This is a question we all likely heard the Elders address from the platform from time to time. It is also clearly a topic the organisation feels strongly about, because they have chosen to include it in the FAQs on the JW.org website. Do they really answer the question though? Or does their own…
In Part 3 we pulled apart the various JW views of work and how these may have affected us, but now we are going to focus on identifying your own values about work and what you want from it in your post-JW life. Like pretty much everything in our lives after leaving the religion,…
Work. Some of us love it and some of us hate it, but either way, we all spend a lot of time doing it. While it’s normal to have the odd bad day at work, no one enjoys doing work they genuinely dislike, day, after day, after day. As JWs, our work simply HAD…
Developing interests and hobbies can really improve the quality of our lives after leaving the JWs. There is so much literature and even medical science which shows that hobbies can bring so many benefits, from stress reduction and increased life satisfaction, right through to improving cognitive function and heart health.[1] While we may recognise…
This post explores how the meaning of death is distorted in Jehovah’s Witness teachings and culture, and three ways that rethinking everything we formerly believed about death can help us learn to be truly alive. Reassessing JW beliefs about death Many of us struggle to figure out what we want after leaving the Witnesses….
This post is all about learning to be happy after leaving the Witnesses. We explore happiness, contentment, and satisfaction, and what these concepts mean when the JW distortions have been stripped away. Despite everything you were told as a JW, your own personal happiness is actually extremely important. Feeling happy is important, pursuing what…
As JWs, we became very good at accepting things we didn’t agree with. Trying to change anything or do anything other than accept the status quo was not only futile, but potentially even dangerous. You could bring shame on yourself, your family, on God, and on the organisation, only to end up cast out…
As self-indulgent as it may sound to anyone who has been a JW, getting to know yourself is the best thing you can do to help yourself learn to live after leaving. As a JW, your entire sense of self is set aside, squashed, and told that it has no right to exist. The…
Being one of Jehovah’s Witnesses affects us all differently. Believe it or not, some of us come through relatively unscathed. Perhaps the unscathed ones were lucky enough to have an extremely stable and loving family life despite the religion, and they grew up having at least some autonomy and agency over themselves and their…
Before leaving the Witnesses I had never even heard the words coercive control, and if I had, I certainly did not apply them in my own life. Control is normal in this organisation. If you were born-in, this is all you have ever known. You are totally unaware that every aspect of your life…