While we all judge and compare ourselves to others from time to time, for Jehovah’s Witnesses, it’s a way of life. Members of the JW religion experience a strange dichotomy where they mean nothing as individuals, but as one of the only group on earth with God’s approval, they are superior to all other humans. This confusing contrast often results in a very low sense of self-worth, coupled with a tendency to be extremely judgmental of other people.

Unfortunately though, being judgmental negatively affects your personal relationships and will do nothing to improve the quality of your post-JW life. No one wants to be around judgmental people. However, letting go of such an ingrained way of thinking first requires us to understand and address the reasons for it.   

In this article we are going to explore the impact of JW beliefs on self-worth, how this can contribute to a judgmental mindset, and how acceptance of ourselves and others will help us let go of that mindset after leaving the organisation.

How being a JW affects your self-worth

The American Psychological Association (APA) defines self-worth as ‘an individual’s evaluation of himself or herself as a valuable, capable human being deserving of respect and consideration. Positive feelings of self-worth tend to be associated with a high degree of self-acceptance and self-esteem.’

After reading that definition, what is your immediate reaction? As a JW, did you feel like a valuable, capable human being deserving of respect and consideration? And what about ‘worldly’ people or even former JWs. Were you encouraged to view them as valuable, capable human beings also worthy of respect and consideration?  

In my experience, a JW’s sense of self-worth is highly dependent on their ability to ‘serve God’ in whatever way the organisation deems appropriate. The moment you leave, well, it’s all over. You deserve nothing, except to be labelled as vermin and have everyone, including God, rejoicing when you die at Armageddon. Such respect. Such consideration.

In this way, a JW’s self-worth becomes inextricably tied with them being one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

As a JW, you were only worthy of anything if you were part of the organization. Even your personal needs only mattered to the extent that they affected your ability to ‘seek first the Kingdom’. You can’t fulfill your theocratic obligations if you are too tired or sick, so members are encouraged to look after themselves, but only for the purposes of meeting the organization’s needs.

Your entire identity is suppressed in order to ‘put on the new personality’, which often results in members being totally out of touch with their own emotions, needs, wants, likes, and dislikes. JWs are constantly told how incompetent they are at directing their own lives, and how they need God/the organization, to do it for them.

If you don’t know who you actually are, have no faith in your own abilities, and are fearful of the world and being part of it because your only value or contribution to it is in being a JW, it is hard to build a healthy sense of self-worth.

For many JWs, the only thing that gives them a sense of identity, purpose, and self-worth, is the organization, and they will do whatever it takes to remain within it.

Why judging others is essential as a JW

As mentioned at the outset, while a certain level of ‘judgyness’ is normal and human, for JWs, it’s an inherent part of their life and culture. It’s in the looks you get when you mention something that others disapprove of. It’s in the ‘guidance’ from the platform on what you should watch, wear, read, and do, because by default, if you see or hear of anyone doing anything that contradicts it, you will notice it, and you will judge it.

It’s in the constant expectations that you are living a certain way, and the acceptance of what will happen if you don’t. It’s in the ‘concerned inquiry’ as to why you weren’t at a meeting or out witnessing, and it is in your own assessments of whether you should associate with someone, or not, or whether you are a good Witness who is worthy of life in the new world, or not.

Despite the admonition to ‘stop judging’, JWs judge and are judged on every single thing they do, say, or even think. And as JWs, if our judgement let us down, if we failed to recognize a particular ‘danger’, the consequences were devastating. We could lose everything. Our family, our friends, our lives, our ‘clean conscience’, and God’s approval.

Our ability to judge ‘effectively’ was essential to our survival as a JW, and because being a JW was essential to our identity and sense of self-worth, judging ourselves and others harshly became part of our mindset. And like a bully who inflicts pain on others to feel better about himself, judging others as being not like us, or less spiritual, or a bad association, or whatever it was, also made us feel better about ourselves.

But what about after you have left?

Letting go of judgement

After you leave, the extreme level of judgement you needed to exercise over yourself and your fellow human beings is simply not needed anymore. Being judgmental will not add to your happiness and it will not improve the quality of your life. If anything, it can harm your interactions with others because it simply isn’t pleasant or enjoyable to be around really judgmental people. They bring you down and make you feel terrible about yourself. This goes for yourself too. How do you feel when you judge yourself harshly?

