Guarding Your Thoughts

[debrand]

You can hear Shalom's voice in the above link. (she is the one with very dark hair) I've listened to her sister, Shoshanana speak and her mother. Neither have Shalom's unusual voice. It sounds as if she is talking to far back in her throat. I'm not being snarky with this observation but honestly curious. I had speech therapy for several years as did two of my children. I wonder if Shalom had some speech issues when she was younger.

Honestly, this is the one topic about the Pearls that I am just curious. Does she just have an unusual accent? Is this maybe a regional accent that she has picked up?

Back to the video.

According to Shalom, even little things can influence you negative. If you have negative thoughts about your husband, it is Satan trying to destroy your marriage. Shalom has to guard her thoughts all the time. How sad. She says that even when people ask why her husband is late, it can cause her to have negative thoughts toward him.

The verse that the young lady quotes about running a race, I thought was meant to be about Jesus running by your side, not your husband. But I might be wrong and I'm too lazy to look it up.

When Shalom's six year old, Gracie thinks negative thoughts, she makes up songs about Jesus. Even as children, they are taught not to have a negative thought.

They train their little ones to ignore their instincts from an early age. That is very dangerous.

[Esther]

I have no idea about her voice... it is unusual and could be due, IMHO, to a lack of speech therapy as a child, but it could also simply be distinctive by nature. It's hard to tell.

However, as for the content of the video and of the website, all this just strikes me as so emotionally repressive it really baffles me that any sensible person would wish to aspire to this sort of life. I'm not really talking about these girls, who grew up in that mindset, but about the adult women (and men - but especially women) who actively seek out such an existence. It's so sad.

Additionally, the entire "I can think of nothing I want more than someone to truly love me." mindset, which goes far beyond "hey, I'd like a happy relationship" and way into "IT IS THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS" territory, encourages a really dangerous degree of co-dependency.

So damn fucked up.

[mockingbird]

Maybe she was just using this as a random example but she makes it sound like her relationship with or love for her husband would be ruined if he was ever five minutes late to something. If that was a constant thing I could see it being annoying/potential issue (maybe she brought it up because it is a constant problem and she is annoyed but isn't allowed to feel that way) I feel like this just speaks to more problems with emotional repression and how afraid they are of what will happen if they ever feel a negative emotion. It also makes their relationship seem a bit shallow like she is still expecting him to be perfect Prince Charming 24/7 when in real life nobody is perfect and it's good to communicate and compromise. Not sure if I am getting my thoughts across, but it was just a little thing that rubbed me the wrong way and didn't seem normal. t think the emotional repression is one of the scariest/saddest things about fundies for me.

[valsa]

I wonder what they think abou anxiety disorders (oh, who am I kidding? There's no such thing- it's just people allowing Satan into their lives) I've had an anxiety disorder since I was a child. Starting when I was 4 or 5 years old, I used to force myself to stay awake late into the night because I thought that if I went to sleep, my mom would be dead when I woke up in the morning.

I can't imagine, as a child or an adult, having to suppress all my anxious negative thoughts. They're nearly constant and it's exhausting enough just having them... if I tried to consciously keep myself from ever feeling them I'd never be able to get anything else done. Just lay in bed and think up songs about Jesus all day.

[Moya]

Fundies put so much unnecessary pressure on themselves & then they inflict this on their offspring. Females have it the worst. Everything is on them. Everything is their responsibility. Everything is their fault! Guilt.

[LilMissMetaphor]

Miss Raquel needs to watch that. She's been drooling over Channing Tatum. Gaaard yer thawghts, Raquel!

Also, Leo has his shirt off quite a few times, too, so... ::clears throat:: just a warning for you ladies ;)

[DifferentGurl]

It's impossible to always guard your thoughts. Not only is it exhausting, but we all can't help but think "negative thoughts" at one time or another. For example, your sister may ruin a favorite shirt of yours and you think "I hate her!" or even "I'm so going to kill her! I was going to wear that to impress John!" We tend to think that kind of stuff when we're angry or frustrated, but they quickly go away once we calm down ( though if you continue to think about killing your sister even if she acts like a saint, you should talk to a psychiatrist ). The important thing is that we don't act upon our bad thoughts ( if they involve hitting or killing or anything like that ).

[constantgardener]

It's impossible to always guard your thoughts. Not only is it exhausting, but we all can't help but think "negative thoughts" at one time or another. For example, your sister may ruin a favorite shirt of yours and you think "I hate her!" or even "I'm so going to kill her! I was going to wear that to impress John!" We tend to think that kind of stuff when we're angry or frustrated, but they quickly go away once we calm down ( though if you continue to think about killing your sister even if she acts like a saint, you should talk to a psychiatrist ). The important thing is that we don't act upon our bad thoughts ( if they involve hitting or killing or anything like that ).

I'm no psychologist but I imagine that not learning appropriate responses to negative thoughts, and just supressing them instead, is not particularly healthy. E.g. someone does something to upset you. You can either learn to deal with your anger and hurt by, say, talking things through with a friend or maybe confronting the offender in a reasonable way. You can learn what things in life are worth getting worked up over, and which are not. Or you can shove that anger deep down inside, where it festers and potentially gives you serious problems later in life.

[Minerva]

I'm no psychologist but I imagine that not learning appropriate responses to negative thoughts, and just supressing them instead, is not particularly healthy. E.g. someone does something to upset you. You can either learn to deal with your anger and hurt by, say, talking things through with a friend or maybe confronting the offender in a reasonable way. You can learn what things in life are worth getting worked up over, and which are not. Or you can shove that anger deep down inside, where it festers and potentially gives you serious problems later in life.

This. And really, we have negative thoughts for a reason the way we have pain for a reason. A healthy individual has negative thoughts about things because those things are negative and need to be fixed. If you're just going to deny that anything negative in your life needs fixing, you'll end up leading a really crappy life.

Edited for omitted word. Edited again to put the word in the right place.

[SealFan1963]

They want to raise robots for G-d. Stuffing all your feelings and emotions deep down inside and never really acknowledging them is so not healthy.

It's going to get interesting with all these fundies raising a whole generation (or two) of emotionally repressed and uneducated people.

[Bloo]

It sounds like the theme of one of the songs in The Book of Mormon (the musical, obviously), which is called "Turn It Off." The young Mormon missionaries teach the protagonist that he can simply get rid of bad feelings by not feeling them. In the song, they explain how they'd used this method to avoid serious problems such as abuse and mourning family members.

Whenever I encounter someone with this attitude, I immediately start wondering what sort of atrocity they're covering up. It's not healthy to act this way, and it's not normal.

[constantgardener]

I was discussing this thread with my headship last night. He said "but don't they know being miserable is a God-given right?" :lol: