1. I acknowledge that my life is shipwrecked and not where I want it to be.
2. I commit to stop living my life in pursuit of self-defeating behavior.
3. I accept that the responsibility for getting back on track is mine and no one else’s.
4. I choose to believe what God says about Himself: that He is good and can be trusted. I recognize that God is not the abuser; rather, people who misuse their authority are the abusers.
5. I recognize that the only way back to a productive life is exactly the way I came. Therefore, I commit to repairing my relationship with God and making amends with everyone I have wronged along the way.
6. I refuse to become like those who have abused me and abandon my desire to spread malice because of my pain and my anger.
7. I will make a detailed, written account of my abusive experiences, as well as my subsequent behavior. I commit to being as thorough and honest as I’m able.
8. I will share my experience and my own wrongdoing with a trusted friend, confessing the exact state of my heart.
9. I humbly ask God to change anything He wishes, and I ask Him to heal my pain. Because God forgives us as we forgive others, I forgive my abusers.
10. I choose to believe God still has a purpose for my life—a purpose for good and not evil.
11. I make a commitment to nurture my relationship with God, asking Him to reveal His will to me and give me the power to carry it out.
by Jack Watts
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- 11 Steps To Recovery From Religious Abuse – Download PDF
To learn more about about the subject, go to: Recovering from Religious Abuse: 11 Steps to Spiritual Freedom.
Feel free to send the 11 Steps to whomever you please. More than half of the hits on Pushing Jesus have been to see the Steps. There are so many people who need to experience freedom from the bondage that has them emotionally tied to the past. I had to go through so much myself before I had the insight to understand my own journey. That’s why I wrote my story, Hi, My Name Is Jack.
Jack
George: I liked what you had to say so much that I’ve used it as a guest editorial. I’ve made some grammatical corrections, but it’s your material. I’ve maintained your anonymity.
Jack
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Taking responsibility is, indeed, the first step of many. God did not abuse anyone. We frail humans do all that without any help. Blessings.
Jack,
Since my first awareness of your writing I see so much pain being thrust upon christians, ministers, in the name of political correctness in the church world.
Although I have always known it exist, your writings have just made me more observant.
I wish more people realized as christians in or outside the church walls we are accountable to God for wrongdoing.
Interesting site.
I believe in order to move on, there needs to be closure of some sort. Step #7 you indicated this also, I believe. Otherwise, you get caught in a vicious cycle of ‘seeming to be able to move on’ and ‘back at square 1′. Can forgiveness really be achieved without it?
Aren’t we doing an injustice, if we know the abuser has this pattern of behavior and fail to make it known to their superiors? (or is this considered self vindication?) Shouldn’t it be reported? How can forgiveness come without some sort of closure? How can the Abuser recieve help, without intervention? I think it’s difficult for the victim to get beyond it when they are watching the behavior pattern being repeated with others around them.
[...] It’s not a story I want to tell. It’s not a story I expect anyone might want to read. My writing is partly recuperative therapy, one of the suggested “steps” to recover from a religious abuse. [...]
I am a devout Roman Catholic (and no, never abused) but I know some people who have been—in many different ways. . .I am also a religion and English teacher at a small Catholic High school and I think the responsibility entrusted upon me is enormous. Your quiz is a reminder of the other ways people in leadership can sometimes abuse those in our care—Catholics unfortunately only think in terms of sexual abuse. . .It is important to see that there are many ways we can wound others.
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Jack, your 11 steps are very powerful and I can see the healing power for those who choose to take these steps to recover their preciousness and dearness to themselves and to a God of a NEW and loving understanding.
It has been said to me and about me many times… given the abuse I endured throughout my childhood, that if ‘child abuse’ is a viable reason for abusing others…. I would have put Charles Manson under the table years and years ago. That is probably true… HAD I chosen to feed and fuel my anger and hurt and fear and all of their cousins and second cousins. I CHOSE and still CHOOSE to LOVE. Spiritual abuse was a huge layer just a smidgeon above the core of my spiritual woundedness which was the abuse I endured throughout chldhood. Through some considerable years of healing each and both of these deep and very dark wounds, I have come to love myself into a wholesome and heaing life. Indeed, taking responsibility for my own life and forgiving… FIRST and FOREMOST, myself… then, others… is the key that unlocks the door to a most joyous and precious sweet life.
I love step number 4. You worded it so well. I came close to being in an spiritually abusive place when I went on a mission trip by myself to a church in Wyoming as a young college student. It was gradual at first. The pastor of the church was more interested in having a morning ‘Bible Study’ with me instead of concentrating on my mission work with the youth. The study was actually the teachings of a man they followed. By the end of our time, he was making comments about not taking me to the airport to go home. It was scary and even now I am a little jumpy inside just thinking about it. I guess in a way it was cult-like. Thank you for your work in this area.
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