Many groups and organizations have a cultish feel to them, whether it’s a religion, a police force, an army unit, a social club, or an extended family.
What flows from cult life is unearned allegiance, where the individual is stuck needing support the worst of what his or her cult is promoting. So, you end up with a cultish allegiance to never telling on a fellow police officer, never disputing a cruel uncle, or turning a blind eye to a pedophile cleric. These identifications harm the individual—and, ultimately, they harm all of us.
Using the Redesign Your Mind technique of visualizing your mind as a room and redesigning and redecorating it so as to transform it into your ideal mindspace, let’s create a visualization that helps free you from your cult allegiance.
- Visit your mindroom. Turn on the lights, using the light switch that doubles as a calmness switch. Feel the sense of calmness that comes with having that calmness switch available.
- Use your pressure release valve to release the pressure you feel when you try to think about your cult. It is not easy to tolerate conflictual thoughts and thinking about your cult is one of those sorts of thoughts. Use your pressure release valve, feel the pressure reducing, and begin to breathe more easily.
- Go to your Speaker’s Corner, the place where you go when you want to speak the truth. Take a deep breath and say what you need to say. That might sound like “What David did is not okay, even if he is a great rabbi” or “I do not believe that women should be stoned for trying to vote.” Tell your truth, even if it frightens you.
- Make an announcement from your Speaker’s Corner, announcing your intention. This might sound like, “I am telling David that what he did was wrong, even if that gets me ostracized” or “I am marching with the women, even if that gets me stoned.”
- Go to your easy chair and sit in it, even if you are feeling agitated because you announced your truth and because you voiced a dangerous intention. Sit there as calmly as you can. Or stand by the window you’ve installed and look at the calming vista you created, of a lake at dawn or a beach at sunset. Let your intention settle in as you work to maintain calmness.
- Go to that closet in a corner of your mindroom and put on your warrior clothes. Be the hero you need to be so that you can act on the intention you’ve just set. Get your cape on and feel powerful.
- Proceed with whatever next steps make sense. Maybe that’s setting up an appointment with the rabbi or looking up when the women are marching. Throughout this effort, you may not have once said, “I am leaving my cult.” But that’s what you’ve been doing. You may not have left completely yet, but you are surely engaged in disengaging. Freedom is coming.
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“Maisel’s thorough explanation of his technique will help readers who are looking to push through their mental roadblocks and improve their emotional well-being.”―Publisher’s Weekly. Redesign Your Mind, available for purchase now.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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