Hmm.Landmark Forum was this weekend.

From the post of stealthbanana, Hmm.Landmark Forum was this weekend.:

Hmm.

Landmark Forum was this weekend.

Fucking amazingly cool.

The best part? At the end when Michelle Casey, some random landmark guy who knew way too much about me, and Jan the forum leader all told me I _needed_ to assist. That I was so amazingly awesome that I had to assist.

And then Jan tells me "You know Joey, we need 30 more forum leaders and I think you have what it takes."

I was just blown away. I am amazing guys! I really am! Fuck yeah, bitches!

So I work for Landmark as a volunteer now. How cool is that?

---

My Weekend of Possibiliy

From the post of Ms. Sky Bluez, My Weekend of Possibiliy:

My Weekend of Possibiliy

I must admit that I dreaded this past weekend. It wasn't that I was repeating the Landmark Forum it was knowing that I'd spend three long days (9am - 11pm) in conversation while sitting in a room with uncomfortable chairs. I resisted it as if it was like getting my fingernails pulled out with pliers. Of course, it was hardly like that.

So, what happened? If you want to know the dirty dirty...you'll have to do the Forum yourself...but I'm going to put what I got out of participating in the Landmark Forum.

On Friday...we had to identify our "rackets" or the stories we make up about the things that happen in our lives. The term racket is used in the same manner as the phrase "running a racket" like gangsters do - yanno, the store front covering the underground casino? We also identified areas of our lives where we are being inauthentic.

*clearing my throat*

What I identified as my "rackets" are (in no particular order of importance):

• No one ever listens to me
• I am not appreciated for what I do
• They think that I'm weak
• I can't get it right
• I'm not like them/I don't belong
• I'm a doormat/too nice

Those are the stories that I have made up based on events that have happened through out my life. When I am running these rackets (playing these games), I'm not present to what's going on and there's a breakdown in communication. Of course, none of these rackets are true in reality...it's just the hand that I play.

What I identified as my inauthenticities vary, depending on who I'm inauthentic to. If I had to make a blanket statement about my inauthenticities, it would be that my "main one" is that I'm not self-expressed. What that means is that I don't always say what's on my mind or how I feel especially when I'm asked. That essentially means that in this area, I lie and pretend. What does this do? It makes me miserable and angry because I often do things that I don't want to do. It's also not fair to whomever my inauthenticity is directed to because I'm not being truthful and usually the misery and anger is unfairly directed at them.

Our homework for that evening share a possibility that I've created for myself out of my participation in the LF. In addition we had to write a letter to someone we were being inauthentic to by sharing the inauthenticity, it's impact and the possibility we've created for ourselves.

The letter that I had written was to one of my Sisters...I didn't read the letter to her, but I did get to share my inauthenticity, it's impact, and the possibility that I've created for myself and my life. The conversation that we had was powerful in that I created the possibility of being self-expressed at all times, and that we would recreate a loving relationship as we had (if not better) than before. I was able to share with her how much she and our friendship means to me and that I value her for who she is. I also made a commitment to be fully present and to honor my word. Needless to say, it was a weight lifted from my shoulders. Who knew that being truthful could feel so good?!

During that day, I also made it a point to contact my brother. It's inherent that you love your family, but how many times do we actually say it to one another? As long as I could remember, I had never told my brother that I loved him. My recollection of our interaction is that I'm usually barking and fussing at him. Of course, he's usually barking and fussing back. Nevertheless, we still love each other. I called my brother on Friday afternoon to tell him that I loved him. Initially it was weird and I'm sure he thought that I was smoking something, but I commenced to tell him how much I admired him for being such a brave person. Even though my brother is younger, I never have to worry about him because he knows how to survive. At least he makes it appear that he can survive. At the moment that my brother and I spoke on such an elevated level, we began a new journey of closeness that we've never experienced before. I'm truly grateful for that.

On Saturday, we delved more into what stops us from achieving what we want in life. The take home message is that what happens happens and that's all that happens and that life happens now. We also were asked to identify our "strong suits" those personality traits that make us successful, and where they came from.

