I've been officially out of TSCC for fourteen years and four months. My short exit story is that I was listening to a program on NPR about the Mountain Meadows Massacre as I was driving home from SLC. I don't remember if it was on the same program but I heard talk about blood atonement and the origins of polygamy. These issues shocked me to the core and got me studying. In a very short time, perhaps three months in all, I quit believing. From there, it took me just over one year to resign. The same day I mailed my letter into the COB, I met with new friends from RfM on the eve of an exmormon conference.

Lately, some music from my younger years triggered me and I've been stuck thinking how differently my life would be today if, as a young adult, I'd been more introspective and more patient in making family and professional choices. It's an unproductive and melancholy thought pattern; I've got to let it go and just move on. Am I the only one that replays the "what if" record from time to time?

Cuz X

You're not the only 'what if' player here.

Mine is short and to the point: What if I had any discipline?

But I don't let it get me down ... mostly because I'll spot a squirrel or something!

Then you’d be boring and non spontaneous. Plus, it’s a lot more fun to edge it out by the skin of your teeth. What, more discipline then would mean... more money?....more stuff?...so what?

Of course if you had some more discipline, you’d be a better golfer...there’s that.

So, how do you feel about Tiger’s victory? He’s had what I’d call “selective discipline “.

I'm waiting to find out what brand of gum he was chewing! And what flavor of that brand!

No. You're not alone. Music is really a trigger for me as well. Find a way to get out of it, though. It can really be a destructive pattern.

Hey Cuz X, I am a nevermo and yes, the "what if" game plays itself out in my mind all too frequently. Much to my dislike. It does seem to be a strange phenomenon :(

Yes, music has that effect on me as well. The radio station that I wake up to with my alarm plays music from my youth in the early morning hours. That music often makes me smile, but it can also trigger me to reflect. I don't think I've made any bad decisions in my life, but there are definitely things that I would do differently based on current knowledge.

I think that what most strikes me is how naïve I was in my younger days. I had so little knowledge of how the world functions. I was raised to be a "good girl," but I would have benefitted from some degree of shrewdness, practicality, and skepticism.

summer Wrote:
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>.... shrewdness, practicality, and skepticism.

Oh my! Yes I wish those things had been taught in school! And you had to pass a test in them to graduate!!!!

Oh yeah...the old "rabbit hole." Don't go there! (Hm-m-m-m. I wonder what my life would be like if I stopped wondering "what if")

I have lots of good advice for you. (What if I had been disciplined enough to follow my own good advice?)

Part of the battle is fighting that old Mormon perfectionism! Accept yourself for who you are. Only Jesus was perfect, except, he wore sandals and had a beard.... You are probably putting too much pressure on yourself. A perfect person with a perfect life would be unbearable to others!

Many ex-Mormons have a hard time of getting rid of false Mormon paradigms. For example, pride and confidence are GOOD traits! The Mormon cult wants its victims to be obedient servants, so it teaches members to be humble, and self-blaming, and guilty. It's a sales technique to first create a problem (your poor choices, for example) and then provide a solution to that problem (Pay 10% of your income to a cult). Don't buy into that thinking! Human beings are not flawed! The "natural man" is not "an enemy to God." Everyone who ever lived has made mistakes and bad decisions!

Also, the Mormon concept that God punishes us for every wrong thing we do, and rewards us for everything right (the Mormons believe the rewards include wealth) is not a Christian belief, either. "It rains on the good and the evil alike." God is not punishing you for your bad choices. If you had made a different choice, God would not have rewarded you for it. Your life probably would have balanced out the same.

If you have Mormons in you life who are constantly chastising you for your past choices, you need to make it stop. Change the subject, or walk out of the room. I had to break off a friendship, because my friend was always making me feel bad about leaving the Mormon church, and she just did not let it go. She also was gaslighting me, with her different interpretation of reality. The truth is, my life is great! She was interpreting it negatively. Yes, we all "should have" worked harder and obtained more wealth, "should have" married our high school sweetheart, "should have" followed another career path, "should have" been kinder to the good people, and kicked the others to the curb...and on and on. But--it is important to move on!

Love yourself! If elderolddog were more disciplined, maybe he wouldn't his great personality, that we love so much.

I do like elderolddog's attitude. Spot as many squirrels as you can. Fill your life with happy distractions!

Try practicing "Mindfulness", which helps you live in the present, through meditation and mind control. Yes, you can control your mind, more than you think you can. It helped me to realize that wallowing in "what-if" regrets in the past causes depression, and depression can feed on itself, and trap you in a downward spiral. The longer period of time I spent beating myself up about the past, the worse the depression. I had to be aware of that, and not wallow for too long.

Don't beat yourself up for beating yourself up. Shit happens, you will get a cold, there will be a funeral, a loved one will be unhappy, etc., and it's natural and empathetic to feel down, sometimes.

