Best of the Forum - quirky - processing my regrets

processing my regrets

Posted by:	quirky
Date:	05/15/2005, 07:15:38
Original URL:	Click here (However, the link may be stale.)

Last night was particularly interesting in regards to processing leaving the cult. I was at a plateau, sort of cruising, reading and posting on forum 8, living my life, and not talking much to my premie friend about it (who was really there for me as I was exiting and was supportive) because I think he did not want to process any more confronting info at this time.

I went to a banquet honoring mentors (I mentor a high school girl in writing, she is writing a novel) in their career mentorship program, the mayor spoke, etc, and then came home, sat on the patio watching a monsoon rain and lightning storm, smoking a cigarette, and started wondering if she was going to invite me to her graduation (I have mentored her for two years and she wants to continue after graduation).

All of a sudden I remembered that I had missed my daughter's high school graduation in June 1998 to go to an event in Wembely UK with M. I remember asking her if she really wanted me to stay, I would. But she had been taking the last two years of high school at the college for this Running Start program, and had not really been to the high school much, said it was a joke, dyed her hair pink for the ceremony,etc. But anyway, she told me it was ok with her for me to go see M, so I did.

But last night I felt such a regret at having not been there for her (and for me, now I have no special memories of it). Even on a subtle level I am sure she got a message that he (M) was more important than she was. I started crying in regret and then feeling anger toward M for the whole 30 years of putting him first. I allowed myself to feel it all and am contemplating writing to my daughter about it. I already told her awhile back I was no longer involved and she was really cool, said it had never affected her in any negative way and that I seemed to like it so it was ok with her.

This is a process of unpeeling. I am slowly looking back to see other regrets...not large categories like career choices, school choices, but individual pesonal events that were based on choices to put him first instead of being able to look at my life objectively to see what was best for me, or those I loved. I guess... looking at the road not taken.

looking at the road not taken

Posted by:	lesley
Date:	05/15/2005, 14:47:56
Original URL:	Click here (However, the link may be stale.)

Good post Quirky. I left the cult in 2000, it happened quickly once I found EPO, and I remember the extraordinary sensation one afternoon of feeling like I had just pulled a paper bag off my head, one that I had been walking around in for years.

It's a few years down the track now and I feel good. That paper bag got in the way of my knowing myself.

Regrets can sting. But they also bring a rich harvest of self knowledge. I was lucky enough to pick up the book Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes during the stingiest bit. He was good company.

At one point he talked about Flaubert's apocrypha, the ideas for novels that he had had, but never actually written. And likened this to people's lives.

One afternoon around then I went for a walk on the beach with my mum, in her seventies then, she said to me when you were born I loved you but I had no idea of how it would grow.

My guess is your daughter would love to hear about it all from you.

Re: looking at the road not taken

Posted by:	quirky
Date:	05/15/2005, 18:28:50
Original URL:	Click here (However, the link may be stale.)

HI Lesley,

Thanks, I am totally with you on your response (see my answer to Susie). I will check out that Flauber's Parrot book, sounds interesting. Yes we all have no idea how our children will grow. If the worst thing I can say about how I acted in her childhood was missing her graduation, then life is good! She tells all her friends how cool I am, so I must have done something right. But I had to experience mourning the loss of that experience by allowing myself to feel the regret.

Re: processing my regrets

Posted by:	JHB
Date:	05/15/2005, 18:09:53
Original URL:	Click here (However, the link may be stale.)

Quirky,

I think the issue of regretting personal choices is so important in unravelling our lives as premies. I regret not spending more time with my parents and my sister and brothers. My mother now lives with me, and so many times she mentions small events that I missed because I was too wrapped up in my life as a premie.

Fortunately, during the last decade, I have made contact with Latvian family members in the US and in Latvia. In 1998 I had a difficult choice - to go to a program with Maharaji in Wembley, or to attend my cousin's daughter's wedding in Tahoe (I had only met her once). I chose to go to the wedding, and justified it to myself by booking for the planned Barcelona program later the same year. The Barcelona program was cancelled. Relatives I met at the wedding have been in Latvia this last week, and it was great to see them. Memories of seeing friends and relatives are much more real than memories of seeing Maharaji.

John.

