The Landmark Forum

I recently attended The Landmark Forum as a "right of passage" for work. My company believes in sending all employees taking on a management role to this three-day intensive self-improvement workshop in an effort to recognize and conquer any mental or emotional obstacles we may have to help us be the best managers we can be. Really... this is all fancy-speak for group therapy, something I never saw myself taking part in, but seeing as it was something offered by my company, I wanted to see why lululemon felt so passionate about this course and what it might be able to offer me.

Upon walking in the room, a strange feeling took over me. There were one hundred and twelve chairs facing a podium with chalk boards and microphones on each side, banners declaring our right to live a life we love decorating the blank, windowless walls, and a long table lining the back of the room where "Landmark supervisors" would watch our every move. Needless to say, I was officially out of my comfort zone and a bit scared of what the next three thirteen-hour days ahead of me were going to be like. The cult-y posters and freakishly friendly Landmark supervisors made me feel like we were all going to put on a new pair of Nikes and drink Kool-aid at the end of this experience... but I was determined to learn something that weekend, no matter how uncomfortable I was.

The way The Forum works is there are intervals of about 2 to 3 hours were we cover certain topics like integrity, our relationships with our parents, finding completeness and/or forgiveness with past relationships, ect. and we are asked to go up to the microphone and share our personal stories and what we've learned from the conversations... so this isn't just group therapy, it's group therapy on a microphone in front of 112 people... pretty intimidating. But, you all know me and know that, if I am going to spend 13 hours a day in a little room devoid of natural lighting and constantly adjusting my posture to keep my butt from falling asleep, I'm going to go for it- I'm going to go up to that damn microphone and tell all of these strangers my problems because I am going to get something out of this, damnit!

Well, let me tell you... There is nothing more surreal than standing in front of a room full of strangers, talking about your personal problems as people sit there nodding their heads while the Forum leader analyzes your life. It drove me nuts to hear people letting out loud "UH HUH's" to the things the Landmark leader said as if they had just "figured me out". It felt like a weird Dr.Phil-esk dream where your life is being dissected before your very eyes and you are being summed up to be something that vaguely resembles the real-self you've determined your self to be. After I shared, I walked back to my seat, crossed my arms and declared that I didn't like this "thing" and was done participating. I started to day dream about small disasters that could potentially be my reason to escape this strange setting. I wanted to forget as soon as possible the fact that I had just spilled my guts to all of these random people that seemed to be watching my life like a tv show. I called my manager at break and told her Landmark was not for me but I would complete the day. I started to mentally check out...

But then, after a short mental break, a kit kat bar from the vending machine, and a renewed desire to get something out of this strange experience, I walked back into the conference room and decided to be present. Not just physically, but mentally. I was going to listen, be open to the possibility that I might eventually like or be thankful for this experience, and truly give Landmark my best shot. Person after person walked up to the mic. We listened to people share some of their darkest secrets. Many people broke down and it was hard to not fall apart as you watched these people lose control of their emotions and sob into the mic. It was in those moments where I thought to myself, "Where am I??". But, as I listened closer and closer, I began to understand the benefit of hearing someone's story and differentiating between "the story" and "what actually happened". This was the first Landmark concept that spoke to me.

"The story" is something we create to describe something that happened to us in the past. It's a way of getting sympathy, creating a scene, or just a way to re-live a bad experience that happened to us over and over. We discovered again and again as people brought their "stories" up to the mic that when you broke a situation down to just identifying "what happened", it is much easier to achieve closure. We also talked about the fact that the past only exists in the spoken word. The past does not exist today on its own, we bring it here. It is an active choice to leave the past in the past and it is a choice to let things simply be "things that happened". Stories allow us to create excuses for our lives and our behavior. We say things like, "because someone hurt me, I can act in this destructive way" and it just doesn't make sense.

I realized how often in my "stories" I blamed things and excused things for "bad timing". "Good timing" does not exist. "Timing" is an excuse. An excuse to not work for something you want. It's an excuse to push something away that could be good for you because you don't feel "ready" when, in reality, things can fall apart just as quickly as they come together and if there really is such a thing as "good timing" it is a temporary moment that should never be expected from anyone. Timing just IS.

But I think the thing that I felt I got the most out of from this course was relating closure with forgiveness. I learned that we often expect that when we forgive someone or try to experience closure, we often search for a emotional shift or complete change in opinion to allow us to go through with it, but forgiveness and closure are both, in actuality, declarations. They are commitments based on decisions, not emotion. If you want closure, you declare it- if you truly are committed to that closure, you will achieve it over time. That was a huge discovery for me and something I will remember for the rest of my life.
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So,on the beginning of the third day, after hours and hours of sob stories, fidgeting in my chair, and writing dozens of closure letters that would never be sent, we were asked to turn to our neighbor and discuss what we had learned so far in The Forum. My partner was a 60+ year-old man who worked as the Director of Science at the CDC and he asked me what I thought about my experience thus far and I said, "Well, I have definitely learned a lot, but I really don't like the actual experience. I don't like therapy and I've just felt really uncomfortable the past two days". That's when he said "Wait- Landmark is not about "liking it". What's to like? All of this intense emotion pent up in this little room, barely moving for days, and being intensely interviewed and analyzed... nothing about this experience is designed for you to "like" it... it's designed to teach you about yourself." And that's when I "got it".

Whether I liked it or not, I walked out of the Landmark Forum a stronger, smarter person. A better communicator and a better friend. No, I never want to do it again, but the closure I have achieved by attending this program and the inner-strength I have developed in invaluable. And it is by attending this Forum that I can let go of my ego and admit how much I learned from this program instead of just falsely committing to "being right". I would recommend this program to anyone and am so thankful my company offered me this opportunity.

And, I know I have said this a lot in the past few months, but, if I have learned anything, it's that I know nothing and I am getting more and more comfortable with that fact everyday.