What I identified as my strong suits are:

• Reliable
• Affectionate
• Good Listener
• Empathetic
• Thoughtful
• Insightful
• Mature
• Friendly
• Intelligent/Smart

Over time, these are the personality traits that allow me to be successful in life. Something happened in my life that made me decide to develop these traits as defense mechanisms. For example, when I was younger, I was not much of an athlete. I couldn't double dutch very well, I couldn't run very fast, I could never hit a baseball. I was an utter failure in the area of sports. Because of that, I turned to music and academics as a place to divert my energy. It was an area of my life in which I've excelled, thus making intelligence/smart one of my strong suits. That was really basic as intelligence is relative.

On day 2, I also wrote another letter, this time to my Ex. I put it all out there that the reason I ceased communication with him is because I was being selfish and couldn't imagine the thought of being friends with someone I once had a romantic relationship with. I created the possibility of us being friends although we live separate lives. For me, it was liberating. I knew that all he wanted was to remain friends and I acted like a dork. Of course, you need time to get your act together after a break up, but I couldn't see that initially.

Day 3 is really where the meat of the course lies in my opinion. There's conversation about the "meaning" of life as well as sex, money, and love. You can only say so much about those topics. The take away that I got is that life's meaning is what you make it and that love is always around, you just have to be present to it. In regards to sex...it happens or not and that it doesn't mean anything if it doesn't. Pretty simple and common sense right? Of course, but when you're not living in these contexts, these are areas are easy generators of stress and emotional distress.

I will admit, taking the Landmark Forum is an act of sheer courage and bravery as you become privy to some things in your life that you rather not remember or that you prefer not to address. The reality is that there's nothing to "get" by taking the course in general, but what you "get" may change your view of life. I've heard people's opinion of LF, both people who have and have not taken the course and it's even been called a cult because people are happy and aren't letting bad things that have happened get them down. What they fail to understand is that nothing and everything happens and we give it meaning. Whatever it means to us is how we'll pattern our behavior. Plain and simple, yet not easy.

posted Monday, 19 September 2005

Are you "enrollable?" Get rid of your "racket...!"

From the post of lizerk@work, Are you "enrollable?" Get rid of your "racket...!:

August 02, 2005

Are you "enrollable?" Get rid of your "racket...!"

Last year I spent countless occasions patiently telling a friend of mine that I had absolutely no interest in attending The Landmark Forum. I was so sick of hearing about how she was having "breakthroughs" and learning to "let go."

(For those of you who don't know what The Landmark Forum cult is, click here.)

The worst was when she called me very early one Saturday morning out of the blue. It was to apologize for all of the times that she's ever been late to see me and that "it was selfish of her to take advantage of our friendship like that." I was a little taken aback because I had just woken up and she was speaking rapidly.

"What?" I asked groggily. "What are you talking about?"

"I need to release myself from my selfish behavior and I want to ask you to forgive me."

"Why are you calling me at this hour on a Saturday morning to seek forgiveness about being late? I don't care. You're never that late anyway, so it's not like it's a big deal. Where are you?"

"I'm at The Forum, but our break is almost over, so I have to go. But I felt it was important that I tell you that."

Not wanting to belittle something my friend felt was important, I simply said, "Okay, call me later." And hung up.

I had thought on it a moment, but then shrugged it off. My friend is totally into self-help stuff and trying to find something to give her life cause and meaning, so I figured that call had to have stemmed from one of those.

Following that phone call my friend tried using clever tactics to get me to attend "Forum informational gatherings" just about every time she saw me.

The first attempt preyed upon my weakness for sushi. "Hey, this guy from The Forum is holding an informational session. He's going to serve sushi and I know how much you like sushi. You should come and have some..."

No thank you. I'm busy that night...

The next attempt preyed upon my weakness for poking fun at 'the unfortunate clowns of society.' "Hey, after our workout tonight, this girl's having a get together of Forum people. Wanna go with me? It'd be fun. You'll meet some new people, plus there's some real 'interesting characters' that always show up. I bet you'd get a kick out of it..."

