eyes, sneaking moments with quiet giggles. We reserved our spirits from your shattering, scattering into life, struggling through its mores as we held ourselves in fetal positions to survive. Now, we rise.
We have gathered the ashes of our pasts, reconstructed our wings, and we are prepared to fly.
We are the children of your terror. We are the outcasts and sinners, scar bearers and wayward waifs. We are the tattooed tyrants, birthed from your horror, walking our own paths against your wrath. We color our hair bright. We carry ourselves Light. We know each step with precision as we enter this fight.
We are not mercy. We are strength. We are not bitterness. We are valiance.
We are turning your worlds inside out, releasing the doubt you preach from pulpits and podiums and classrooms to children and vulnerable humans. We are Dragons, gathering in the night.
We have been watching you a very long time. You see, you taught us well, but you failed to keep the tide from turning. Now we take everything you forced us to absorb, the intel and verbal hell, battered bones and dissociated minds, childhoods left behind, never to be relived, and create a mighty hurricane, gathering speed every time another survivor speaks their abuser’s name.
We release shame. It is not ours. It belongs to you. Your time to be burdened with your own deeds is long overdue.
I am a lurker in the darkness, mystic of the floated corners where the view is clear up here. I see the past and futures merging. I see the sadness and the pain purging. I feel every heart hurting, from the wicked to the wounded and my eyes can only focus on the cries of the affected, injected by decades of apathetic sociopathy using human flesh in the deadliest fashions.
For those who have a passion for hurting others, it is you I watch, even those who cloak themselves in the mask of mirrored goodness. We are keenly keeping our eyes focused. We are passed hoping. We are ready for war. Are you? How fast will your knees buckle when the first blows come? How long before your run?
No more will we be ruled, organized or contained. No more will we remain silent or compliant.
Associations and organizations meant to capitalize on those who’ve almost died inside and outside are crumbling at their feet. Too long you have preyed on the weak. Your time has come to an end, and no matter how much you pretend, keeping an illusion of control, you are quickly slipping into a sinkhole.
Even as your wrinkled fingers hold the purse strings, we sing.
Even as you watch us still, spinning tales of the ones who tell truths on you, we laugh as your ropes fray. It is your day. Your reckoning has arrived. We have been released from the hive, a swarm, marching with precision. Welcome to your new religion.
One must wonder about the abusive adult whose mind is so oblivious it cannot rationalize, that what you forced us to internalize would return to watch you burn. Yet, into the flames you will run, because the thought of combusting will feel less painful than the torture we will enact. Every item accounted for. Every brick will be removed. Each stone you drove home to build your wall will fall, and in the end what will be left, are more humans, free from your invisible chains, living in happiness.
For now, you shake beneath the hands of a mighty earthquake. In this surge, graves are unearthed and after years of holding still, we now run swiftly, legs strong, to destroy the villainous ones.
You will relax, forget to watch your back, and we will attack, because you deserve to be fought. You deserve to be tested with unrest.
As I am working on writing the sequel to Cult Child, entitled Rise of Sila, I am again having moments of struggle, pain and even avoidance as I write out and re-live more child abuse memories.
Writing out traumatic memories is an intricate process. Telling someone a brief story of our experience is far different than the hours of detailing each ticking second of a memory. When writing, we must recall every possible sound, conversation, smell, surroundings and anything more we can remember, in order to write a book which allows our readers to be inside each experience with us.
As I am writing I understand how much I was never able to make sense of about growing up in Sam Fife’s Move of God cult; until I became a teenager. While my mother remained silent, my brother and sister did not. As I grew older, we had deep conversations, many questions were answered and peculiar situations happened to us which kept us bound together as siblings who, while not always getting along, each held pieces of our childhood shattering in a way that kept us feeling a base protectiveness of each other.
Many sad revelations came out in our conversations.
One explanation would come from my sister. I had a very convoluted understanding of love. I believed it quite normal for an adult man to be interested in teenagers and young girls, who after beginning our menstruated cycles, were now future wife material, able to breed children, future generations for the cult. It made biological sense to me, seeing as how I had been educated, not about sex, but about my duty as a female, which included mainly the honor of being chosen by a man and bearing his children, living for God and being a good wife.
