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John English
Phil Sullivan is a
friend that introduced me to the Landmark Forum. At first I thought it
was an interesting course for him and other people. Then I came as a guest one evening for the Introduction to the Landmark
Forum and was very impressed by the way the leader carried himself. I
watched and spoke to other graduates that have done the course and I
liked the conversations they were engaged in.
That evening I could
see that the Landmark Forum would make a difference to me in taking the
action to follow through in fulfilling my dreams. I gave up my
consideration that I did not have the time or money and did the Landmark
Forum in June 2001. I even agreed to having Phil help me with the
money part by paying for my tuition.
My immediate breakthrough was that for the first time I realized the
freedom and power I really have in life. Suddenly I got to see that I had been living
a life that I thought I had to live. The supposed - "right life" or "successful
life". In the Landmark Forum I saw that I had thrown away my
dreams and desires in order to be considered "good" and
"accomplished" in the eyes of other people.
Another breakthrough I have is my relationships, specifically my
relationship with my mom. I have always have a good relationship
with my mom, but there used to be a limit on how close we could be with
each other. I grew up in a family where the expression of love was not
present. I had never said "I love you" to my mom or my dad.
After the Landmark Forum the quality of my relationships has blossomed and grown. I am at ease with
expressing my feelings with other people. It is now just natural
to say "I love you" to my mom. We do it every time we are done speaking with
each other on the phone. We are completely open, honest and at
ease with each other. Our relationship while was good in the past, has now become
incredible.
That is what I think the work done with Landmark is all
about. It is about overcoming the quiet desperation in our lives.
Taking all the bad, alright, fine, OK and good stuff in our lives and
making those things incredible and extraordinary. Living an
extraordinary life on all levels.
Here was another breakthrough I had concerning one of my dreams and
hobbies. Throughout most of my life and especially when I was in college
I worked hard on writing my poetry. I was planning to have it published.
After I graduated from college my dream was to go out into the world and
become a writer. I wanted to publish my poetry book. To say
the least, things did not work out as planned. Three years later,
I had put down the poetry and pretty much abolished it from my life.
I had given up on poetry in many ways and decided my dream would never
happen and I should move on.
When I did the Landmark Forum. I realized how I had sold out on my
dreams in order to achieve success in the eyes of other people. My
life no longer was about my passions and interests; but about climbing
corporate ladders and 401k plans. My life was about what I thought
others wanted; not about what I wanted. Consequently, I took back
my life and my passions and went to work again. In the Velocity
Seminar, I took it on as my project. I got to choose which poems to
publish, edited them and then hired an editor to look at my work.
The process to publish the book suddenly accelerated. In the three
months of the Landmark Seminar
more work got done than the previous three years.
I acquired the ability to give my word and follow through on it, to have
the courage to live my dreams.
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Recently I did the Advanced
Course, and came back with a big
breakthrough on how I see myself in the world. I used to work on
improving myself as an individual, separate from everything else. Now I
see that my life is about everybody else's life, I am a member of a
community that makes a difference in the world. I got clear on what is a
story and a reality, the use of language and all its various nuances in
creating a world. I now have compassion in my heart and have grown to be the person that I really
want to be, but have never been.
Visit
Grads in Action for inspiring news and
stories about our fellow graduates making a difference all over the
world.
John
English worked for an insurance company in Charlotte, North Carolina, and
was working to
get into a PhD. Program in Psychology. He inspired a lot of us in the
community as he introduced his guests in the seminar and shared his life with us.
Landmark
Forum Graduates in The Carolinas
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