Once you've regained control of your thoughts, try to figure our if I you can do something helpful about it NOW? I don't mean anything drastic, or long-term, like drunk-dialing an old lover, or joining a gym, or quitting a job, but maybe offering friendship to someone, or scheduling a doctor's appointment, or working on your favorite hobby--depending on what your problematic"bad past choices" were. Just one day, even a few minutes, of turning it around, can do a lot of good. Baby steps. It's not all-or-nothing.

Congratulations on finding the Truth, and breaking free of the cult. That's one of a whole bunch of good choices you have made.

exminion Wrote:
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> It's a sales technique to first create a problem (your poor choices, for example) and then provide a solution to that problem

Hahah! Good observation, Ex!!
But even then they still might not accept you. :(

> "It rains on the good and the evil alike."

Yes. Even a cathedral can burn.
>
> I do like elderolddog's attitude. Spot as many squirrels as you can. Fill your life with happy distractions.

Yes!!!


> Once you've regained control of your thoughts, try to figure our if I you can do something helpful about it NOW?

This is such an excellent post, Ex!!! Very valuable to remember. Thank you as one of many, I am sure, who benefitted!!!

Thank you for your advice and observations, exminion. I'll definitely work on that "mindfulness" aspect to help dispel my 40-plus-year-old demons (the should'a would'a could'a thoughts) and perhaps take my photography hobby to a new level. Recently, a friend wanted one of my pictures for his father's funeral and then he surprised me with a metallic print of the same. His gift really floored me. Anyway, I have plenty to be grateful for in life. I really should not be obsessing about people and opportunities that escaped me in my mormon past; it was based on a false foundation anyway.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/17/2019 03:15PM by cuzx.

cuzx Wrote:
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> Am I the only
> one that replays the "what if" record from time to
> time?

It is human. To what if that is. Mormonism has the distinct aspect of being a hot bed of what if because it is a cult. What if I had not gone back to church and jumped back into Jehovah'sfatJesus beliefs again? What if I had stayed a non-God believer like I was as a teen?

Mormons say sometimes we can't leave their religion alone. If you hadn't been ripped off to your very soul by a scam? Well....

Life would have been supposedly easier had I done things differently, but maybe not. Nowadays I'm just trying to survive until I'm dead, being here for my kids, etc. I just want my kids to be happy and I'll do what it takes to make it that way.

A good song will do it to you all the time.....

I keep holding on to yesterday, enough to say, mmmmmmmmm its wrong wrong wrong to keep holding on to yesterday, yesterdays have all gone.

This is a natural part of your recovery. Take a breath and turn on some music you love or treat yourself to some other happy experience like going for a nature hike or taking in a museum event. Going out for lunch or shopping for something you've been wanting might help but those things can be expensive so don't over do it.

You were brave and smart to leave. Good job.

Thank you, Cheryl. One of the things I've beat up on myself lately was retiring at 60. On the positive side, I have oodles of free time and less stress than I did for 30 years in the classroom. On the negative side, I think how much more my pension would be if I'd stuck around for another 5-6 years but maybe my overall health would have suffered. Essentially, I made a time over money choice and we're doing OK.

I totally appreciate your advice to take a breath and do something I love. There's plenty of natural beauty and fun events to enjoy here. You know what I miss? Having dinner with you and Jerry. Thank you both for your friendship over the years. Thank you for adding to my library. :)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/17/2019 02:46PM by cuzx.

I'm at a similar crossroads right now with respect to teaching, and (being single) will try to stick it out for as long as I am able in order to maximize my pension. But each year gets harder and harder.

summer Wrote:
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> I'm at a similar crossroads right now with respect
> to teaching, and (being single) will try to stick
> it out for as long as I am able in order to
> maximize my pension. But each year gets harder and
> harder.

Yes, I think you retire when it is right. Just live on what you’ve got. Don’t second guess. 60 or later, you’ve worked a long while. Gotta enjoy before you’re too old or tired or sick to do anything.

The struggle is real, Summer. Hang in there and keep your eyes on the prize.

I think it is natural to wonder and can be useful if we keep perspective and are not hard on ourselves.

There's an excellent Star Trek the Next Generation episode called "Tapestry" in which Captain Picard gets to go back and make different choices as a young man. He finds that as he does things differently, it changes the man he later becomes. The mistakes he made as a brash, overconfident, arrogant young man were part of what made him the person who could captain a starship confidently, but with the caution of someone who bit off more than he could chew a few times as well.

I start thinking about those what ifs sometimes too, but then "Tapestry" comes back to my mind and I realize that if I had made different decisions some of the good opportunities in my life would not have...ugh...come to pass. So generally, I just try to live life going forward and accept that although I would have done differently with the knowledge I have now those experiences are part of who I am. That's something I accept.

I can see the wisdom in accepting ones choices made based on the information available at the time. There are wonderful people and experiences I would never have known, if not for taking a certain turn at a particular junction.

I don't remember the "Tapestry" episode of TNG but it sounds like a good example in the context of our discussion.