Even worse were the predators like my sister’s rapist. He raped her under the guise of deep lies and promises of a rescue that she could not critically think through. He kept her in a state of hope and fear, a narcissistic criminal who preyed on an innocent and highly naive young girl. She could not deduct that he was married, had multiple children, and furthermore, she had no knowledge yet of what he had done to his own daughter. She was a victim of a very cunning and predatory man.
It would be in later years that I would find out the truth of what was done to my sister on multiple levels. A man named Buddy Cobb was the go to man for The Move of God for over 30 years after its founder, Sam Fife, died in a plane crash in 1979. When my sister was raped, Buddy Cobb flew to Alaska on one of the cult’s private airplanes specifically to “handle” the situation with my sister.
What Buddy Cobb did to my sister was nothing less than abhorrent.
We were sequestered into our cabin. I write about this in detail in Cult Child. They held Elders meetings to decide what to do about my sister. During this time, as a young teenager, I did not understand or have much of a clue about what was going on. No one explained anything to me. My sister would barely speak at all, staying curled up in the fetal position on her mattress in our cabin, usually facing the wall, telling me to leave her alone if I tried to talk to her.
The details of what happened to her will be told in Rise of Sila, but I will share a summary of the horrific shame she was put through. The final decision came down the line from Buddy Cobb. Not only were we to be expelled from the cult, but my sister was about to be forced to do something that no rape victim should ever endure. Decided by the Elders, under the leadership and advisement of Buddy Cobb, my sister was made to stand up in front of a congregation of over 200 adults.
She was forced to ask for their forgiveness. She was forced to confess that she was a Jezebel, a whore of Babylon.
No wickeder of a human could exist after someone as low as her, according to them. She was too much of a sinner to be rescued. She was such a slut, so vile, that it was more likely she would influence the other girls. This wasn’t just a demon which could be cast out. No, she was truly a problem for the men on the cult. She would more likely seduce man after man. For the record, my sister later went on to graduate college and be married to the same man for over 25 years, completely opposite what they predicted she would “be”, a girl who would never commit to one man. They were wrong.
With my brother having already run away, my teenage sister “seducing” grown men, me being “rebellious” and too non-compliant (argumentative), we just weren’t a family who was an asset to the cult any longer. With a “heavy heart”, Rick Alloe, my sister’s rapist, stood and confessed that he was weak and had allowed himself to be “seduced” by a teenage whore. They too were “exiled“, so we thought. We would later find out they merely migrated to live near another cult compound in the South, and their family would remain intertwined inside of this cult into the present times. One of the Alloe’s daughters, Debbie, married one of the original cult investors, a man named Doug McClain.
My mother and her best friend made my sister’s life hell. How could she do such a thing, destroy our families like that? Rick Alloe’s wife, Peggy, would never speak to my sister again. Post cult, when my mother and Peggy would talk on the phone, my sister would quietly exit the room. At first I didn’t really pay it much mind, but as we grew closer, and as I learned more, I understood, and the abhorrence of these women with their cultish, deviant behavior grew stronger.
My older sister was raped and victim blamed in a cult. It was 1984. Now, the unearthing of sex abuse and religious child trafficking is blasting into the news and social media. This is not a new horror. No. It has existed for decades; centuries. Have we simply come into a time of reckoning through the adult victims and the release of technology?
There is no consolation for having been through the levels of child abuse we kids suffered. No amount of restitution would make the pain go away.
Yet, restitution is due the victims all the same. Criminals who quietly stood by, knowing abuse was happening, should be held to their day in court. While the descendants of these rapists and their silent, aiding and abetting leaders want to live comfortably, reserving a false memory of their ancestors, not wanting to face the truth of what their families did to us, we will not allow this hiding any longer.
Before Buddy Cobb’s death in 2017, his granddaughter, Angie, brilliantly pegged him on the abuse. She asks him the same questions in two different scenarios. He gives the same answers, that the abuse is just evil having its day, and nothing happens that is not God’s will. When I first saw this video, I dealt with nausea having to see this man’s face again. His face has haunted me my whole life; the darkness of his eyes; the wicked smile; the arrogance and lack of caring. As a sensory child, my memories of him are filled with avoiding being near him and a crawling of the skin at his presence. While I have struggled to remember many of the eyes of those who abused me, I always could remember Buddy’s eyes, hooded and piercing, seemingly mocking and daring one to cross him.