No thank you. I'm not really interested. Plus I'd feel bad going to something like that and pretending to want to know more when I really want nothing to do with it. I've been to Tony Robbins, that was enough in and of itself. (Though I have to admit, she almost got me that time... I howled with laughter at Tony Robbins in 2000 when my old company made me and a group of 7 others attend.

Some of the people that go to such seminars can be, well, quite dramatic. So it really was rather tempting to witness some more of the same...)

The third attempt was simply desperation. "God, I just feel like everything's been so much clearer to me lately. I love The Forum and I really think you should just come see what it's about. Really awesome..."

Ask me again and I'll slap you. I'm glad it works for you and I support you in anything that helps you find what you need in life. But I'm telling you, I'm not into that stuff. Knock it off.

Finally she really did knock it off. But she did get a mutual friend to go. And that poor friend said it was the most bizarre experience... "they wouldn't even let me go to the bathroom... so WEIRD..."

Since then, every so often I'd hear people talk about "The Forum." I'd just laugh and thankfully they were smart enough not to try and convince me to go. I really can't fathom paying $800 to listen to uncertified people tell me that I "need to let my demons go," not to mention that I couldn't go pee when I needed to.

Last week a good friend of mine went to brunch with an old college buddy to discuss some kind of fundraiser for their upcoming reunion. They're both class officers, so the goal was to put a plan in place. When I saw her out for dinner soon after I asked her how it went.

"It was okay," she answered. "We didn't really get much done."

"Oh yeah?" I grinned. "Catching up on the old days and gossip?"

"Sorta," she said. "It was mostly her talking about herself."

Fun.

Yesterday my friend e-mailed me to say that on Wednesday she might be going to Brunch Girl's house for an "informational seminar" she's hosting.

I responded saying, "Cool, is it for your school reunion plans?"

She then wrote back saying no, that it was something that her friend said would "help her with communicating and relating with people. It's called The Landmark Forum."

GAH!

Within seconds I had her on the phone. Ironically, just days earlier I had come across this website.

At the same time of calling her, I e-mailed the link. Luckily it wasn't hard to convince her not to go. One mention of "cult-like" and she was turned off.

Ugh, I LOATHE Landmark. I wish it would get shut down. I hate that they recruit people by pressuring members to go after close, trusted friends, followed by preying on their weaknesses.

I do, however, get a kick out of the "buzz words" that Landmark uses. As a PR practitioner, I have seen some brutal ones in my day such as "robust," "turnkey," "best-of-the-Web," etc. But Landmark wins, hands-down, with terms like "enrollable," "breakthroughs," "racket," "paradigm-shift," and "winning formulas."

In fact, how fun would it be to do PR for Landmark? A disappointing click on the media section of the official Landmark site indicates that the "fun" press releases stopped as of 2002. And what a shock, considering the opening statement in the final one:

February 18, 2002 – CHICAGO – Top 100 Expo has named Landmark Education’s The Landmark Forum number two in its list of Top 100 Adventures – second only to space travel.

Second only to space travel! Amazing. Does that mean Landmark participants are space cadets?? (Har har... come on now.)

The most recent article posted to their site was from October of 2004. I found it hard to believe that this was the most recent coverage. I mean, how is that possible if the only other exciting adventure next to Landmark is space travel?!

So I consulted with my friend Mr. Google. ....edit to remove link ... Landmark Forum is bigger and making more money than ever before. It has 52 offices in 21 countries and boasts that 145,000 people participate in its programs annually. I was told that before 9/11 they occupied an entire floor of one of the World Trade Center towers. Now they have quite a large operation at West 33rd St. near Penn Station.

Wow, I would love to talk with their Public Relations representative Nicole Clucus. Especially since her name is also connected to New York Women in Communications, Inc. Is that how Landmark is so successful? Do they sponsor other organizations to draw unsuspecting members in? Hmmm...