So last weekend I only went and joined a cult!
Seriously.
Well sort of.
Depends who you talk to really.
Me or the French.
And on re-reading that it occurs to me that my abstract might become a little less so if I elaborate a touch…so what actually happened was that I did The Landmark Forum….(Google it, it’s been banned in France!)
…Dun Dun Dunnn!
And I walked away relatively unscathed (though not untouched) and unobsessed (though not untransformed), with two boots on my feet and a full head of hair!!
Now for all ye nay sayers and shit flingers out there, let me reassure you that the decision to attend was mine and mine alone. I had been flirting with the idea for a long ass time having overheard a bundle of conversations betwixt Chris and various people who had had the crap Landmarked out of them too.
Slowly bits and pieces of these conversations started to resonate and, before you know it, I was prodding and poking like an alien hungry for anals to probe!
At no point did any of these people try to sell me, force me or convert me. What it basically came down to was that I saw something distinctly different in the way Chris and these people were dealing with their lives…at work, in their relationships, with their families, under pressure, in crisis…everywhere. The best way I can describe it is that there seemed to be an overwhelming ‘calmness’ about them.
There was no drama, no angst, no confusion, no questioning, no resentments, no retaliations, no complications – in short, they all seemed….sorted. And all of them had a unique understanding of themselves and an awareness of their own behavior and that of the people around them.
There was also one other distinct difference I noticed in them – that all those fuckers were happy!
And, HELLO! Happy!? What in the fucking hell is that all about?
Was all a bit weird at first – I was all, “STFU and get the hell away from me with your freaky deaky happiness”. I mean, COME ON!
But bit by bit….
I started to listen.
And question.
And look at myself.
At where I was.
And where I wanted to be.
And how the two weren’t entirely related.
And who I was.
And who I wanted to be.
And how the two were in no way equated.
But, you know, I’m British and Jewish and full of all the repressive traits that those two cultures demand. So no matter how interested I might have been in embarking on a life transforming journey into happiness, well being and fulfillment, I pretended that I wasn’t because, well…I don’t need any of that…I’m okay…I can do everything I need to do on my own!
But remember that aforementioned insight into other people’s behavior I mentioned? Chris has got that in spades and he saw right through me and my bullshit. Which is probably what I wanted in the first place – I can’t want things simply because I want them, I need people to want me to want them. So I manipulate situations to provoke an invitation (of sorts) – and I hasten to add that, I know this now, I didn’t know this this time last week while I was busy manipulating everyone around me!
Look at me expecting everyone to know what I’m expecting of them even though I don’t tell them then getting pissed off because they don’t give me what I didn’t tell them I was expecting. Who’s fault do you think that might be?
Point is that I was super interested in doing this course but, my bullshit dictated that I couldn’t outright say so to anyone because, you know, to ask for help is just weak. But an acceptable compromise (of sorts) presented itself when Chris challenged me to start this blog. I accepted the challenge and added a little side bet of my own – I would start the blog and the day I got 200 hits I would sign up for Landmark (my ridiculous and not so subtle way of saying – “Yes, I want to do this but I can’t let you know that so I’ll make it about something else”).
Ridiculously long story short, a year went by and I kept listening and observing and resisting and manipulating and so on and so forth. I never quite reached the 200 hit mark, got close but no cigar (yet!). Then – TA-DA! – all my reasons, justifications, challenges and excuses for not doing it got blown out of the water when Chris gifted Landmark to me for Christmas.
There it was, plain and simple. Take everything else off the table, it came down to one simple thing, if I wanted to do it, I could do it.
Yes or No Judy?
Do you want to take a look at your life?
Are you prepared to face some honest truths?
About why it hasn’t gone…
…and isn’t going….
The way you thought and wanted it to go?
And are you prepared to acknowledge that you are entirely responsible for that?
And commit to making a change?
Are you?
ARE YOU?
Well let’s just say that my anal was about to get well and truly probed……
Breaking hearts, saving lives,
Judy
