Ready Set Landmark!

So it’s been a couple of weeks since I took the Landmark Forum and I’ve just now decided that I’m ready to share and write about my experience. At first I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to say but I decided that I’m just going to not think about it too much and just speak from the heart.

Before going into the Forum I was filled with a flurry of emotions like anxiousness, nervousness, anxiety and excitement. I really didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t ever attend an intro course, so the only elements I knew were the ones that my friends (whom had already gone through it) had decided to share with me. I knew that in order for me to be able to get the most out of this experience that I needed to go in with 3 very important things.

Courage – To be able to have a mirror put up to my face for long 3 days and take the risk of not liking what I might see and being willing to do something about it.

Open Mindedness – To be able to hear something new and different that might challenge everything I know and believe in.

Support – To be able to share what I was going through with friends and family regardless of if they had taken the forum or not.

Knowing that I had these three aspects in tow I felt I was as prepared as anyone could be for walking into a situation with very little information.

My course had 150 people and we were placed in a room with lots of windows but each had the blinds closed as to not detract our attention from why we were there. The days were long (about 13 -14 hours) and were filled with lots of listening to our leaders Gary (a very comical man with a theater background) & Carolina (a woman who was from Bolivia and had a very thick accent). For a large portion of the first day I felt like I just wasn’t getting what they were talking about. They could have been speaking in Chinese and I think I would have grasped about the same amount of information. It wasn’t that I couldn’t understand what they were saying verbally, it was that I didn’t quite get what they meant conceptually. I had a vague notion of what they were trying to convey at times but it was clear to me that I was only getting random pieces of the puzzle. Throughout the day we would have to pair off and do various types of sharing and communication exercises with the people sitting next to us…and no it wasn’t anything horribly uncomfortable. These exercises were geared towards the idea of helping people to have breakthroughs about themselves and their life’s and to motivate them to create possibilities for themselves that they never dreamed possible. I myself created the opportunity to be self confident.

Among the conversations and topics of the day, various participants would go up to the microphone either in front or the back of the room and share what was ever on their mind. It was amazing to witness the skeptical of someone having a breakthrough in front of 150 people while talking through things with Gary. I swear, time after time and only after about 10 minutes each, these people literally shifted in every sense of the word. Their posture, attitudes & mindsets would morph before your eyes. I seriously saw a girl (who I am now creating a friendship with) change into a woman. I know it seems hard to wrap your mind around…hell it was for me and I was sitting there, but I promise you it’s true. By the end of the first day I was exhausted not only by the week I had leading up to Landmark, but by the program it’s self. Thinking about yourself all day is tiring! I don’t know how the egomaniacs of the world do it. lol.

On my drive home I still felt like maybe this course wasn’t for me and that I would sit in a room for two more long days and waste my entire weekend. I had to keep reminding myself of my friends that had already “been there done that” and how they felt after finishing the forum. I figured that there had to be something more to come. I knew that if I gave up then I wasn’t ever going to find out what it was and I’d be throwing away the chance of feeling as free and empowered as they do. Plus I wanted to stick to my word and complete the course.

For me, the second day was much more difficult than the first. With the heaviness of the topics of conversation and the various exercises, I realized some very important things about myself that I hadn’t known before. I seemed to be grasping more of what Gary and Carolina were saying and their over all picture was becoming clearer. As certain points were discussed, I felt like I was already practicing these things in my life. It wasn’t as though I felt like I was above those around me (especially since everyone is at different stages of development) it was just that in the last few years I’ve really been focusing on my personal growth and I had already gained the wisdom they were sharing. Now had I taken this course 2.5 years ago, it would be a very different story. None the less, there is always more that can be learned. By the end of the second day I had confronted some deep seeded fears that I didn’t know existed, I had shed a good amount of tears and I was ready to take on the world. Talk about a spectrum of feelings! I felt like I had my own personal breakthrough and that I had found the confidence I had come to Landmark to gain. For the first time in my life my mind was quite, peaceful and empty. For those of you where your mind always seems to be going in a million different directions every waking moment of the day, you know what an amazing experience this was for me. It was as though I created a barrier around my mind and nothing could get in. It was without a doubt absolute tranquility. I was in a good space and was anxious about what day three was going to hold.

Throughout the third day I was feeling pretty great. I was continuing to develop budding friendships with several people, I was really getting what my leaders were talking about and I was anxious to learn more and have additional breakthroughs. It wasn’t until right before the dinner break where I suddenly felt like my world was crashing down around me. It was as though someone has sucker punched me and pulled the carpet from under my feet. Gary had shared the bottom line of what the Landmark Forum is all about and I had a hard time taking it all in. It was as though what he told me made everything that I “knew” to be true, not at all reality. I felt like in one fowl swoop he taken away everything in my life that had every really mattered. It might sound a touch dramatic to those of you reading this now (it certainly does to me) but at that moment, I was being as authentic as I think I’ve ever been. Lucky for me I had four really great friends (two of which had taken the class) coming to take me out to a congratulatory dinner. It was immediately apparent to them that something wasn’t quite right. I tried explaining where I was coming from but because these thoughts and feelings were so new to me, I had a difficult time expressing myself. One of my friends in particular thought that Landmark had broken me. I’m sure it looked like my spirit had been crushed. I’m usually a pretty upbeat and resilient kind of guy, so seeing me in the state I was in, came across as a distress call. My alumni friends felt that it was important for me to get back to the class and speak with one of the instructors before things got back underway. They were trying to explain to me that I took what Gary was saying wrong and that it wasn’t meant to rob me of everything I held close to my heart, but was supposed to make them that much richer. Unfortunately, Gary was busy up until we started again so I wasn’t able to get any counseling or additional explanation from him. It wasn’t until later that night when two hot brothers (yes that always makes it better) got up to share their breakthroughs that I had another one of my own. Through their testimonial I was able to really get what Gary meant by what he said before the dinner break. I realized that it was my interpretation of what he said that made it affect me that way it did. Because I felt like he was challenging my entire life and who I am as a person, I reacted with major resistance to accepting what he was trying to say. After the bothers shared, I realized that Gary wasn’t out to ruin my life but was there to help give me the tools and wisdom to make it the best possible life ever.

Putting my experience into words, doesn’t seem to convey the power and effect this course had on me and if I were a first time reader, I know for a fact I would be skeptical. It’s hard to convey the fact that these life changes really do begin to happen and most often in the span of 10 minutes. It’s important to know however that going to Landmark isn’t like waving a magic wand and poof…you’ve got no more issues. It’s the first step of many in making a life transformation. Landmark provides the tools and you provide the action. It’s something that you have to live out every day to the best of your ability. Is it easy? Nope, but it seems to me that the best and most valuable lessons in life are the most difficult ones to lean and get through. I strongly recommend this course to anyone who is up for bettering themselves and their lives. Just remember that each person gets a little something different out of it and that your experience is like a fingerprint….it’s all your own. I found what I was looking for. My friends see it, I see it and each day that I live out my transformation and I am as true to myself as I can be…the world sees it too.

Tags: Landmark Education, Mind, Personal Growth, Confidence