By when?
Over the years, I've taken more than a few workshops from an organization called Landmark Education. What I learned there has had a big influence on my life. It led to my running for local office - and winning. It got me involved in partnership with my wife to help candidates and causes with fundraising. It transformed my ability to be effective in business development. And it gave me an awareness that I am fully responsible for the world around me.
In most of the courses, the subject of "upsets" is usually front-and-center. Upsets are the currency of life for human beings, so figuring out how to handle them is important. Especially how to end them.
When I'm angry at my daughter (who has also taken these courses), here's how a typical conversation unfolds:
Her: How long are you going to be mad, Daddy?
Me: I don't know.
Her: The rest of your life?
Me: No.
Her: The rest of the week?
Me: No.
Her: All day?
Me: Maybe.
Her: Why?
Me: Because.
Her: Do you want to be mad? Are you having fun?
Me: No.
Her: Then stop.
Me: Okay, I will.
Her: By when?
By when. Two of the most important words you'll ever hear - because they make it clear that everything is up to us as individuals. If we can choose to be mad for a year, we can choose to be mad for a day - and we can choose to be mad for a second. The measure of our strength is not whether we can avoid getting upset, but how quickly and gracefully we recover and get off it.
I don't profess to being nearly as expert in this arena as my 17 year old daughter, but I am learning from her every day. I am learning that anger is a personal choice, and that choosing committed action to create a new possibility is always preferable.
- James Protzman's blog
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Upsets
The only place I really have trouble with this is around George W. Bush. When I'm at my best, I get past anger into committed action, with the clear intention of never again seeing our country hijacked by incompetence and greed. When I'm at my worst, I am a miserable person to be around.
Back in the 90's I woked at an outdoor treatment program
for really troubled teens. One of our favorite sayings was:
"Life is 10% what happens and 90% how you react to it."
A lot of those young people had an underdeveloped internal locus of control. External forces "ruled" their lives or so it seemed to them.
I see a similar situation today in society in general, in many "normal" young poeple, even in politics at many levels.
Learned passivity = watching television - "chewing gum for the eyes", "sucking on the glass teat". It will be what kills us.
Person County Democrats
Landmark and other Large-Group Awareness Trainings
James, I'm glad Landmark has helped you and your family. I was pushed into a similar program, the Legacy Center Basic, by my therapist at the time, and found its atmosphere alarmingly cult-like and way too profit-driven for my taste. For example, the last session was all just a hard-sell, pressuring us to (a) shell out twice as much $ for the next level, and (b) coughing up names of friends/family who could be pushed into the trainings.
I took some good things from the training but I'd recommend that anyone considering Landmark/Legacy/Lifespring or similar to do some research first. And if a friend/family member is pressuring you, hold your ground.
Ah yes. The pressure conversation!
I remember it well.
Somewhere along the way I removed the word pressure from my lexicon and simply started doing what I was committed to. I know lots of Landmark grads, but only a few Legacy people. Legacy seems to have a much harder edge than Landmark.
Short of having a gun to one's head (or something similar), no one should ever take whatever anyone else says as pressure.
You're probably correct about Legacy
Probably so. Do you read Salon's advice columnist, Cary Tennis? This was me.
Legacy is nothing more than a hard edge.
Sure you can do anything you want if you have no regard for your own humanity or anyone else's. That training does have some interesting aspects but absolutely no accountability on some of the monsters it can create.
Progressive Democrats of North Carolina
I've never experienced a harder sell than Landmark
James,
You probably remember that my wife followed your recommendation a few years ago.
For various reasons that I understand but won't make public, I felt pressured to go with her (she did not pressure me).
That last Tuesday, when everyone comes back from a day of living back in the real world, was a session never to be forgotten. I've never ever experienced such pressure - using everything we'd "learned" over the previous weekend to get us to continue.
That said, I've seen a number of people who've been helped by Landmark even if it was not for me. I think that its emphasis on acting in the real world and reporting back for support can produce good results.