His children would like us to think that these were the answers of a man who was aged and suffering with Alzheimer’s. Knowing Alzheimer’s as I do, I say that all the more then, he was speaking the truth. One of his children tried to say that the granddaughter was under the influence when she filmed it. I say even if she was, she still asked the question, and he still answered. Twice. In two different settings.
Maybe his mind had returned to what we children experienced and how they as adults handled it, shuffling pedophiles off from farm to farm, working us into exhaustion, beating children and blaming rape victims while protecting criminals. Broken bones and bruises? God’s will. Child rape? Just evil having its day. Regardless of any excuses being given in regard to this video, these responses are those of a man whose mind is extremely sadistic. The look in his eyes and specific hand movements are psychologically revealing to me.
There are no excuses to be given. There is nothing which can be said that will erase the truth of what was done to me, my siblings and dozens of other children in Sam Fife’s Move of God.
The church is being called to answer. No longer will we allow Christian ritual abuse to be slid under Satanism as if only Satan can be a wicked entity. If there is a God, loving, omnipotent and omniscient, I dare say, he is indeed, a sociopath entity who has fed children to his supposed fallen son, allowing evil to have its day, and that, my friends, according to the followers of the Bible, is simply God’s will.
Christians no longer get to say that this is not “true” Christianity. Yes it is. That is akin to saying a dictionary is not a real dictionary. The Bible is a book. There is no changing it’s existence. There is no changing the horror stories it holds or the sick mind control enacted based on its teaching.
Until humans wake themselves up to what has been done to their minds; to their judgment and sick moralistic ties to a book based out of blood sacrifices, incest, cannibalism (communion), exorcism and child sacrifice, I fear there will be no reprise for children continually born into the generational curse of religions. The after affects of being raised in such arenas leave adults with anxiety, depressions, low self esteem, false senses of wholeness and often a sadistic deviance in regard to children.
No longer will we blame victims for what has been done to them. No longer will we divert the issue of CRIMINALITY into an issue of religiosity.
As human beings, we have a responsibility to stop allowing adults to treat children like my sister was treated. Young minds are malleable and often naive. The church must be held to their cross for the foundation they have built which has allowed for this apathetic mindset to exist. The church must be held accountable for the deviance their morality concepts has created; concepts built out of stripping humans from their innate right to be free, think free and not be harmed.
No child is ever responsible for their abuse. There is nothing they can wear, say, do, think, or breathe which ever makes them the blame. There are only wicked adults attempting to hide from accountability.
The first time I heard the song “Purple Rain”, tears streamed down the sides of my eyes. They were deep tears, inspired by the mirage memory images dancing in my fifteen year old mind. I could see myself dancing in purple rain, but I didn’t know why. “I never meant to cause you any sorrow. I never meant to cause you any pain.” Those were the words I longed to hear from those who had abused me. His vocals sank into my soul, and somewhere in there, it touched the pains I had no way to define in any kind of literal sense.
Just shy of a few months of being free from a life on a fundamentalist cult in the backwoods of Delta Junction, Alaska, where I primarily grew up without electricity, running water, or access to this fast moving world, everything about Prince’s music stimulated particular parts of me. When dealing with the world around me, I often felt like I was inside of one of those ping pong machines I couldn’t quite figure out how to play. Those things made me agitated, and so did many parts of the environment around me. Music let me drift away, and Prince often helped me cry through it.
Purple Rain’s whole song list touched a piece of me who was trying to figure out itself. I wanted to “go crazy” and “get nuts and search for that damn purple banana until they put me in a…”, by the way, my mother liked to throw that word “crazy” around, and so I turned “Let’s Go Crazy” up just a little louder, pushing my boundaries until I hit her nerves and she screamed at me to turn it down.
“You want to call me crazy, huh? Well, let’s get nuts.” was just one of the thoughts that would run through my mind as I attempted to use music as a communicative tool only my peers seemed to understand.
Purple Rain was Prince’s first album, one of my favorite movies, and it made me feel. I admired the way he came out with a bang. The rhythms sang along with the joints I smoked, and the lyrics gave me a language for my emotions. When Doves Cry brought lumps into my throat. I was hearing the layers of secular music, and it dug its way into everything which had gone flat in me over the prior years of being surrounded by so much abuse. Music became interpretive, and Purple Rain was the first album I connected with on a soul level as a teenager.
“Foul.” My mother would say about Prince, as she slightly moved her toes in rhythm with the beat.
