Brainwash be gone. A podcast for women who've left a high control, high demand religion. In every episode, we deconstruct one specific rule you were taught so you can let go of the harmful conditioning and live an amazing life on your own terms. Today we'll be talking about. Men are the head of the household, but women are the neck. So when I've heard this said, it's always been in like a cute, playful way that kind of seems designed to make women who are in these very traditional gender dynamics that we see in high control, high demand religions feel like they're not as powerless as they appear to be on the surface. But in this episode, we're going to go way beyond the surface level with this and look at exactly how problematic this whole approach to relationships and communication really is. This is when I actually didn't even notice how problematic it was until about a decade after I left my former religion. So stay on through the end of the episode if you want to cut down on the learning curve for yourself and not, inadvertently carry all this relationship dynamic trash into all of your interactions with people. Because as usual, this goes way beyond just the relationship between spouses. So let's go into just a brief explanation of what this actually means, because I know that some people might not have heard this exact wording when people say. If the man is the head of the household, but the woman's the neck, they are often saying, Hey, men and women have different but equal roles. Or there's a divine assigned hierarchy where God made men, the leaders and the protectors and the providers, and then women are supporters or helpers. And we would be intended to kind of gently guide and influence from behind the scenes or. Soften up the manliness of the man in a certain way, as a benevolent patriarchy type structure. And I think there's sort of some symbolism in there too, of being one body and the head and the neck, like they're interdependent on different levels. And a lot of times this structure is presented as this can keep your family harmonious., it prevents conflict or chaos in your family because the man's bringing the leadership and the stability and then. The woman's bringing obedience and just kind of being behind the scenes. I've seen it come up in popular culture. Even like in the movie, my Big Fat Greek wedding, there's an orthodox mom character and she actually advises her daughter about this before her wedding and it's haha, how heartwarming, blah, blah, blah. But I have come to realize exactly how super gross and unhealthy. This is for a few different reasons, so let's get into that. First, the obvious sexism. Of course, this seems to underline everything we talk about. It's just such a theme in high control, high demand religions that women are said to be inferior and subjugated to men. So in this particular metaphor. What the woman doesn't have a mind of her own, what? My role as a woman is entirely useless without a man's presence. Like you can't just go around being a neck all by yourself. So I reject that. I believe I'm a whole person as an individual, whether or not I choose to be in a close relationship with another whole individual person, and honestly, next, just kind of seem boring and replaceable too. What a terrible existence, just being a neck and that's it. Yeah, he needs it to attach his head on, but it seems like any neck will do,? And I like to think that I'm a lot more individual and valuable than that. Thank you very much. But aside from the obvious gender dynamics, the sexism. Possibly the worst part about this is the communication pattern. Holy cow. Think of how this actually plays out. What does that actually imply? So let's look at this dynamic that it's referring to. So first, the woman would have a thought or an idea, or a need, or an opinion, or an observation or a request of some kind. But instead of just saying that thing. Expressing herself, she would immediately stop herself from directly communicating her thought, her idea, her need, her opinion, her observation or her request. Since she's not the head, she's just an un speaking neck. So she sensors that and she holds it inside of herself, and that's a pattern that definitely gets learned and gets deeper in terms of when you feel something that should be communicated. That you reflexively cut it off instead of communicating it, that you hold it inside of yourself. And then the woman in this dynamic, after she stopped herself, she's self-censored. She hasn't expressed it, she held it inside, and then she disconnects herself from ownership of the idea. Like how can this idea be changed from her idea into becoming his idea? So maybe at first it's an intentional shift, and then probably later on it would become so reflexive to not express your own thoughts and opinions and beliefs and requests that she, on some level, might actually believe that those things are coming from him and she's projecting things onto him and other people in her life. Have you ever had an interaction with someone where they said, I feel like you're mad at me, and really it's something bothering them that they want to bring up? I've totally done that embarrassingly enough to people because I was just so uncomfortable with my own anger that I felt a rift or I felt that there was something that needed discussion and I just was so disconnected from my own feeling of it that it just seemed to be coming from the outside. When we reflexively deny ownership of our own feelings and thoughts and beliefs and needs, then. Weird things happen. It gets very muddy very quickly. She loses touch with her own experience of life. And I think I can totally relate to that. So