This weekend changed my life… forever. My housemate Dan, friend Kathryn, and others raved about a course called Landmark Forum. It’s a three day seminar followed by an evening session in living powerfully and living a life you love. In my constant search for ultimate satisfaction and fulfillment, I figured I’d give it a try. I’m so happy I did. Where to start? This weekend was filled with epiphanies, one after another. Due to intellectual property, I’m not at liberty to disclose the specifics of what I learned, but what I can do is tell you how it affected me. We learned different concepts and ways of looking at our past to unveil the things that had been in our blind spot, things that affect the way we think without us even realizing it.
My whole life I’ve been searching for the root cause of my issue with weight, to no avail, until now. I had a perfect family life with the best parents, no abuse, no neglect, nothing but continual love and support, nothing to point to. What I realized this weekend is that when I was young and taken to doctors and nutritionists, I made it mean that I was broken and needed to be fixed, that they were telling me I could never be happy and successful and have a good life unless I lost the weight. I resisted and resented that idea and set out to prove that I could be happy and successful in spite of my weight. The more I weighed, the stronger my counter statement would be. This brought about inauthenticity in my life. I took on a false sense of righteousness and pride. I started thinking if someone doesn’t like me because I’m fat, then they’re missing out and they’re in the wrong. They’re judging me and they shouldn’t be. Of course there were huge costs of this mentality. Primarily, I didn’t care about my health or losing weight. Having started and stopped dieting more than 20 times in my lifetime, it was huge for me to realize that my lack of commitment to a healthy lifestyle was related to this meaningless need to prove I could be happy fat. If I really lost the weight, I wouldn’t get to make my point anymore. I wouldn’t get to be right and make other people wrong. Of course there were other impacts to my dating life, in having to overcome the fat first impression, and in blocking my parents from loving and helping me in this area. It was a really off limits subject for me. I was right, and everyone else just needed to shut up about it, enough already. I am inventing a new possibility in my life to be vulnerable and transparent with my family and with everyone in my life, and also to be responsible for my health.
I had a huge revelation regarding work as well. I’ve always felt that engineering wasn’t the perfect fit for me, that I would be better suited for another career. I was never sure what that was, and hence I stayed in engineering exploring different areas, attempting to find the right fit. I even took a very sophisticated aptitude test in August 2006, which ironically listed civil engineering as my top consideration. In my third year of college, I botched a big project, missing a very basic and key civil engineering design principle. The professor said he couldn’t believe I missed that and that he expected more of me. I didn’t even fail the project. I got an 83, but in my warped interpretation, it meant I would be a bad engineer. Throughout my career, I’ve strengthened my story every time I made a mistake. Every time I missed something or didn’t figure out something as quickly as someone else, every time I missed a deadline or went over budget, every time my thinking or approach was challenged reinforced my belief that I was a bad engineer. This thought has prevented me from being really invested in my work, from giving 100% and risking another big failure. No wonder I am not satisfied and fulfilled by my work. I’ve been resigned to the idea that this just wasn’t it for me, that I was treading water until I figure out what to pursue next. I am inventing a new possibility in my life to be invested. I could be a really great engineer, but I’ll never know until I really try, until I really put it out there and risk missing something again.
And all of this was by the end of the first night. There was so much more that followed, so many more huge breakthroughs. I had a complete shift in my way of thinking and my life will be forever changed because of it. I really understand how to separate what happened in the past from my interpretation and perception of it. I now know how to be present in the moment without letting any concocted meaning rule over a situation. I identified the moments in my childhood and adolescence that produced my strong suits, which make up my personality. I understand how those strong suits affect my daily life, both positively and negatively. I acknowledge the distinction between change & transformation and between deciding & choosing. I grasp the power of integrity, especially living my word - doing what I say I’ll do and being who I say I’ll be. Perhaps the biggest thing was really realizing I don’t have to discover who I am or find myself. I've been wondering about this for so long... really trying to figure out what my purpose is and how I'm uniquely equipped to do something extraordinary based on my aptitudes, personality, and experiences. What I realized is that I am whoever I want to be and say that I am. I don't have to have a reason to explain why I want what I want; I can simply want it. And if I invent it as a possibility in my life, I can be it.
If you’re the slightest bit intrigued and think you may get something out of it, I highly, highly, highly recommend it. Check out www.landmarkeducation.com. They offer this course all around the world with lots of classes in the U.S. I can’t begin to tell you the profound difference it’s made in the way I think. Let me tell you, I thought I was pretty great to begin with (there goes the righteousness!). But I am now in the process of being radically transformed from pretty great to extraordinary.