“Hypocrite.” I’d think, observing her trailer park level judgment.
The Beautiful Ones really did hurt me all the time, the ones I loved as a child, the ones I thought I loved as a teenager, and I wept, curled up, learning about human connection. These lyrics were able to touch me more than any gospel song harmonically programming me to a god I was still trying to figure out, who I still feared. When I listened to Baby I’m a Star, I felt a small urge of empowerment.
I was working on a project a while ago and listening to the Prince channel on my Slacker Radio. The song “America”, one of America’s most underrated yet most patriotic song ever composed, came on, and suddenly I was swept back to my high school days. My mind wandered to something I’d never explored before.
In 2001, Prince converted to the Jehovah Witness faith. I began to wonder how Prince’s music would change with the morphing of his mental belief system. I set off to explore his discography and study the patterning which may have emerged through his own spiritual journeys. Prince had already proven to be a revolutionary artist, Sign of the Times being a top-seller and another one of my favorites at the age of eighteen in the late eighties era.
Prince’s first post conversion albums were filled with the concepts of love. He immediately released “The Rainbow Children” with 21 tracks, some untitled and a mere .04 seconds long. It is filled with a plethora of genres, funky beats and occasional odd, electronic biblical messages that feel rife with mind control of his new dive into an extremist faith. Then suddenly a rift of freedom drops inside of the messages, causing the mind to drift into yet another dimension of composition and song. Deconstruction has a prophetic element in its lyrics, written well before it’s time and utilizes the same tonal, electronic and somewhat “alienesque” bot-like spoken word with amazing guitar rifts and vocal harmonies mixed into the message.
One after the other, the Banished Ones fled As they watched from the distance The destruction of the Digital Garden With no more fruit to bear from its trees The Haze was finally broken With the rains came the awareness that never again Would anyone ever lay claim to the treasures of the Rainbow Children
It would be five years before he released another album. He had explored other love languages, producing incredible balladry and instrumental genius pieces such as 3121’s “The Dance” and previously temporarily erasing his identity with the Love Symbol album in 1999, just a year prior to his conversion, which featured religious minded songs such as “And God Created Woman”.
Prince had a natural ability to continue understanding and embracing an apostate world while laying claim to a belief system which teaches against vulgarities and open explorations of sexuality. He prided himself on being able to explore sexual topics without what he personally considered vulgarity. For Prince, it’s apparent, that vulgarity could be left up to the interpretation of the listener. His work and phases of identities represent a deep exploration into the spiritual elements of his own DNA.
While it seemed that Prince spent the first decade of his Jehovah’s Witness post conversion life creating music which delved into a deeper layer of his self exploration, leaning more toward spiritual concepts, the last album Prince would release before his death was Hit n Run Phase One featuring songs like Million Dollar Show where he openly exudes a pop element mixed with a touch only Prince can develop, using violins to end what seems like a subtle mockery of himself and the manufactured sounds of pop.
As always, Prince painted a multi-dimensional picture with his music. With songs such as June, Prince seemed to be making music simply because he could, creating a scripted poetry smothered in the richness of beautiful and haunting instrumentals. He explored differing genres and wrote more ballads about lost love and raw, vulnerable emotion.
Conversation starters come way too hard Nobody wants to be the martyr, playin’ the wrong cards Why did you come to this planet? Why did you come to this life? “June”, Hit n Rune Phase One
A week after Prince’s death Hit n Run Phase Two released with equally brilliant funky jams like Black Muse. While “Diamonds and Pearls” appealed to the dance floor, the ballads written in Prince’s later years, are wrapped in a depth that could seemingly only be expressed through exquisite horns and strings, built softly around rhythms and the lull of his soft voice. Prince’s “Revelation” is one of the most beautiful and understated ballads he ever wrote.
Prince mastered the art of weaving his faith into the carnal realities of his flesh, continuing to explore an ever evolving and exploratory faith based life. He built an intricate web of musical gifts until his death, spinning raw sexuality with history and a reverence to the Christian God.
but the task at hand until I see the sun is to keep doing you until you cum, to revelation (revelation…) Through English glamour, casting a spell Though Hebrew, Greek and Roman hell higher ’til we understand, the colour of the Pharoah’s hand (the colour of the Pharoah’s hand…)
Finally, a short compilation of Prince’s funniest and greatest moments.
