Lately I have been doing a lot of things that scare the living fuck out of me. I like to think of myself as this brave, strong, opinionated, loud mouthed, passionate woman who doesn’t give a shit about what other people think of her. And sometimes I am that person, when I’m in a comfortable setting, where I know I can be myself and still be loved and accepted, then I can be fully self-expressed. My best friends know me as this person. But, when it comes to being myself publicly, in front of the whole world, I’ve been an absolute chicken shit for pretty much my whole life!
Over the past while, I’ve been in a Landmark Seminar called the Sex and Intimacy Seminar, and I’ve been taking on the work of transforming my relationships with others and with myself. I’ve been doing this personal development work for about four years now, as of the end of May. And over those four years since I did my Landmark Forum, I have done about eight or so of these ten session seminars, I’ve also done the Advanced Course and the Self Expression and Leadership Program, completing what they call the Curriculum for Living.
If you are a close friend or family member, you know all about this, and you know what a difference it’s made in my life. If we are more casual FB friends and haven’t seen each other in person for a long time, you might have no idea, because I don’t talk about it publicly. I’m to afraid of being judged! You see, some people have this opinion that Landmark is a Cult. And if you know me well enough you know I’ve been obsessed with Cults for a very long time, so that might not seem so weird or unbelievable to you.
However, if you don’t know me all that well, maybe you think that sounds a bit crazy and you don’t want any part of it. All I can say is, it’s not any of the negative aspects of Cults. There is no religious non-sense to worry about, there is no talk of God or the Devil. They don’t take all of your money, although they are a for profit company and their courses do cost money, and they are not that cheap for a starving artist type like me, but it’s more than paid for itself over the years. They don’t tell you to disown all of your family members or friends who won’t join the cult with you, although they do tell you to invite them. And they don’t have any kind of criminally kinky sex rituals that are harmful to young people.
They do have a lot of the up sides to being in a Cult. You get to belong to a community of people who really truly care about you and your well-being. People who have developed an incredible skill for listening to you and empathizing with your situation, but will also be calling you on your shit when you are full of it. Which is often with humans. The best thing, is that they encourage you to get everything that’s stopping you from living your best life, out of your way, for good. Which, by the way, is never people, it’s always the limiting stories that we have going on in our brains about that person, situation or thing.
I’ve personally found that it’s a lot like the work of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which I have also found extremely impactful in managing my depression and anxiety. In CBT they use a different language and structure than landmark does. In CBT, they talk about the hot thought, and the evidence that you have collected that says it’s true and the evidence that you could find that it’s not true, and then creating a more balanced alternative way of thinking. With Landmark it’s about what happened verses what you made it mean about yourself. I would imagine that much of CBT and Landmarks work might be based on some similar psychological research on the way that humans work.
It’s not for everyone, CBT or Landmark I mean. There are plenty of other forms of self-work that people swear by and are having amazing results with, and that’s all great. For me, I have had the most success with the work I have done in Landmark and in CBT. These have both been incredibly transformative in my life. The people who know me well have seen a huge shift in me since I started doing this work, and they all tell me what a difference this work has made in my attitude, relationships, work, health and well-being. They have noticed a big shift in my way of being and it’s so much easier to deal with me now.
Because of this work, I recovered from the major depression I went through in 2015/16, I got myself a new place to live that worked for my financial situation, I got myself out of the debt I was in, I completely transformed my concept of love and relationships, and I’ve started writing again, among many many other amazing results. Because of this work, I’m doing all of the things that scared the shit out of me before, and I had been avoiding for YEARS, before I started doing this work.
And, I haven’t really even been talking about it with people publicly, because of that pesky fear monster that is still following me around and telling me “their all gonna laugh at you!” “They will think you are weird and they will not want to talk to you anymore!” “They won’t understand”, etc. But here’s the thing, I AM weird, I’m a TOTAL WEIRDO, always have been, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all. So what gives?! It’s about time I embrace that part of me, not just with the people who will love me no matter what, but with everyone in my life.
I did it a couple of weeks ago by sharing that post about my being bisexual and polyamours and wanting to have children in an alternative relationship. I’ve been doing it with my blog posts since I got sick with COVID-19 and went into Quarantine, back in mid March. I’ve been calling myself on my shit, like when I was being ineffective in my first attempt to be supportive of the BLM movement. I’ve been doing it with sharing my creative writing and character development for the TV series I’ve been writing over the past while. But I haven’t been sharing the one thing that has made all of this transformation in my life possible!
So, there you have it, I’m a weirdo Land-Martian, I’m a proud Cult member, and I’m terrified of sharing that with everyone here, but fuck-it, this is what I’m doing now! I’m doing absolutely everything that scares me from now on! I’m saying all the things! I’m creating my life from the ground up, every aspect of it, and the new me is not going to let fear stop her from authentically sharing about absolutely everything! And if that’s weird, GREAT!
Nice to meet you, I’m Weird. Welcome to my brain (aka blog).