many of us can relate to having been through that experience. So what would happen next in this dynamic? to the degree that this woman would actually succeed in turning the head, so to speak, that would mean she carried out some kind of intentional, literal manipulation of her partner. She started planting little subtle seeds or trying to get certain information in front of him in other ways, or maybe she said certain things that were supposed to secretly influence him and lay the groundwork. And let's be honest, I would not want to be in a relationship of any kind where someone was doing that to me. That's terrible. That's like really weird and really unhealthy and really uncomfortable for both people involved. Often when someone's trying to lay that kind of groundwork. The other person is definitely feeling like something is a little off. That they want something, that there's a vibe. There's definitely a vibe. And then if you ask them directly, Hey, what's this about? Is there something you want to talk about? And they say no, there's nothing wrong. As I continue laying my trap, that's so weird. Why is this an accepted thing? I know why it's an accepted thing, but I just don't think it should be an accepted thing. And realistically. There's no blame here. I have done this. A lot of you have done this as a former member of an authoritarian religion, a high control religion, a high demand religion, a cult, whatever your experience is, you would've needed to act this way to survive this sort of social situation. This is something people do when they are powerless. In a difficult situation and they're potentially endangered. There's potentially physical risk of them trying to assert themselves. This is how humans are hardwired to survive awful things by any means necessary. No blame about having adopted this way of life. It was necessary, and the fact that you're listening to this podcast is an incredible testament to the strength of your being and your own courage to make changes once you were able to get out of the immediate danger. So I totally celebrate that. I'm so thrilled that there are so many of us out there now talking about this, having been freed from this, and yet it is a process to realize. All of these ways that we were literally brainwashed, that we've been formed, and to realize how they don't serve us in our current free modern life. And it's a process. We have challenges that someone with a different background, might not go through in learning these things, but who cares? We're free. We have to do it. Even if it takes a while it's totally worth it. Here's a potential path forward if you recognize this type of dynamic where you suppress your own opinions or thoughts or needs or requests and you recognize the dynamic in yourself of. Trying to subtly convince people of things kind of behind the scenes in a passive aggressive way. And if that rings true to you, here are some steps that helped me move out of this, and they're pretty classic steps that a lot of people have used to move into a much healthier way of relating with all of the people in their lives. So step one is you can't really learn to communicate if you're totally disconnected from your own thoughts, feelings, opinions, and needs. That's surprisingly challenging when you try to reconnect with that after who knows how many years, maybe a lifetime of having trained yourself and been trained to cut that off. So there are a few ways that you can start learning to get more in connection with that. First of all, just starting to find ways to relax physically. Often there's a feeling of being numb and very cut off from your body. You don't feel anything if people ask you how you feel. It's I don't know, I don't feel anything. And it's really like a dissociative state, a cutting off from your own body that is just literally caused by what you've been through, mental health treatment and all the things. The therapy and the specific support groups who are familiar with religious trauma are really important to actually treating some of the true mental health aspects of this. But the things I'm talking about today are sort of the process you can also do by yourself and in addition to any other, more formal work that you're doing for healing. But some simple things that we can do to reconnect to ourself are things like. Being aware of our breathing or doing certain breathing patterns. You can find things like that on YouTube where they take you through breath work or take you through relaxation meditation or breathing patterns in a certain order of inhaling and exhaling to kind of help you come back into your body. Meditation is something that some people use for that. There are different styles of meditation, mindfulness practices. Sometimes just physical sensations of things that you enjoy or that you feel like taking a warm bath or walking outside where you can put your feet on the ground and feel it. There's an exercise where you try to use all of your senses, so wherever you're at in this moment, what do you see around you? What do you feel touching your body or in your body? What do you hear? What do you smell? Do you taste anything? And just having that moment of check-in with your outside surroundings, you will start to notice feelings in your body. And a lot of times it shows up. It's kind of subtle at first, like just, oh, I notice I'm clenching my stomach or my jaw, or I feel a little bit warm or cold here in my body. Or there's like a flutter or a little bit of a queasiness. Whatever it is, don't judge it when you notice something. You can be curious about what's this feeling that I might be having? What might be causing that? Or what could