CASE STUDY - SPIRITUAL ABUSE

A Testimonial From A Young Lady Spiritual Abused Since Childhood  - Within 3 Sessions, She Able To Transform Her Life Successfully

This is a testimony of W. Leng …

“After the meditation session, I started to observe my emotions. In the beginning, it is quite hard for me to control the dizziness, but as time goes on, I realized that my unstable emotional state is the one torturing me for years. Every time, I will go back to refocus on my breathing like what I’m instructed. Now I have better control of my energy, the energy transformed through meditation has really helped me a lot. It not only controlled my emotions, I have a better understanding of myself. I really hope the teaching can be continued.”

W. Leng at her early twenties university student, she came to see me because she constantly hallucinates that there is a higher being constantly talking to her and instructing her to do things. For a long time, she was under medication but this proved to be quite ineffective and her studies were affected by such episodes in her life. She is suffering from psychosomatic symptom. She is in fear all her life seeing something which others cannot see. She is lonely in school because of her abnormal behaviour. She was very frustrated because seem no one could understand her. She constantly self-sabotage herself. Her whole life was living in the dark and fearful environment.

She came from a superstitious religious family background with a relative practicing Chinese Spirit Medium and the constant practice other Chinese beliefs like Feng Shui, etc. Growing up in such an environment, she eventually believed that she has such supernaturalism powers as well. This is exacerbated by the supporting belief in her supernaturalism abilities by her family members. Personally, I have no comments on this aspect as this is going beyond what science could perceive. 

Treatment Plan

During my session, I tried to help her to regain some semblance of herself, I could only just accept her story as what she told me without showing bias or condemnation. Instead, I started to work on trust building with her, proceeding to integrate her fears and her environment to be part of herself.  I advised her to just accept her authentic self, accepting this problem of hers as just part of herself as a 'gifted' child. I proceed to work on strengthening her through self-empowerment. Through a full-day exercise on awareness meditation and  3 sessions with her, the sessions helped her to change her mind-set in how she perceived herself. She started to abandon her toxic negative thoughts when she could recompose herself. I work on her self-acceptance and perception on herself and perception from others. I help her to improve her self-value in order to strengthen her self-confidence.

She is now able to concentrate on her studies better. Her ability to develop trust in others has significantly improved and she is more able to manage her relationships. Most importantly, she is able to manage her emotions and life now without letting the 'GIFT' overwhelming her anymore.

WHAT IS SPIRITUAL ABUSE ?

This is a highly controversial and contentious issue that we are subjected to such abuses routinely. So, before I begin, I am going to carve out my point of what spiritual abuse is to me. One point that I have to make clear is my unbiased view towards religion. Religion overall teaches us to be good with the right speech and right action, simply put, be accountable to your own actions and words. But it is the human element that abuses arise for the sake of power and money.  In fact, the mental and emotional trauma stemming of spiritual abuse is one of the toughest to heal because what the abusers dishes out can be astonishingly cruel or extremely destructive or it delves into the realm of unseen. This exacerbates many of the negative emotional states like disempowerment, fear, greed, confusion, and traumatizes one’s mind. Without such negative emotions, the ability to establish hypnotic control over the people is very unlikely to succeed. The treatment of those subjected to spiritual abuses exposes the psychologists to tread the fine line in spirituality, with half-truths and lies.

The common line of such abuses tends to gravitate heavily towards the misrepresentation, subtle or otherwise, of information. This stems from the fact that either beginners are too quick to accept truths without checking the details for themselves or for the believing general, already tuned to blind faith than to check the facts. As all religion have their own absolutes, it is not the usual denial of such absolutes that causes the problem, but the subtle twists that creates an erroneous view of the absolutes! Most of the time, the abuser knows he or she is abusing and manipulating others to their whims and fancies. Remember that the power, wealth or recognition from others is intoxicating, that results in one able to willingly and wilfully abuse another. So, to say that their actions are unintentional is probably their only defence and the only excuse to feign ignorance!

CASE STUDY - SPIRITUAL ABUSE

Spiritual Abused - By The Irresponsible Application Of Religious Teachings

Kimberly a social worker has to deal with an adult having difficulties in her life. Being born into a Chinese family of traditional values, the senior family members would consult a fortune teller and feng shui master about the fortunes of a new-born. This reading is commonly referred to as “Ba-Zhi” or “Eight Words” reading. Sadly, it details that she would have clash with her mother, either her mother would die early or the family wealth will be lost due to her. This leads to her become an outcast amongst her family and relatives. So much that everything she does or involves her would be interpreted negatively and be punished for it. Not only was she not given a portion of the family inheritance upon the passing of the father, she was scapegoated to be cause of her father’s death. From young, she didn’t experience the love and trust from the family.

Kimberly was brained-washed by a fellow religious worker of some thirty years of practice in the religion. Being new to the religion, she was manipulated to give money to the religious leadership telling her that this would bring good karma to her. If she refused to give money, it would bring bad karma to her and her children. By not giving money, she will be labelled as a betrayer of the “God”. In the case of a young girl having to undergo chemotherapy treatment after removing a tumor from her brain, she was questioned quite extensively and her charity was dismissed as useless to this girl is deemed to be dying. The money going towards her treatment is just a big waste. The poor girl’s life seems to be of little or no value at all as compared to the religious leadership, this is how the concept of karma is being interpreted and practiced!

In conclusion, this is just a case of karma and compassion was totally twisted to apply the fear factors causing Kimberly unstable emotionally. This caused her to become traumatized and becoming increasingly depressed. By the time she came to me, she was bordering on paranoia and hallucination that she would be punished by an unseen higher being for not doing as she was told. Worst, her instability and mistrust of others caused her to lose her job. A person subjected to spiritual abuse is one of the most difficult to heal.

EXPRESSION OF LOVE - A NEW LIFE FORCE

EXPRESSION OF LOVE - HER LIFE SUCCESSFULLY TRANSFORMED WITHIN 4 HOURS

Having not heard from my 40-year-old patient for a long time. In our last session together, she had been divorced from the former marriage with bi-polar depression. She suffered from many previous miscarriages leaving the doctors to advise her that her chances to conceived again is going to be very slim or near impossible. 

I got a recent update from her this year that she is now happily married to her present husband and her most important fear of not being able to conceived again can now be put to rest. She has given birth to a healthy baby!!! This is a happy ending for her as she has relearned to reconstruct her new life, not only just a new family dynamics. She has learned a very precious lesson of forgiveness especially towards herself and start loving her self again instead of self-sabotage. This has enabled her to heal not only her mind but her body as well, giving her body a renewed strength to conceived again! Congratulations to her and best wishes to the family, opening all of them to a new episode in their journey together- New lives!