I cut 2 strips of black canvas and added them to the sides of my work uniform top. Tui and I have been buying tops because work only gives us small tops that basically only Colin and Anna can wear. So I wanted to make one wider, and so I used thin canvas. Wore it and it’s nice and warm on the sides. Looks nice too.
Cults use positive imaging, love bombing, and superficial friendliness to mask manipulation, lure new members, and project an appealing facade of happiness, community, and personal growth before gradually exerting control.
The use Devious but very Positive Methods for Recruitment and Public Image
- False pretenses: Groups present themselves as harmless self-help seminars, wellness workshops, or charitable movements. “the cult is still presenting a mostly positive and appealing image, but begins to subtly pull the recruit deeper.”
- Love bombing: Newcomers are showered with excessive warmth, praise, and immediate attention to make them feel uniquely valued and secure.
- Idealized leaders: Leaders project a flawless, charismatic, and wise persona that inspires deep admiration and uncritical trust, a weasel, snake or fox playing the well meaning decent sort.
Maintaining Control via Positivity/Toxic positivity:
The members are usually pressured to suppress doubts, negative emotions, or valid criticisms under the guise of maintaining a high vibration or loyal attitude.
Reframing distress:
Mental breakdowns, confusion, or exhaustion are falsely labeled as signs of spiritual purging, breakthrough, or reaching higher consciousness.
Utopian illusion:
The internal environment is continuously marketed as a safe paradise, a safe haven, like the religious cults, they get land, live on it and claim sanctuary, contrasting sharply with a supposedly hostile and corrupt outside world.
When on the inside of a cult people cannot see the lies as lies, but those on the outside can.
https://www.jamesmsandbrook.co.nz/DntJudgeBookByItsCover.html
https://www.jamesmsandbrook.co.nz/DoingTheRightThing.html
The Law of the Garbage Truck – Advice!
One day I hopped in a taxi and we took off for the airport.
We were driving in the right lane when suddenly a black car shot out of a parking space right in front of us.
My taxi driver slammed on his brakes, skidded, and missed the other car by just inches!
The driver of the other car whipped his head around and started yelling at us!
My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy.
And I mean, really friendly.
So I asked, “Why did you just do that? This guy almost ruined your car and sent us to the hospital!”
This is when my taxi driver taught me what I now call, “The Law of the Garbage Truck.”
°
He explained that many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage (frustration, anger, and disappointment, etc.). As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it and sometimes they’ll dump it on you.
Don’t take it personally. Just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. Don’t take their garbage and spread it to other people at work, at home, or on the streets.
The bottom line is that mature people do not let garbage trucks take over their day. Life’s too short to wake up in the morning with regrets, so… love the people who treat you right and pray for the ones who don’t. Life is ten percent what you make it and ninety percent how you react to it!
Have a blessed, garbage-free day.
– Author Unknown.
https://www.jamesmsandbrook.co.nz/HLove.html
https://www.jamesmsandbrook.co.nz/KnowingYou.html
https://www.jamesmsandbrook.co.nz/KnowWhenItIsLove.html
https://www.jamesmsandbrook.co.nz/ChildVideos.html
Are you living your true version of freedom or what others want of your life because it suits them?
God cares about you and is not telling you how to live your life. God see’s your life, what others think of you and how you currently think and behave, and if God see’s that improvement in your life and relationships will help you in the future, then like any decent parent God will find ways to show you that you have other options that those that you are using right now, and that if you were to take some risks, try new ideas, get different advice, your new views, thinking and actions will cause you to gain confidence, new experiences, and help your courage grow with each new effort and new change in your life.
God is not trying to tell you how to live, God does care about you. God has concerns for us all, and when we go astray, are heading in the wrong direction God’s concern turns to efforts to try to show you what is really happening and what could go wrong for you.
With your life and relationships God may ask about how you relate to others and are you freely allowed to have your say, just as you think it can you freely express your thoughts, wants, desires and needs, and can you take what you want, leave when you want to leave and go to places where those in your house don’t want you to go.
Knowing what kind of limited or not-limited freedom you have gives you a measurement of how free you might really be.
If you debate with someone who influences you in your daily routine, like a parent, friend, flatmate, are you allowed to disagree with their views and simply walk out the door and go and do what you want to do, or will you desire to do something and then after an argument, feeling guilty or the conversation causes you once again to change your mind and not do what you really wanted to do, or do you get up, make no excuses, just go do what it is that you want to do and not report to anyone – because if you have to report to people what you are doing and you are an adult, that is a sign of manipulation and someone else controlling your mind and life.
Are you freely allowed to go see whoever you want? Like old friends, can you ring anyone you want, go where you want, or will there be an argument when you decide to do something for yourself without telling any one what you want to do?
Imagine, if you were to leave where you are, quit your job, be somewhere else, as an adult, will those who you love with, work with, know, freak out and demand you stay where you are – your freedom is measured by the less resistance to your freedom, thus if people are resisting you being as you want to be, and who you want to visit, talk to and such, then that is control.
When an important decision in your life to be made, is it you that makes the final decision or someone else, and do other people require/demand that you first clear anything that you want with them first, especially big decisions?
As you read this, listen to your mind, be mindful of the immediate answers that you give yourself.
When a thought pops to mind, are you finding or have you found that you are discouraged from asking certain questions, and do the people who you ask the questions of get upset and not answer or brush-you-off? If you have a question and if they are truthful and honest then they must answer, because one of your needs in a relationship is for people to be honest with you and for them to answer any questions that you ask.
If you are discouraged from asking questions, it seems like it could make it hard for you to tell whether a decision is actually a good one.
Are you in any way bribed or pressured to stay where you are. Being pressured or bribed to do something is not always so obvious, thus you can be bribed but not realise that it is a bribe, but because someone gave you a nice car your tend to be nicer to that person and do what he or she wants of you. They intended on bribing you, but your innocence saw it as a gift, is instead of your mind seeing that person as a trickster using you, you are seeing that person in your mind as a kind friend who you will do much for.
The people around you, do they act like they love you, or do they act more like in-house Police watching what you do, who you call, what you do on the internet and where you go? This kind of manipulation can be made to look like love, caring, wanting the best for you, when in reality they are making sure that you don’t escape them.
Manipulation isn’t always obvious. Sometimes it involves making people feel guilty for questioning authority, isolating them from friends and family, creating an ‘us versus them’ mindset, or making loyalty to the group more important than individual judgment. Those kinds of tactics can affect almost anyone.
When people are looking for friendships, purpose, fun, and support. Manipulators cleverly take advantage of normal people and their wants and needs.
You and I are more likely to reconsider our life situation when we look respectfully at the people around us, and what involvement we have in other people’s lives and theirs in ours.
Another thought, and this is what I try to get all of society to think about, is are we living as we really want to live. People will often say yes, as we all want to think that we made our own choice to live this way, but if I asked you about the poisons in water and food, do they wish to eat those chemicals by choice?
Was it your choice to pay taxes?
https://www.jamesmsandbrook.co.nz/LeaveHome.html