Landmark Education Part II

Continued from the previous blog post: Landmark Education Part I

So, I decided to commit my 25th birthday weekend to something totally different: the Landmark forum. Full days on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, then back for a re-cap on Tuesday evening. In my view, it's like a weekend crash-course in getting-to-know-yourself and generating-a-new-life-philosophy. Putting things into perspective, getting a grip on patterns one keeps doing over and over again. I also described it to some people like an extended poetry reading or consciousness-raising session. Folks shared incredibly powerful stories and we were all witnesses to each others' transformations large and small.

I was thinking a lot about my fears of coming out, about integrity & accountability, about relationships and all that stuff that hangs over my head and never gets said. At every break you are given "homework" like, think about this or that decision you made when you were 5 or 14 or 24 that shaped what you thought you were capable of from then on. Or, call up someone in your life and have a totally unreasonable conversation with them, for example, have that conversation you know in your heart to be impossible and do it with urgency and courage and love.

It's very freeing, pinpointing the moment I decided for myself that I was going to make myself be "the responsible one" from then on because I couldn't count on anybody else, even though I didn't want to be responsible and raged against it. One snippet I like that came up a lot that weekend "what we resist, persists". Like we all know a parent's behavior we absolutely do not want to repeat but--there it is--and it seems even more prominent the more we try to fight it. So just making the decision to leave decisions we make about ourselves and other people (I'm too this, or not that enough) in the past where they belong, because otherwise, those decisions and resentments shape how we see everything in the future and squeeze out any possibility that we can do anything new.

I have more to say about this that I can't remember now. I did have some incredible things come out of that weekend. Met some really amazing people. Felt like I was in a really safe space. Laughed, cried, had some conversations with people I never thought were going to be possible, really got to the bottom of a distressing family mystery, and I think, became a much better listener.

I'm currently attending the Landmark 10-week seminar series "Causing the Miraculous" 'cause, why not? On a somewhat-related note, I just finished reading, again, The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies, a Canadian playwright with a magnificent beard. These three books are about how tiny decisions create entire lives of consequences, how the minor characters make all the difference, and how the world of the miraculous really isn't that far away. Plus it's full of magicians, circus freaks and brilliant weirdos.

Landmark Education Part I

Back when I first started this fellowship, Mad invited me to do the Landmark Forum, an intensive weekend of philosophical education and self-work. All three ITL co-creators did some variation of the program and they all seem to speak the same language during planning meetings. I check out the website once and promptly forgot about it.
Mad brought it up a few more times. I was wishy-washy. It seemed creepy and expensive and not-for-me. It seemed vaguely religious, and too good to be true. Mad invited me a few more times and then in May she told me that there was going to be an introduction meeting in Pittsburgh led by someone she really admired. I decided to go with and check it out, partly so Mad would quit asking me. I appreciate that she warned me, "Now, people here are going to seem a bit more happy and shiny than the regular session" so I knew to take it with a grain of salt. The marketing of it is pushy and annoyed me. I didn't like how everyone anticipated every negative thought I was having. But Mad shared some thoughts with me personally that made it more about a gift she was offering me to offer to myself. I was also struck by some observations she had of me that seemed really "confronting" and really showed me that she was paying close attention.
Furthermore, the speaker was really good. He was excellent and eventually was like, "Oh, I'm sure I could tell you a bunch of reasons to do this, but why not just do it 'cause what the hell?" I liked this. I decided to do it cause "what the hell" and because I felt like I needed something big and totally different in my life to shake me up. Also, it seemed uncanny that the next Pittsburgh Forum was over my birthday weekend.
I was told that the Landmark Forum starts when you register, however, I did do my immediate ambivalent ramble: "Oh no! Why did I just sign up for this thing on my birthday weekend? Everyone is going to think I am a big weirdo and voluntarily brainwashing myself...I'm going to start talking in annoying jargon and blah, blah, blah..." But then really started to see how it was true for me: it did start once I registered. June was an awful month and I kept thinking how I really needed a new perspective on things, needed something to shake me up. My b-day weekend came along soon enough and I really worked hard to get as many things out of the way and taken care of before the weekend really began. Knowing I was about to do this motivated me in a way I really needed. I wasn't looking forward to 13-hour days in an overly-air-conditioned room in Greentree...but I was optimistic.