Unfortunately though, by the time we leave, being highly judgmental is such a well-honed skill that it can be hard to let it go. So where to start?

Start with self-acceptance

People who are comfortable in their own skin are far less likely to judge others. So let’s start there.

As mentioned in the definition above, self-worth is strongly related to self-acceptance. Self-acceptance is defined as ‘a relatively objective sense or recognition of one’s abilities and achievements, together with acknowledgment and acceptance of one’s limitations’.

Self-acceptance is not about blindly accepting everything about yourself as perfect. It is about seeing yourself for who you are, the good, the bad, and the ugly. It is about understanding what you need to work on and accepting that for what it is. It is not about judging it, fighting it, ignoring it, or beating yourself up over it.

To build self-acceptance you firstly need to know yourself, because you can’t accept something that you don’t understand.

This is incredibly difficult because as JWs, we are taught to reject ourselves, so we didn’t get to know ourselves at all. You were expected to replace your own personality with the ‘new personality’, and even to ‘tear out your eye and throw it away’ if it made you stumble. We were incredibly judgmental of ourselves and saw any flaws as potential threats to our survival.  

This isn’t the case anymore though. So take the time to get to know yourself, and accept yourself (see earlier posts: Recovery Priority #1: Get to know yourself, and Recovery Priority #2: Acceptance). Once you understand and accept yourself, you will be more capable of extending that understanding and acceptance to others, and you will also be able to accept that others may not have had a chance to do this yet.

Building your self-esteem

As with self-acceptance, self-esteem is also positively correlated with self-worth. It is defined (in part), as ‘the degree to which the qualities and characteristics contained in one’s self-concept are perceived to be positive’. The more positively you view yourself (including your physical self-image, your accomplishments, capabilities, values, ability to live up to those values, and how others view and respond to you), the stronger your self-esteem.

I would argue that self-esteem is also largely tied to members being part of the organisation, and while they are within it, their self-esteem was probably ok. As a JW, if you were ‘doing the right thing’ you were built up by those around you and you probably felt pretty good about yourself when you ticked all of your spiritual boxes. After leaving however, it can be confronting to re-assess all the components that contribute to self-esteem in an environment where many of your accomplishments, capabilities and values are no longer relevant.  

While building self-esteem after we leave requires us to know who we are as individuals, it is also somewhat contingent upon the life we live, the choices we make, and how we feel we measure up to the values we have chosen. So take the time to work out what your values are now, and think about how you can live in a way that aligns with those values, making decisions that take you closer to the life you want, not further away from it (see earlier post on making good decisions).

Maintaining a positive sense of self-esteem also requires you not to be too hard on yourself when you fall short. Accept that you will always have areas to work on, and feel worthy enough to be in this world regardless.

Self-worth in your post-JW life

Your self-worth now has absolutely nothing to do with what you can do for an organisation and everything to do with you as a person. Even if you join another organisation, remember that you are your own person, and anything you do for that organisation you do because you want to, not because you feel obligated to or feel that if you don’t, you have no other worth on this planet.

If you have a sense of your own identity, have accepted your flaws and amazing shiny attributes too, have a positive feeling about your accomplishments, capabilities and the way you are living, this will help you feel like you deserve to be in this world and have something to offer it, other than door-knocking to inform householders that they will be dead soon unless they adopt your way of life.

Anything that builds your self-esteem and self-acceptance will contribute to your overall sense of self-worth, so take the time to develop your skills and talents in ways that are unique to you, and notice even the small things you do to contribute to humanity in a positive way. This can be as simple as developing your listening skills and being there for someone when they need to download.

When you feel good about yourself, you will also feel good about others, be more indulgent and tolerant of their whims and fancies, and be far less likely to judge or condemn them to feel better about yourself. Only when you feel good about yourself can you be generous enough to help others feel the same way.  

When someone does something you don’t agree with

While every situation is different, and our post-JW consciences are all in different stages of redesign and redevelopment, here are a few things to consider if someone does something you don’t agree with and you are unsure of how to react, or you find yourself instantly judging it:

• Firstly, don’t take it personally. There could be many reasons why someone said or did something you found offensive that have nothing to do with you.
• Put yourself in their shoes. How might they be feeling right now? What could have influenced them to do or say what they did?
• Before taking offence, consider whether whatever they said or did affects you personally. Have you or your loved ones been personally and directly impacted? If not, try not to take sides.  
• If someone tells you something personal in confidence, try not to break that confidence unless:
  • There is a risk they will harm themselves or others (this is based on the principles of client/practitioner confidentiality as per the APA and stated to clients up-front), or,
  • Something illegal has happened or may occur and it is your responsibility to report it.

