So, I was suspicious of Real Love from the start. I embraced it, and 6 months down the track feel the same – except even more suspicious of it, and not only that but deeply concerned about the people who have been drawn into this cult organization.
I read four books. Each extremely repetitive and full of Greg Baer’s own ideas and principles with some massive broad sweeping statements – none of which have been verified and authenticated by any experts in the fields of psychotherapy, counselling, therapy etc. He claims his books were ‘channelled’ from God. Well, reading them they certainly do not appear to have been channelled by a higher source by any stretch. They have been highly edited to manipulate the reader to perceive that his RealLove principles are the real thing - ‘actual’ ‘real’ and ‘genuine’ ‘love’ and ‘unconditional love’. Basically, what the whole world has known as unconditional love for millenia is totally wrong. Only RealLove is the real thing. Only RealLove is unconditional love. We’ve all been doing it wrong for centuries. The whole world is doing it wrong except those doing RealLove. Anyone not doing RealLove is only sharing ‘conditional’ love and is being false, fake, phoney and unreal. Therefore, any love, loving actions or words directed to anyone doing RealLove will either be openly rejected or mocked, or ignored as they tell themselves that people are only being loving, kind or caring etc. because they want something from that person. It is a massive distortion which begins in the books. As a clear minded person with my head screwed on straight I can see the play of words and the twisting of dialogue repeated over and over in each and every book, so that the reader gradually (maybe even unwittingly) perceives that RealLove ‘IS’ unconditional love. The two are one and the same. They are not. RealLove is a set of principles devised and invented by Greg Baer in the recent decade or so – whereas unconditional love has been around for longer than we know. This basic principle sets RealLove people apart from their family, friends, coworkers and other people in their lives, as they totally see and perceive all interactions with all people completely differently to the rest of the world NOT doing RealLove. They do not trust or believe anyone’s love, caring, kindness, compassion, deeds, or words at all. They may not say anything directly, but inside their head this is what they are taught to believe about the rest of the world outside of RealLove. I see so much stuff in the books which is textbook counselling and psychology, which is already well known and understood – as it has been studied for over 100 years now! Yet, there is no credit or footnotes about the sources of all this information shared – so you may believe that the writer was a very clever person to realise all this stuff and write these earth shattering books! There are various other principles from religious and spiritual sources – not given credit either. For some people reading the books the writer might come across as some sort of genius. However, apart from being incredibly boring, repetitive and annoying to read (because I can see the play of words and the connection to what is really going on) there is some useful information in them. The arguments and toxic interactions between people that are explained, with the alternative more loving version are great stuff – and very helpful for people who have been or are going through or in toxic relationships or have been like this most of their life. More of these conversations would help people enormously – however, the writer is clearly guiding the reader towards joining up RealLove. That is the message! The sad thing is that people who are doing RealLove actually believe that every single person in the whole world is relating with each other badly and in a toxic manner. This is totally incorrect. We may have been in or seen toxic relating, but we are not ALL behaving like this every moment of every day with every single person (thus needing RealLove to save us!!). I have myself already used most of the alternative and loving responses throughout most of my life, and I have seen practically all of the loving responses in others too! So, I eventually got bored with the books. A friend was expecting me to be somehow wowed and fired up and all charged up with excitement. But I wasn’t, because I have read it and studied it all before and therefore none of it was new to me. BUT….. I can totally understand that some dreadfully vulnerable and emotionally weak people WOULD see magic in these books and these words, and probably would, with very little convincing… sign up to it all.