You stirred a memory of another TNG episode, "The Inner Light," in which an alien probe gave Picard a 40-year life experience within a 20 minute span so that someone in the future would retain a memory of their extinct species (their sun had gone nova 1,000 years before). Brilliant writing.

Everything is linked. If my 20-year-old dad accepted a ride home with some sailors, who later got in a head on collision, his family would have never been, and so on. If I had made different choices and commitments, my dear children and grandchildren wouldn't be...

I resolve to live whatever's left facing forward and be more grateful for the present.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/17/2019 09:48PM by cuzx.

pretty much is part and parcel of what it means to be a sentient being.

Of course a person can take it so far to the point that they do nothing but wallow in "what ifs" and regrets and "wish I could do it over" fantasies. And if they do that and live long enough, they'll eventually be full of regret about how much time they wasted in the past wallowing in what they then regretted about the even more distant past.

But some extent of examining the past and recognizing mistakes or at least recognizing how past decision have impacted the present is part of the higher-order learning process. It's more complex and nuanced than regretting a decision to entertain some friends by sticking firecrackers in your ears and lighting them up. But the basic elements of empirical learning are still there.

As far as I can tell, only complete imbeciles are able to go through life without spending any time on "what ifs".

My choices in mormonism. My "ex" lives downstairs in the house we mortgaged when we had been married about 2 years and I paid for for 20 years by myself. But we get along now better than we did as a married couple BY FAR. Talk about being chained to my past mistakes. Right now I find it humorous. Most days I am glad we are where we are. There will always be those OTHER DAYS.

I get on the "what if" hamster wheel often. It gets worse as I get older and face the consequences of my 46 years of mormonism. But I've had some good therapy the past few years and try to talk to myself the way I really should and get off the wheel that goes nowhere. That's not something that comes naturally, and maybe never will. It's a conscious mind turn that I have to make, it's work. But as Jesus said, "I never said leaving mormonism would be easy, I only said it would be worth it."

By the way, the song was 10cc's "I'm Not in Love," which came out after I was safely on my mission in Argentina when it was released in the US. If not for the "Awesome Mix" in "Guardians of the Galaxy," I probably never would have heard those lyrics that haunted me forty-four years later.

On the way out to the lake yesterday, where I frequently go to find some peace for my soul, I heard "The Boys of Summer" sung by Don Henley, and the words resonated:

"I thought I knew what love was
What did I know?
Those days are gone forever
I should just let them go..."

Cuz X

Songs. I have about ten that are specially made for each individual regret I harbor and attempt to chase away. Roberta Flack can leave me on the floor kicking.

I tell myself that bad choices make you interesting, give you grit and an edge. Wisdom grows in scars and so does humor. And that is true.

I read a line from a book that I always recite to myself now when my mind starts spinning on the past. I highly recommend reciting it when your mind starts spinning. To paraphrase:

"Don't let the cash register of your mind continue to charge you for bills paid long ago."


Also: "Imperfection is beauty.madness is genius and it's better to absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring." Marilyn Monroe.

I would say Marilyn was on the same page as the sage elderolddog.

Done & Done Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> "Don't let the cash register of your mind continue
> to charge you for bills paid long ago."

Thank you, Done & Done. I like that a lot. In the process of trying to pin the source down (still working on that), I found these others that spoke to me today:

"Let go of the attachment, keep the lesson." - L.J. Vanier

"It was time to move on, to dance with life again," - Jacqueline Winspear

"these mountains that you are carrying, you were only supposed to climb" - Najwa Zebian

Cuz X

Done & Done Wrote:
------------------------------------
>
> Also: "Imperfection is
> beauty. madness is genius
> and it's better to absolutely
> ridiculous than absolutely
> boring."
> --Marilyn Monroe.
>
> I would say Marilyn was on
> the same page as the sage
> elderolddog.

Soon's I figure out what you just done called me, you will be hearing from my attorneys, sir!

"Don't let the cash register of your mind continue to charge you for bills paid long ago." Thank you, Done & Done. I like that. In the process of trying to pin the source down (still working on that), I found these others that spoke to me today:

"Let go of the attachment, keep the lesson." - L.J. Vanier

"It was time to move on, to dance with life again," - Jacqueline Winspear

"these mountains that you are carrying, you were only supposed to climb" - Najwa Zebian

Cuz X

From a novel called "Less" by Andrew Sean Greer. This is the exact wording which better than my paraphrasing:

"His brains sits before its cash register again, charging him for old shames as if he has not paid before."


That was one of those lines that just makes you go, "Whoa! Guilty as charged."


I love your mountains quote by Zebian. Thanks for that. Another "Whoa!"

Oh yeah. I love the old what-if-I-could-go-back-in-time-knowing-what-I-know-about-life game. SO many things I worried about wouldn't matter, and I'd make better choices about the things that did matter. But, oh well, that ain't gonna happen, so I just try to do my best right now. I can't change the past but I can avoid messing up my future. Somewhat.