Depending on the information, you may need to vent to your own personal confidant to help process what you have learned, but think carefully before sharing the information more broadly. In most circumstances is best to hold your tongue. Spreading personal information about others to justify your own conscience can cause a great deal of unnecessary pain.

• If you feel so strongly about something someone has said or done that you feel it is necessary to share it with others, if possible (and safe to do so), explain this to them first, particularly if their expectation is that it would remain confidential. Let them know why you feel responsible for their actions and need to get others involved.
• Give some thought as to how and to whom you will share their personal information, and only share it with those who need to know.
• Be very careful about sharing someone else’s personal information on social media. Firstly, once it’s out there you can’t control it, and secondly, when online, people have a tendency to react in ways they wouldn’t if these interactions happened face to face.

It is incredibly easy to become morally outraged at someone’s actions when you don’t know them personally, and it is easier to express that outrage when you do not receive direct visual feedback of the hurt your words are inflicting (the way you do in a face-to-face conversation). This essentially removes the ‘cost’ of expressing moral outrage, which in-turn makes it all too easy to say things online or on social media that you would not say to someone’s face[1].

Justified or not, the fall-out from this type of outrage can be extremely difficult for recipients to handle. They are likely dealing with the direct consequences of their actions anyway and this additional pressure will not necessarily add anything helpful or productive to the situation.

• Before openly sharing your opinion of someone else’s life choices, think of how you would feel if the world not only knew everything about you, but told you exactly what they thought about you too.  
• Keep in mind that it is possible to disagree with something someone has said or done, but still appreciate other aspects of that person’s personality, work, or actions that are unrelated to that particular offense.
• Try not to take on fights that aren’t your own. As JWs we are taught to think we puny humans should be standing up for God (like the Almighty can’t do it himself?), so we can be very protective when it comes to something we feel strongly about. There is nothing wrong with that, but before spending too much energy on your moral outrage, consider whether this battle really is yours to fight.

As former JWs, we are going to get a lot wrong. We are learning things now that we would have learnt years ago if our development hadn’t been stunted by an organisation that only wants to control and exploit its members. Have compassion for our fellow recoverees and don’t be too quick to judge. You can’t know what you may have said or done under the same circumstances.

We are all a bit crazy

In general, no one tries to do a bad job at anything. Most people don’t wake up in the morning and think to themselves, ‘Yes, I think I might go and be a right b@stard today just because I feel like it’. People do stupid things because sometimes, they are stupid. You are stupid sometimes too, and so am I. We are all stupid sometimes, and a little bit crazy too. In the words of philosopher Alain de Botton, our conversations should sound more like, ‘I’m crazy in these ways… how are you crazy?’, with the aim of helping our various crazinesses coexist.

Let’s embrace the weird and wonderful life that is ‘not being a Jehovah’s Witness’. Build up your own self-worth to help you become more tolerant, accepting, and respectful of yourself and others, including those you may disagree with or not fully understand. Everyone deserves consideration, forgiveness, and acceptance, so let’s ensure our shared experience as former JWs helps us do that for each other too.  

References and helpful resources:

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[1] Molly Crockett, Ph.D, ‘Moral outrage in the digital age’: https://www.youtube.com/live/jRAfcpPpXrg?si=UIGkHQeCQdA1Sc6G

Alain de Botton – On love:  https://youtu.be/jJ6K_f7oSdg

Alain de Botton – On emotional education: https://youtu.be/W9X7u-MeJz0

APA guidelines for client/practitioner disclosure: https://www.apa.org/ethics/code/ (see sections 4.05. B & C).

National Association of Social Workers Code of Ethics section 1.07: ‘social workers need to protect confidentiality except for compelling reasons, such as ‘to prevent serious, foreseeable, and imminent harm to a client or other identifiable person.’

Previous related posts:

Recovery priority #1: Get to know yourself

Recovery priority #2: Acceptance

Making good decisions: Top ten tips for getting it ‘right’