The principles for learning how to be unconditionally loving that Greg writes about in his book require adherents who sign up to RealLove to label and identify attitudes and behaviours in every interaction they have with every person every day. These are called the ‘Getting and Protecting’ Behaviours. Every behaviour and feeling is seen as negative – RealLove people are labelling everyone all the time (including themselves). Of course all of these behaviours can also be extraordinarily positive as well as negative. But no one learns how to see the positive, only to identify the negative. By identifying these labels manifested in themselves the RealLove adherent runs to their daddy (aka coach) to ‘get loved’ and to ‘be seen’ so that daddy can make them feel better about having bad feelings. There is at no time any acknowledgement that all of our feelings and emotions are what make us human, are required to navigate our life, keep us safe, help us to understand things, ourselves and others; and to grow as a human being. I am not quite sure where all this destructive thinking will actually lead to, except more and more dependence or co-dependence on the mummy/daddy. It appears to be keeping people in a dark place and not leading to any form of healing or empowerment.
Isn’t that what a life coaching organisation professes to do though? Heal and empower!
Yet, I don’t see any of this going on at all. The advice is to immerse totally into RealLove in every possible way – to the exclusion of any and everything else. Read all the books. Listen in on phone calls every night. Follow the Greg-chat video every week, and check out the archive and fill yourself up with Greg-videos as much as you can. Go to groups. Sign up to the 12-month program (to have the principles rammed down your throat more and more and more). Go to courses and seminars – each with one of the themes of his many books (parenting, victimhood etc.) and hear all the same stuff over and over again. Do one day seminars on how to organise your life RealLove style! Join a religion (preferably Mormons, because this organisation ‘aligns with the principles of RealLove, and because Greg is a Mormon too!). Most importantly we NEED to get an intervention – as soon as possible once we realize that RealLove will be the thing that will save our life.
The ‘intervention’ is a complete psychological profile extricating every deep emotional wound from childhood and through adulthood. It’s not required for any other form of life coaching, counselling, psychotherapy, mental health therapy, psychiatry or hypnotherapy. We don’t need to go through this outrageous process for a whole weekend long retreat, costing thousands, in order to go on a journey of healing, self-discovery and to learn to be more loving. Period. However, with RealLove this is ESSENTIAL for it to actually work – for anyone and everyone. Period. The intervention is designed to rip your psyche apart into pieces – in order to show you how much you really NEED RealLove. People are requested to get naked and be held like a baby in the arms of a coach. This is in order to re-birth the person, so that they can then choose new parents (an ‘emotional dad’ or ‘emotional mum’) who will become our daddy or mummy (or both) and bring us up properly – because Greg says our own parents didn’t do things properly and we are all therefore damaged from our childhood. RealLove also tells people that they are all only 2 or 3 years old ‘emotionally’. So once we are reborn, chosen a new mummy and daddy, rejected our own, and been told we are a little child we can now begin to grow up all over again – but properly loved this time. By the coach/es of course! (or Greg). People can begin all over again, being a child and growing up properly while in their adulthood. Thus, comes the total ‘dependence’ on the daddy/mummy and which underpins the whole RealLove process. The new adherent gets to have phone calls with their new mummy/daddy who ‘really’ loves them, and can see them. The adherent runs to their mummy/daddy to ‘get loved’ and share the truth of their bad thoughts, feelings, interactions etc.. and be guided as to what to do next etc. I liken it to the former Catholic Confession – just run to daddy, who will love you and see you and all your bad behaviour will be forgiven. You won’t get told off either! Greg states, and RealLove purports this profusely, that until we ‘have been loved properly’ (meaning, by RealLove standards that is) then we have absolutely no idea how to love another person at all. No idea. We have to learn to submit and receive love from RealLove before we can ever understand or be allowed to love anyone. Ever. To date another person, to have or maintain a current relationship. (Most couples are separated by the way - which is distressing for some people as this is when they need each other the most). The getting naked is intimidating and not acceptable by any perspective. People who are now in a better emotional place and questioning RealLove are feeling stupid and ashamed for doing it. While others who have been traumatised by abuse in their life, are now traumatised all over again. How is this happening?
