In a healing session today a man told me about his problem: Since seven years he is in a relationship with a woman but he cannot accept one thing: she is in a sect. Somebody advised him that he should just let her do that and to take his own energy out of it. So he asked me if this is okay. In return I asked him if that was okay for him.

I imagine it could be very difficult in a partnership if one of two has a belief that the other cannot accept or share. You want to be close to your partner and your partner’s feelings. He said that this exactly was the point: “I cannot take part in this. She can always be part of my belief, she can go to church with me and join each church service or meditation but I cannot join anything of her services or meetings. Only so-called ‘pure spirits’ are allowed to go in the room where they meet. For this they ask you to swear an oath or vows. Only then I could participate. But I don’t want to take part in this because even only the fact that there are those rules warns me. She is allowed to read only the books that their master wrote and she says she needs half an hour each day to do this. She also says she doesn’t want to give herself fully to any man anymore. So I feel there is an imbalance. I keep on giving her love but I have the feeling that I don’t get anything back.”

I said that this all is exactly what sects do. I am not Christian but I could go to a church, I am not Muslim but I could go to a Mosque. In sects people do not have the freedom to go anywhere else. Sects claim to be right and that only they are right. They manipulate the mind. This is how she reads only those books. She is involved in this and it seems that she found her love in it and this is the imbalance that you feel. Of course, because she gives importance to other things which you cannot share.

And what can you do about it? Nothing. You cannot convince her if she does not want to listen. She will do what she wants. You are already seven years in a relationship and she did not change, she created distance between you. Either you can accept that she invests most of her time and love in this belief and the activities of the sect or you have to find your own way. You have to find peace inside yourself.

Sects are not open or tolerant. Whenever you are in a group in which you feel you are not free to take your decisions anymore and in which you have rules that don’t allow you to be open, be aware. Keep your free will. In many sects there is a ‘master’ whom everybody in that group has to follow. Some sects clearly give these strict rules to their members. Others do it cleverer and you do not realize how they make you think what they want, how they manipulate your thinking. However you will miss your freedom in both ways. The main rule of sects is: You have to think and do what we say and nothing else. How come people who are in sects do not want to leave? Some people like it when they do not need to think for themselves, that somebody tells them what to do. We were talking about sheep already. They are followers and don’t want to take responsibility. Keep your individuality, take responsibility and be open. Don’t let anybody think for you! It might be easier not to think but you will be much happier when you take decisions yourself.