- Find your beliefs
Beliefs are often unconscious like the air we breathe
- Follow your triggers
- Pay attention to what comes up for you
- Notice your Assumptions
- Listen to people you trust, ask them for feedback
- Write them down
Get beliefs into a form where you can examine and take them apart.
- Pick one so you can take them apart one at a time
Cults use tactics like circular reasoning which make a tangled knot that needs to be separated one strand at a time.
- Pick something easy to deal with in the beginning
- Work on bigger triggers when ready
- Notice emotions
Give yourself permission to feel your emotions whatever they are.
- Grief/Guilt/Pain/Anger/Elation/Excitement/Fear
- Be gentle with all of them
- Lean on cult support group/supportive friends & family/therapist
- Once you notice these emotions – process them
Logic is different than the emotions and emotions are the harder part
- This is a long process (See Recovery and Self-Care)
- Look at the ‘reasons’ you believe each thing.
Look for the thoughts and emotions that support the belief and decide what makes sense to you now.
- Reality Checking
- Repeat as often as necessary
At first you may have a small amount of relief. It gets easier.
- The goal is to have your own life and your own mind.