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Leaving The Flock

It is seldom easy to leave a community that you have belonged to for any length of time. Groups that are the hardest to leave are those which encourage members to invest a great deal in the community and spurn outside relationships. You may leave fearing for your life (as in some cults) or with deep sadness in your heart from simply outgrowing what was once home for you.
 
Here are some of the challenges you may face when leaving a spiritual community.

  • The group may have been a major part of your support system, so departing may leave you feeling alone, lonely, and without support.

  • If you still have friends or family members who are part of the group, your leaving will likely disrupt (and maybe ruin) your relationship with them.

  • You will rarely get support from within the group for leaving. In fact, your leaving is often perceived as threatening to those you have left behind, because you are challenging their choice to stay. Often you will be blamed and made wrong, even used as a negative example. Some members of the group may take your leaving as a betrayal. You have broken a loyalty to the group that was carefully cultivated.

  • Your reasons for leaving may be framed as something wrong with you--you are running away, you are afraid to take the next step, and so on. Of course, no one is looking at these kinds of “defensive” reasons for staying in the group. Once you get away, you may wonder what took you so long and feel foolish and guilty about what you participated in.

  • It is rare for a group to not hold beliefs that its way is the best way, so now you are up against a belief system that until recently you also held. Lingering doubts may pester you. It takes time to undo a belief system.

  • If you were part of a more authoritarian group, it has likely eroded your autonomy and confidence to go it alone. If the group centered around a teacher, you may have learned to look outside yourself for direction and guidance, even truth. Reclaiming your own spiritual authority will take some time.

  • It may not be only spiritual authority you have given away; in authoritarian groups, teachers make decisions about their students’ everyday lives, so life outside the flock more closely resembles someone coming out of prison. You may experience difficulty making decisions, feel a loss of identity, even culture shock.

  • Often when leaving a spiritual path, you don’t have anything to replace it. You are stepping into the unknown. This will put you face to face with your fears.

  • People leaving dysfunctional spiritual groups experience a similar “rope burn” as people leaving intimate relationships that were hurtful. It leaves them bruised and mistrustful and makes it harder to commit in the future.


I encourage you to honor this as the challenge that it is and find true support for what you are going through.

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