And Then I Went to the Advanced Course of the Landmark Forum!

I thought that I’d reached enlightenment and I had figured life out. Wrong!

This weekend I attended the Advanced Course of the Landmark Forum. Yet again I am blown away by how much I didn’t know that I didn’t know. I realized that there is no such thing as “having arrived” and that there will always be a new world of transformation just beyond what I know or think is possible.

Before the Advanced Course, I thought that I was a decent leader and that I had an influence on people in my life. I thought that I was a nice person. I felt like I was a good daughter, sister, friend, member of the Church, American, and human being.

In reality, apparently I was wrought with a wretched need for admiration. I tried to make it with some people and while I survived other people. I felt uncomfortable with people and avoided eye contact with those for whom I felt disgust, while terrified of looking into the eyes of those that could reject me and turn away from me. I was not able to simply be with people.

I became aware that I was powerless at the level of group—whether it be relationship, group, organization, society, nation, or world. I was incapable of leading with love because in actuality I really didn’t like people. I was reasonable, justified, right, angry, lonely, smart, better, safe, comfortable, cynical, and resigned. I wasn’t concerned about making a difference—not really—and was lukewarm and mediocre.

Right before I headed to the Advanced Course, I had a major breakdown. I had to face the fact that I did not have a deep respect and reverence for my word. I let people in my life down in a big way and I knew what I had done.

At the second course, I learned how to use my word to live a life powerfully and a life that I love. I stand for love, family, community, peace, joy, happiness, and connection. I teleported from the world of the ordinary to the world of possibility through committed action as dictated by my word. I am the creator of my life and my life is, indeed, the people in my life. I now see that self is other and at the group level of world. If you suffer, I suffer. If you are happy, I am happy.

The results I see in my life now are the miracles I see happening in the lives for whom I make a difference and they are beyond anything I ever imagined possible. I am not attached to perfection and I am vulnerable to living from time to time again in the world of the ordinary, but I am consistently enlivened and fulfilled.

I am now enrolled in the Self-Expression and Leadership course, which will take place over a six-month period and will begin in December. I am committed to developing a curriculum and tools for classes in health, wholeness, healing, relationships, and personal development using textbooks like Remembering Wholeness, The Color Code, The Five Love Languages, The Anatomy of Peace, Bonds That Make Us Free, How to Win Friends and Influence People, and other books that have made an impact in my life.

I am visiting my brother in Austin, TX, after four years of not talking, I am making a personal history of my mother and father’s lives, I am helping my mother to learn how to share the gospel in her community, and I am seeking other opportunities to plan events and offer personal organizing and childcare services. I find myself hurling into the space of possibility at a velocity I have never known and I am now equipped to handle breakdowns, disappointments, and failures in a way that makes me unstoppable.