After the books, I went to groups. At least I was pre-warned about the ‘holding’ thing. But even so, seeing grown men cuddled like a baby by grown men or women (and vice versa) was a bit alarming. When people don’t know about this and see it, like first timers to a group, they are in a bit of shock. Hence, they don’t turn up to another group! Not surprising. The overly long and deep staring can be painful on the eyes – and I am not sure what it is supposed to achieve. What I do know is that it is a technique to put people off of maintaining intelligent cognitive thought, of stopping the mind from thinking and working properly. The hugging that goes on is to be long and very tight. Hugging is fine, if it is meant and genuine, but this feels more like having to be done because Greg says it is loving. A big difference. Not really sure what anyone is supposed to get from being in a group to be honest – most of it is spent looking at someone being held like a baby, nursed and kissed and mollycoddled. I did not feel enriched, lighter, enlightened or having learnt anything by the process. Other groups, where holding is not so dominant are aimed at getting people to open up and share the most painful parts of themselves and their life – by failing to react or question the person sharing, this is perceived to be a loving act and is making everyone more loving. However, this happens in counselling anyway, with close friends or partners, in the family home, in church groups etc… I can only assume that the doing it in front of strangers will gradually entice them to join RealLove in full.
Question Greg and his claims – people back away, shut up, or walk away. He is worshipped, while people don’t see that this is what they are doing. He is totally beyond question. Everything Greg says is gospel, has come from God, has been channelled, is true. If you question RealLove then you are not taking your life and your self seriously. RealLove is the only answer to changing your life for the better – nothing else in the whole world will work. The coaches (mummies and daddies) only recommend full immersion in Greg’s RealLove materials. This process totally closes the minds of adherents in RealLove, to the point where they only trust each other and feel those not doing RealLove (the outside world) are all wrong and will splash them with their negativity and fears etc. Hence, stay away from people as much as possible – immerse yourself totally into RealLove so that this is the only language and conversation possible in your life. Not only that, but anything that is ordinarily deemed a good or positive thing to do by the conventional therapeutic community is shunned. So if we are stressed, anxious, tense, angry, fearful or whatever we’d normally do things like listen to music, dance about, meditate, mindfulness, walking, relaxation, yoga etc.. but these are thought of as ‘distractions’ and are thus a bad thing. People must not do these things because it will distract them away from RealLove, and RealLove is where the true healing lies. Therefore RealLove principles and jargon is spouted all the time by RealLove adherents, which is something that makes family and friends pull away from them. But of course, there is something wrong with them, not the RealLove adherent. In fact, everything wrong is other people. Everything.
This is an awful psychotherapy cult that clearly uses re-evaluation counselling as one of it’s tools to control people. Yet, all the time every adherent is constantly reminded with these words “you get to choose” and even though no one goes against the advice of mummy/daddy this organisation takes no responsibility for the advice given by coaches, or indeed that anyone will actually learn to be unconditionally loving at all. As mentioned previously by someone else – the costs are extravagant. And also, why is something that is clearly psychotherapy promoted as life coaching? Why also, is this organisation a registered charity? What charitable work does it actually do? Should a cult be a charity? Should untrained and unqualified people be doing such intense psychological work? (they may be trained in RealLove coaching, but are not mental health practitioners).
One last thought. RealLove pulls people into its web who are lonely, divorced or separated, sad, depressed, weak, broken-hearted, alone and very, very emotionally vulnerable. They may attend groups and fall for the sickly over the top ‘loving’ welcome each time (and so ‘feel’ loved), they may read books and feel the answer may actually lie in RealLove. They may eventually give in and have an ‘intervention’ after being told by several adherents how amazing it was for them, changed their life etc… and how when they walked through the door and met Greg “he just knew everything about me and knew what to do” etc.. There are people who ‘should’ be under the care of qualified and licenced mental health professionals and who instead are embroiled in RealLove. But then again, as with all cults, they are the best candidates – totally pliable and able to be manipulated, easily led, easily fooled, etc.. And so the ‘long slow poach’ ensues whereby they are gradually hooked and brought in bit by bit until they totally submit.
