Mann, you’re welcome for my part. More thanks does have to go to ex-l for putting in the hard yards on this forum for so many years, providing research and lengthy personal advice to many people, often with the same recurring issues, giving technical support as well as sharing the years of experience had dealing with the shifty nature of the BKWSU. I won't say tirelessly, I am sure he has had periods of tiredness, that makes it all the more admirable.
And - congratulations Mann. It takes bravery and integrity to admit to oneself that a choice previously made about something as serious as this was in fact a mistake - or at least acknowledge that it has outlived its usefulness. Many long term BKs are unhappy but will not listen to their inner voice, confusing ego for loyalty, or having lost the ability to imagine a life being other than what they have let it become. Sad. Sadder still when they take out on other BKs their frustration with themselves.
Then for you to act on that admission and make the practical change, that involves all aspects of life - social network, residence, work etc is far from easy and takes real courage.
I will second the advice from ex-l to use ”replacement therapy” carefully, i.e. BKs (and any addictive lifestyle) are very hard to just give up as they took so much of our time and we put in so much effort to change the way we think and act into as much ”BK” as we possibly could, so now we need to put in similar effort to change
those thought patterns.
Meditation - of any sort - will likely find your thoughts flowing down the same channels formed by years of BK meditation. A fast resets the immune system and the metabolic system, breaks the pattern of eating so that food becomes a conscious choice and not a habit or routine. So too, a meditation ‘fast’ can help get rid of the conditioned way of meditating, the other-wordly, dualistic patterns that do not remove desire but make us always want reality to be different, leaving us wishing, yearning, discontented - needing more meditation ...
I too found spiritual sustenance through creative,
physically-based activities - arts, music, martial arts, and in productive work. I found new intellectual nourishment through joining discussion groups on different subjects - Western philosophy, psychology etc. (The internet is a wonderful tool). I have found Chinese forms of exercises like Taoist Yoga, Dao Yin, Nei-Gung etc particularly invigorating. That is, the spirituality of other cultures, and culture itself, is so rich and varied but I was largely ignorant of them before BKs, and in BKs any such explorations are discouraged.
TBH I find anything reminiscent of BKs including vedanta-based Yoga & philosophy somewhat offensive, in their subliminal seduction of the ego. It's like I am an ex-smoker who now finds the smell of cigarettes disgusting!
As for Buddhism, I have found the cross-fertilisation of Taoism and Buddhism found in Ch’an (the Chinese form) and Zen (Japanese) to be much more pragmatic than the Theravadan, as its based in the here & now, and far enough away from the ‘other-level’ obsessions of Vedanta and Abrahamic monotheism to allow me to feel free, independent and a strong individual in
this world. I am happy with the mundane, I find the normal extraordinary (!), I rejoice in the burps and farts of babies and the beauty and wisdom of animals ...
ex-l wrote:I did not become a lustful, axe murderer overnight.
That makes me wonder how long it did it take you? :-D
But anyway, for ex-l it was onions, garlic, for you it may be whatever. If it is a BK taboo, whatever it is can be a useful tool to liberate oneself, to find one’s own personally developed values and live by them, to assert one’s freedom from feeling the need to be validated morally by others.
Whether its diet or activity (read novels, see a therapist, go to the cinema, dance in nightclubs, go on dates, socialising in places you previously wouldn't, renew long-lost friendships - just do the things you’ve always wondered about. They will not make you an axe-murderer!
It does sound you have made a good start. Good on you for immediately getting out there with an NGO and helping others. As they say in the UK - more strength to your arm!