it be related to? And just let it be,, you don't have to try to get rid of it. It can just be, huh, I see that that's there. What's that about? So if you're not attacking of the feeling, it won't go fluttering back into hiding. It'll just be okay, it's cool to hang out with a little bit of feelings. And then as you're getting more and more in touch with what you're feeling. What your true opinions and beliefs are, what your needs are, things like that. You can start finding safe people where you can practice expressing your actual thoughts, feelings, and opinions. So you're undoing that step of. Where you had learned to suppress it and then, express it in a totally dysfunctional way because you couldn't just say it directly. You start practicing saying things directly. If there's no one in your personal life who seems like they can handle it, like this is a totally foreign way of communicating, or especially after you've first left a group. I know a lot of times you just might not have people in your life like that, and that's actually one of the hardest parts about this whole process. But. You can seek out a therapist to practice. There are different types of groups. Sometimes they're like support groups. Sometimes they go by the name of something like a woman's circle. there are women's circles that meet in person, some that are run online. But a lot of times, groups like that have really specific ground rules for emotional safety. So they'll, they'll have a rule that will be like one person's talking at a time, and other members have to respect what the other person says. So you can use a scenario like that that's safe. To work through the process of saying what you really think and feel to other people, not having them attack you, belittle you, or try to change your mind or blame you or fall back on the religious stuff that you used to get, if you ever expressed how you felt and as you experienced that type of relating with people it's, it becomes healing and you get more courage from. Having done that and then once you're feeling comfortable with that, probably the third step is that you'd work up to expressing yourself more directly and honestly with all interactions with people, even if they aren't specially selected, safer people. And of course, your physical and emotional safety is super important. So don't jump into doing this with people who aren't safe. A lot of times, if someone is physically unsafe or could be just, yeah, you don't need to go there with them, you just need to stay away from them and figure that out. But even in more public daily scenarios. In this step, you can do things like practice making actual requests of other people or bringing up concerns or saying things where,, someone might get angry at what you say, but you realize that's their response to take care of. And like what you believe and what you think and what you're requesting is still, you're still able to say that. So ways that you can do this, probably the most safely to start would be things like even in a business context, advocating for yourself. You can start with things maybe you have a problem with a product you bought and you contact. The business to see if they will fix it for you. maybe you leave a review, an honest review of service. I know that sounds to outside people, it might sound like that's not a very extreme thing and it's a common part of life, but to a lot of us that have lived with this sort of system that is like earth shakingly difficult, especially at first, should just be upfront about how you feel about something. I remember when I first started realizing how much I would need to. Ask for what I needed or wanted. I practiced with the smallest things and the very first thing I did was I was at a restaurant and I had ordered some fish tacos and they looked really delicious and they came with one lime wedge and I thought, wow. I really could use like three lime wedges here. These are great and they would be amazing with enough lime juice. And I was a person who never ever made any kind of complaint or request, and in my mind I thought, I've have to do this. It's now or never. I'm starting with a lime wedges and I,, like motion to the waitress and I said. Could I have some more lime wedges for these tacos? And she said, yeah, of course. And she brought me over a whole like mini bowl of lime wedges. And the tacos were delicious. And it sounds like nothing, but it was a life-changing moment when I realized I could just realize that I want more lime wedges. And there's been so much practice since then, and I know from experience how challenging this is. It's still challenging for me in some of the. More difficult, really conflict related communications. That's still something I'm working on, but I can see how much I've progressed and I know that practicing these things and breaking this dynamic leads to more open, honest, loving interactions with people closest to me, and it leads to people not trampling on me and getting my needs actually met out in the world. So I have faith in you no matter where you're starting with this. Start there. Wherever you are, whatever the first step feels like for you, lime wedges or something else, follow your intuition about that. Decide to commit to trying the thing over and over again until it becomes natural and easy.

Topics: Religious trauma, spiritual abuse, deconstruction, exmormon, exmo, exvangelical, recovering catholic, excatholic, former jehovah's witness, women's empowerment, feminism, leaving religion, self-worth, high demand religions, high control groups, high control religion, cult, cult recovery, brainwashed, high demand religion, spiritual trauma, church abuse.