Re: processing my regrets

Posted by:	quirky
Date:	05/15/2005, 18:33:26
Original URL:	Click here (However, the link may be stale.)

John,

Wow, Wembley '98 was the exact program I went to instead of my daughter's graduatoin. At least someone made the right choice!! I am sure as I unravel, I will remember more of my choices that will trigger regrets again, but processing it on this forum, and hearing everyone's experience, is powerful support. Thanks!

Quirky

Processing those regrets...

Posted by:	Cynthia
Date:	05/16/2005, 08:36:20
Original URL:	Click here (However, the link may be stale.)

Hi Quirky,

Your post reminded of myself and my youngest sister who graduated from high school in the late 70s. At the time, I hadn't yet been moved to Miami for the DECA project, and was living in the ashram in Hartford. It was during the heavy devotional period, what Joe often refers to as the "Catholic period."

I went to a Maharaji program instead of my sister's graduation. She of course, told me it was okay at the time, but for us, specifically, it really wasn't okay at all for me to have missed it. My sister was still living with my parents (long before they split up and we got rid of psychopathic "Dad") so she really, really was in emotional need of her big sister. I should have been there for her instead of running around the country following Rawat for a foot-kissing fix.

A few years ago after I exited the cult, I talked to her about it. I apologized and told her how in retrospect that I realized how much she had needed me than, and that I had placed my "guru" needs above her emotional ones. I felt like a heel.

It's amazing how understanding people are once one gets out of the cult. She has been so relieved I've been out. During that discussion she told me how "crazy dad" had done some "private investigation" with the possible goal of having me deprogrammed! That was kind of funny (weird funny) because it took me years and years to deprogram myself from "crazy dad!" And then from Rawat.

All in all, talking it out when circumstances allow is the best medicine for relationships effected by cult involvement.

Be well,

Cynthia

Re: Processing those regrets...

Posted by:	quirky
Date:	05/17/2005, 04:57:39
Original URL:	Click here (However, the link may be stale.)

Hi Cynthia,

Thanks for telling your story too. There are lots of similarities for those of us who were in for awhile and bought the party line about what it meant to see M. Sometimes I look back and see this desperation in some of the folks, like that event would be the one 'hit' that would carry you through 6 months of living in the hell of the 'real' world. Now the real world seems like heaven and looking back seems a bit like babalouji's dancing devil!

hehe

Re: Processing those regrets...

Posted by:	Cynthia
Date:	05/17/2005, 05:06:28
Original URL:	Click here (However, the link may be stale.)

When I was reading about the upcoming Miami program I got the feeling you described so well:

...like that event would be the one 'hit' that would carry you through 6 months of living in the hell of the 'real' world...

There was so much pressure from M and from inside our own minds to rush, rush, rush to those programs. I actually believed that if I missed a program I was tarnishing my soul -- somehow. I don't remember my rationalization!

Yup. The real world is heaven as opposed to that other one...

Cynthia

Re: Processing those regrets...

Posted by:	quirky
Date:	05/17/2005, 14:46:53
Original URL:	Click here (However, the link may be stale.)

oh yes, another thing I regret is the subtle and not so subtle judgment I felt during my more fervent years about those who did not leave it all behind to go see the Lawd. (it's embarrasing)

"the one "hit"...Amaroo

Posted by:	shelagh
Date:	05/17/2005, 07:11:43
Original URL:	Click here (However, the link may be stale.)

Hi Quirky! You describe so well that old feeling of absolutely "having to" get to some program or another--a "hit" yes, as in, addiction! For me, the final all-time, drop-dead ultimate ONE THING YOU CAN'T AFFORD TO MISS event was Amaroo of 2001. I had heard SO much about it in previous years and how it would change everything if you could only make it there!

I finally made it there, across the universe and at huge expense, only to run into a local premie swanning around as one of the Big Shots and making himself very prominent, and me getting physically ill from the heat and dust, and dismayed at the way people rushed to the arena without any thought for the folks who had stood in line in front of them for hours, and well...all I can say now is, I'm glad I got to see a bit of Brisbane because it's a beautiful city!

Did Amaroo change everything for me? Yes, but not the intended one--it was just a measure of how FAR I had to travel away from myself before beginning the welcome return home.

My best to all of you who are on the jouney back to yourselves!

~shelagh