Looks great on websites and facebook. But behind the surface RealLove is a different story. My heart goes out to all the people totally confused and wondering what happened, and how come they got mixed up in RealLove.
I read four books. Each extremely repetitive and full of Greg Baer’s own ideas and principles with some massive broad sweeping statements – none of which have been verified and authenticated by any experts in the fields of psychotherapy, counselling, therapy etc. He claims his books were ‘channelled’ from God. Well, reading them they certainly do not appear to have been channelled by a higher source by any stretch. They have been highly edited to manipulate the reader to perceive that his RealLove principles are the real thing - ‘actual’ ‘real’ and ‘genuine’ ‘love’ and ‘unconditional love’. Basically, what the whole world has known as unconditional love for millenia is totally wrong. Only RealLove is the real thing. Only RealLove is unconditional love. We’ve all been doing it wrong for centuries. The whole world is doing it wrong except those doing RealLove. Anyone not doing RealLove is only sharing ‘conditional’ love and is being false, fake, phoney and unreal. Therefore, any love, loving actions or words directed to anyone doing RealLove will either be openly rejected or mocked, or ignored as they tell themselves that people are only being loving, kind or caring etc. because they want something from that person. It is a massive distortion which begins in the books. As a clear minded person with my head screwed on straight I can see the play of words and the twisting of dialogue repeated over and over in each and every book, so that the reader gradually (maybe even unwittingly) perceives that RealLove ‘IS’ unconditional love. The two are one and the same. They are not. RealLove is a set of principles devised and invented by Greg Baer in the recent decade or so – whereas unconditional love has been around for longer than we know. This basic principle sets RealLove people apart from their family, friends, coworkers and other people in their lives, as they totally see and perceive all interactions with all people completely differently to the rest of the world NOT doing RealLove. They do not trust or believe anyone’s love, caring, kindness, compassion, deeds, or words at all. They may not say anything directly, but inside their head this is what they are taught to believe about the rest of the world outside of RealLove. I see so much stuff in the books which is textbook counselling and psychology, which is already well known and understood – as it has been studied for over 100 years now! Yet, there is no credit or footnotes about the sources of all this information shared – so you may believe that the writer was a very clever person to realise all this stuff and write these earth shattering books! There are various other principles from religious and spiritual sources – not given credit either. For some people reading the books the writer might come across as some sort of genius. However, apart from being incredibly boring, repetitive and annoying to read (because I can see the play of words and the connection to what is really going on) there is some useful information in them. The arguments and toxic interactions between people that are explained, with the alternative more loving version are great stuff – and very helpful for people who have been or are going through or in toxic relationships or have been like this most of their life. More of these conversations would help people enormously – however, the writer is clearly guiding the reader towards joining up RealLove. That is the message! The sad thing is that people who are doing RealLove actually believe that every single person in the whole world is relating with each other badly and in a toxic manner. This is totally incorrect. We may have been in or seen toxic relating, but we are not ALL behaving like this every moment of every day with every single person (thus needing RealLove to save us!!). I have myself already used most of the alternative and loving responses throughout most of my life, and I have seen practically all of the loving responses in others too! So, I eventually got bored with the books. A friend was expecting me to be somehow wowed and fired up and all charged up with excitement. But I wasn’t, because I have read it and studied it all before and therefore none of it was new to me. BUT….. I can totally understand that some dreadfully vulnerable and emotionally weak people WOULD see magic in these books and these words, and probably would, with very little convincing… sign up to it all.
The principles for learning how to be unconditionally loving that Greg writes about in his book require adherents who sign up to RealLove to label and identify attitudes and behaviours in every interaction they have with every person every day. These are called the ‘Getting and Protecting’ Behaviours. Every behaviour and feeling is seen as negative – RealLove people are labelling everyone all the time (including themselves). Of course all of these behaviours can also be extraordinarily positive as well as negative. But no one learns how to see the positive, only to identify the negative. By identifying these labels manifested in themselves the RealLove adherent runs to their daddy (aka coach) to ‘get loved’ and to ‘be seen’ so that daddy can make them feel better about having bad feelings. There is at no time any acknowledgement that all of our feelings and emotions are what make us human, are required to navigate our life, keep us safe, help us to understand things, ourselves and others; and to grow as a human being. I am not quite sure where all this destructive thinking will actually lead to, except more and more dependence or co-dependence on the mummy/daddy. It appears to be keeping people in a dark place and not leading to any form of healing or empowerment.