I personally just couldn't deal with the pressure and the weird metaphysics ("The things that we don't know what we don't know" - doesn't that remind you of someone in the Bush administration?).
Besta é tu se você não viver nesse mundo
http://george.entenman.name
one of the best non-political posts
Dealing with family members and myself having short tempers and/or MRDD is a constant challenge. I'm very interested in what you wrote. Thank you.
Landmark was also my ticket to politics
Very interesting James...doing the Landmark Forum was also my ticket for getting seriously involved in politics. There's a part of the course that deals with recurring complaints, and having people realize that sometimes we'd rather bitch and be right than actually take action. I saw that I was doing this around Bush--Bitching and doing nothing about it. I jumped right in and started throwing a lot of fundraisers for Dean in 04', did some local stuff over the last few years, and went to Iowa for Obama this past year. I feel so much more peaceful actually doing something, even when it's inconvenient.
Well said
That's how I came to see it ... I ended up running for town council. It's not that I don't still complain from time to time, though.
I've never been to anything like Landmark or Legacy
My own journey through life - both emotionally and spiritually - has taught me that if if I'm not doing something to make things better, I am unhappy.
Be the change you wish to see in the world. --Gandhi
Pointing at Naked Emperors
I did the Legacy thing
several years ago. First let me say it helped me ... not with the past stuff ... I had by that time talked so much (to others and to myself) that I knew I'd be fine. What it helped me learn to do was to be that one voice that changes a room. That was an issue of confidence and passion. It was also just simply going through the experience of having a voice, a chance to argue my point without fear, and a chance to see that the ability was in me to change minds, make people think and make a difference. That was something I had never experienced up to that point and it has been invaluable.
However, in the end, at the final stage, things felt too much like an odd mesh of Scientology and Amway-ish pressure to semi-cloister oneself. The whole thing has clearly worked for other people so I don't discount it's value at all. It's just that I had priorities at the time that did not include selling training to other people. Though, it might be something I try again sometime in the future.
"It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit." - Harry Truman
Are you guys talking about this Landmark?
Yup
There are many of these so-called Large Group Awareness Trainings. See here:
http://pagesperso-orange.fr/eldon.braun/awareness/
There are indeed.
Including some very old ones.
Hahahahaha
There are definitely some dangerous churches out there and some dangerous cults. And some dangerous church cults.
Indeed.
A church/religion is the shortest path to cult status in existence. The line between teaching people to believe and teaching them to surrender their minds is a thin one that too many followers cannot discern.
Different people have different stumbling blocks. One solution just won't work. Growing up I was always fine with God and thought Jesus was great, but the "pray and wait for God" (and later "tithe and wait for God") teachings never clicked with me. Not even close. The biggest help I got came from a little bitty book I found one day. It was called, The Four Agreements. The whole thing is very helpful but what I needed to learn was in Agreement 2. If you'll pardon the expression, it really was like a key I needed to unlock my own chains.
"It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit." - Harry Truman
I'm not France. Obviously.
I've found this useful when discussing cults. Isaac Bonewits is a fairly well respected "elder" and author in the neopagan movement. His Cult Danger Evaluation Frame was useful when I began exploring non-mainstream religions, and according to Isaac, can be applied to
Take a look at it, and see how any of the groups you're involved in - political, religious, or psychological - measure up.
Be the change you wish to see in the world. --Gandhi
Pointing at Naked Emperors
Dang. I thought you WERE France!
I promised the Governor we'd have France at her fundraiser today ... can you at least be France for the next six hours?
Oui.
L'etat, c'est moi!
Be the change you wish to see in the world. --Gandhi
Pointing at Naked Emperors
Is Landmark "cult-like?"
According to friends in France, and a Landmark Forum leader who happens to be French, Landmark Education's dependence on a large number of (very willing) volunteers is what led to them not having an office in Paris. Apparently, "workers" must be paid. This would result in The Landmark Forum tuition probably having to be thousands, not hundreds. In contrast, Landmark Education Corporation has centers in many other European countries - UK, Germany, Sweden, Denmark - as well as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, India, Japan, etc.
