Sometimes it looks like it might nearly go there but I just don't feel like rehashing it again so I steer clear of mentioning it. 

who cares in the end, it was a process and sometimes I find i'm just talking about me and how I got here instead of listening.

 When I am having a conversation about me and the distant past and the illusions dispelled, mostly it turns into a talk about self belief and self empowerment. Focussing on the positive.

 

Some people look at me like it's obvious ( the deception from a guru, are you kidding me, like they worked that out in 5 seconds) and kind of laugh, but as you say vulnerability is one of those things that we all experience, there are various ways to be with it, probably easily broken down into personality types. 

The two extremes,in ways of coping, of which I think I am one, seem not to work too well - but we live and learn, if we're lucky. 

No need to judge myself anymore, that was all a big part of cult life for me and I'm feeling really free to have let that bit go to a large extent. 

If I catch myself I can grab the moment and just soften up on myself and accept the growth and learning that I'm in. 

I hope I continue to just keep growing like this, and more, even if at times that means I meet uncomfortable moments. 

The cognitive dissonance had me avoiding the uncomfortable truths staring me in the face.

 Therefore the feeling of marking time.

 It's like a bad investment, at which point do you let it go? I remember him saying 'it just gets better and better' I remember air head honchos saying the same thing, satsanging it to the max. drilling for dollars. That sentence alone probably kept me in the cult a few more years. 

Cos I'm not a quitter, maybe vulnerable and way too trusting of the wrong sort of people in the past.

 But I still have my good qualities and something good has come out of this, I've seen some of the shit coping mechanisms that don't work and I'm having a good time revising them. And what dya know? that DOES get better and better. 

The shadow of doubt I had going across my mind as he said that, self doubt - because I believed him. Eventually it came to my awareness

 His charisma? It really is dwindling, he can't hold it together, combined with the fade of the spell.

There is a classic furry freak brothers comic where the brothers are in an abandoned house where the chandalier falls down and it crumbles into a huge pile of cocaine. ( can't stand the stuff personally) but anyway, being a crazy comic and funny and all, they had a whale of a time and had picked up some beautiful women who were hitch hikers and all the drawings were beautiful and sparkly and they were buzzy and happy and excited and their ideas got wilder and wilder and THEN... it wore off and there were these cartoon dust sparkles falling through the air as the illusion evaporated. 

Then the women were scraggy and weird looking with missing teeth, the house was a dump, the car was a bomb and the land and trees were just dried out and uncared for and the brothers were depressed.

It was a bit like that really, a trippy dopamine thing, being in love. Obsessed. In a long distance relationship with a total narcissist.