Isn’t that what a life coaching organisation professes to do though? Heal and empower!
Yet, I don’t see any of this going on at all. The advice is to immerse totally into RealLove in every possible way – to the exclusion of any and everything else. Read all the books. Listen in on phone calls every night. Follow the Greg-chat video every week, and check out the archive and fill yourself up with Greg-videos as much as you can. Go to groups. Sign up to the 12-month program (to have the principles rammed down your throat more and more and more). Go to courses and seminars – each with one of the themes of his many books (parenting, victimhood etc.) and hear all the same stuff over and over again. Do one day seminars on how to organise your life RealLove style! Join a religion (preferably Mormons, because this organisation ‘aligns with the principles of RealLove, and because Greg is a Mormon too!). Most importantly we NEED to get an intervention – as soon as possible once we realize that RealLove will be the thing that will save our life.
The ‘intervention’ is a complete psychological profile extricating every deep emotional wound from childhood and through adulthood. It’s not required for any other form of life coaching, counselling, psychotherapy, mental health therapy, psychiatry or hypnotherapy. We don’t need to go through this outrageous process for a whole weekend long retreat, costing thousands, in order to go on a journey of healing, self-discovery and to learn to be more loving. Period. However, with RealLove this is ESSENTIAL for it to actually work – for anyone and everyone. Period. The intervention is designed to rip your psyche apart into pieces – in order to show you how much you really NEED RealLove. People are requested to get naked and be held like a baby in the arms of a coach. This is in order to re-birth the person, so that they can then choose new parents (an ‘emotional dad’ or ‘emotional mum’) who will become our daddy or mummy (or both) and bring us up properly – because Greg says our own parents didn’t do things properly and we are all therefore damaged from our childhood. RealLove also tells people that they are all only 2 or 3 years old ‘emotionally’. So once we are reborn, chosen a new mummy and daddy, rejected our own, and been told we are a little child we can now begin to grow up all over again – but properly loved this time. By the coach/es of course! (or Greg). People can begin all over again, being a child and growing up properly while in their adulthood. Thus, comes the total ‘dependence’ on the daddy/mummy and which underpins the whole RealLove process. The new adherent gets to have phone calls with their new mummy/daddy who ‘really’ loves them, and can see them. The adherent runs to their mummy/daddy to ‘get loved’ and share the truth of their bad thoughts, feelings, interactions etc.. and be guided as to what to do next etc. I liken it to the former Catholic Confession – just run to daddy, who will love you and see you and all your bad behaviour will be forgiven. You won’t get told off either! Greg states, and RealLove purports this profusely, that until we ‘have been loved properly’ (meaning, by RealLove standards that is) then we have absolutely no idea how to love another person at all. No idea. We have to learn to submit and receive love from RealLove before we can ever understand or be allowed to love anyone. Ever. To date another person, to have or maintain a current relationship. (Most couples are separated by the way - which is distressing for some people as this is when they need each other the most). The getting naked is intimidating and not acceptable by any perspective. People who are now in a better emotional place and questioning RealLove are feeling stupid and ashamed for doing it. While others who have been traumatised by abuse in their life, are now traumatised all over again. How is this happening?