With regard to it's "cult-like" nature - the Cult Awareness and Information Centre has ties to Scientology - hardly the organization to be calling anyone a cult!! Landmark has nothing to "belong" to, no "belief" system one must follow, nothing one is ever "pressured" to do. It does not require people to turn their assets or decision-making options over, or anything else even remotely fitting the definition of "cult" in the dictionary!
As to the "pressure" conversation. If you saw a movie you thought was GREAT - would you recommend it to your friends? If you discovered a restaurant you thought was TERRIFIC, would you recommend it? If you did a 3-day course that you thought could change your life (and probably most people's) for the better by empowering you to take constructive action in the world instead of complaining about what's wrong (with yourself, others, and the rest of the world), would you tell everyone you cared about to try it?
I did (and still do).
What some of the comments above seem to suggest (at least to me) is that the people who felt "pressured" missed one of the most important points of the Forum - that there is a huge difference between REALITY (where real "pressure" could be defined) and what goes on in your head (where YOU might define someone strongly recommending something as "pressure"). People generally act on what they BELIEVE - whether or not their beliefs correspond accurately to REALITY. This not only destroys relationships, but often can be seen as the source of conflicts between entire groups of people!
Now see, if you're trying to convince people
it's not a cult, then you need to stop talking like a cult member:
So...they only perceived it as pressure because they weren't completely indoctrinated?
Reality is a construct of our belief system, not a monolithic entity our beliefs must try to align with. Which goes to the core of why organized religion (cults) are so dangerous: they provide people with a handy and pre-packaged reality they can believe in, but it's someone else's reality. It hasn't been perceived and developed naturally, so there is a constant conflict within us between the reality that's been presented to us and the reality we yearn to discover on our own.
I Agree. Do Your Homework.
My wife, daughter, several of my family and friends and I have participated several Landmark courses. What I learned there also has had a big influence on my life, including transforming upsets. The results have been positively life altering.
I agree that everyone should do their homework before participating in any activity. Here are some of the things I discovered in doing my homework.
The following is a link to a Harris Interactive independent survey of health professionals and educators who had participated in programs offered by Landmark Education. http://www.harrisinteractive.com/news/newsletters/clientnews/2007_Landma...
Harris Interactive found that survey results showed that the vast majority of respondents held very positive views regarding Landmark Education programs as more than nine of ten agreed that Landmark’s programs were responsibly and professionally conducted, produced practical and powerful results, and made a profound difference in their lives. Moreover, nearly all respondents (96%) agreed that Landmark Education Programs provided great value.
Dr. Raymond D. Fowler, Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer American Psychological Association, who participated in The Landmark Forum with his wife, who is also a psychologist, published the following. http://www.sinus-ffm.de/lec/landmark/fowler.html
Top Expo 100 Adventures rates participating in The Landmark Forum as their #2 Adventure, http://top100expo.com/index_expo_world.asp, http://top100expo.com/ListFromTo.asp?from=001&to=020.
ABCNews.com focuses on Landmark/Top100Expo - ABCNews.com writes about the phenomenal results of Landmark Education and about the influence it has had on Top 100 Expo. 'Transformation' in a Weekend? http://top100expo.com/zoomitem.asp?ID=7445
Landmark
I did one Landmark course years ago. To this day, I'm the only person I know who came away with a truly moderate view about it.
Landmark CAN be useful for those who have trouble putting the past truly in the past (and isn't that most of us?). Alas, I didn't find it life-altering, though I did gain some useful tips that helped me see that the future is much more in my control than I previously realized and, with apologies to Mr. Faulkner, sometimes the past really is passed.
But I also didn't think it was especially cult-like, though some converts act a little cultish when discussing it. It's much like a supercharged cognitive therapy session/tent revival. After a few weeks the fervor of the event wore off, and I was back to my original, cognitively flawed self.
The sales tactics were pretty oppressive, though, and those tactics- more than the program itself- turned me away from further participation.