After the books, I went to groups. At least I was pre-warned about the ‘holding’ thing. But even so, seeing grown men cuddled like a baby by grown men or women (and vice versa) was a bit alarming. When people don’t know about this and see it, like first timers to a group, they are in a bit of shock. Hence, they don’t turn up to another group! Not surprising. The overly long and deep staring can be painful on the eyes – and I am not sure what it is supposed to achieve. What I do know is that it is a technique to put people off of maintaining intelligent cognitive thought, of stopping the mind from thinking and working properly. The hugging that goes on is to be long and very tight. Hugging is fine, if it is meant and genuine, but this feels more like having to be done because Greg says it is loving. A big difference. Not really sure what anyone is supposed to get from being in a group to be honest – most of it is spent looking at someone being held like a baby, nursed and kissed and mollycoddled. I did not feel enriched, lighter, enlightened or having learnt anything by the process. Other groups, where holding is not so dominant are aimed at getting people to open up and share the most painful parts of themselves and their life – by failing to react or question the person sharing, this is perceived to be a loving act and is making everyone more loving. However, this happens in counselling anyway, with close friends or partners, in the family home, in church groups etc… I can only assume that the doing it in front of strangers will gradually entice them to join RealLove in full.
Question Greg and his claims – people back away, shut up, or walk away. He is worshipped, while people don’t see that this is what they are doing. He is totally beyond question. Everything Greg says is gospel, has come from God, has been channelled, is true. If you question RealLove then you are not taking your life and your self seriously. RealLove is the only answer to changing your life for the better – nothing else in the whole world will work. The coaches (mummies and daddies) only recommend full immersion in Greg’s RealLove materials. This process totally closes the minds of adherents in RealLove, to the point where they only trust each other and feel those not doing RealLove (the outside world) are all wrong and will splash them with their negativity and fears etc. Hence, stay away from people as much as possible – immerse yourself totally into RealLove so that this is the only language and conversation possible in your life. Not only that, but anything that is ordinarily deemed a good or positive thing to do by the conventional therapeutic community is shunned. So if we are stressed, anxious, tense, angry, fearful or whatever we’d normally do things like listen to music, dance about, meditate, mindfulness, walking, relaxation, yoga etc.. but these are thought of as ‘distractions’ and are thus a bad thing. People must not do these things because it will distract them away from RealLove, and RealLove is where the true healing lies. Therefore RealLove principles and jargon is spouted all the time by RealLove adherents, which is something that makes family and friends pull away from them. But of course, there is something wrong with them, not the RealLove adherent. In fact, everything wrong is other people. Everything.
This is an awful psychotherapy cult that clearly uses re-evaluation counselling as one of it’s tools to control people. Yet, all the time every adherent is constantly reminded with these words “you get to choose” and even though no one goes against the advice of mummy/daddy this organisation takes no responsibility for the advice given by coaches, or indeed that anyone will actually learn to be unconditionally loving at all. As mentioned previously by someone else – the costs are extravagant. And also, why is something that is clearly psychotherapy promoted as life coaching? Why also, is this organisation a registered charity? What charitable work does it actually do? Should a cult be a charity? Should untrained and unqualified people be doing such intense psychological work? (they may be trained in RealLove coaching, but are not mental health practitioners).
One last thought. RealLove pulls people into its web who are lonely, divorced or separated, sad, depressed, weak, broken-hearted, alone and very, very emotionally vulnerable. They may attend groups and fall for the sickly over the top ‘loving’ welcome each time (and so ‘feel’ loved), they may read books and feel the answer may actually lie in RealLove. They may eventually give in and have an ‘intervention’ after being told by several adherents how amazing it was for them, changed their life etc… and how when they walked through the door and met Greg “he just knew everything about me and knew what to do” etc.. There are people who ‘should’ be under the care of qualified and licenced mental health professionals and who instead are embroiled in RealLove. But then again, as with all cults, they are the best candidates – totally pliable and able to be manipulated, easily led, easily fooled, etc.. And so the ‘long slow poach’ ensues whereby they are gradually hooked and brought in bit by bit until they totally submit.
Looks great on websites and facebook. But behind the surface RealLove is a different story. My heart goes out to all the people totally confused and wondering what happened, and how come they got mixed up in RealLove.