In this page, I talk about my experience with Landmark. I am not related to Landmark in any way except that I have taken some of their classes. Hopefully, this will provide you with some information about Landmark that will help you to decide whether or not it is something that you're interested in.
Before I decided to take their first course, the Landmark Forum, I checked on the web to see if they had a homepage. At the time I created this page, they didn't, and I thought I would create this page as a sort of third-party evaluation of it. They now do have a webpage, located at: http://www.landmark-education.com.
For me, Landmark is about training people to make a difference in the world. If you asked a hundred people who've taken the Forum what they think it's about, you would probably receive 100 different replies. So that is just my own perspective on it.
I have a different relationship to fear than I used to. I still have "fear", and it doesn't affect what I do. It doesn't stop me from making a difference in the world. I appreciate people much more than I used to. I used to not really enjoy being around people unless they were close friends. Conversation with some people seemed like a chore, and I noticed that I did some things to deliberately separate myself from other people. After the Forum, I started noticing how much people do to avoid dealing with other people. I don't know how this happened, but I started really loving to be around people! I still enjoy having time to myself, but now when I'm with people, I enjoy talking to people! I feel like I can learn from other people much more than I used to -- perhaps, that's the source of it. I'm not as afraid of people as I used to be. People don't scare me as much as they used to, and the idea of speaking in front of people sometimes even seems exciting. I'm much more upfront about what's going on inside my head with other people, which has changed and deepened many of my relationships. We built up a candor and honesty in our relationships that weren't present before. I'm active in my life and in my communities. I remember telling a close friend before I took the Forum that I didn't feel like I could ever really belong to anything. I thought I was too skeptical of any group to participate in it. What I found after the Forum is that I still have my skepticism, but I'm active in my community in a way that I couldn't have imagined six month ago. I think that skeptics may even get more out of the Forum than others. Why? Because their ability to think and investigate things complements what the Forum is really teaching. However, if you're the type of person that sees everything as black and white, you may be challenged by the Forum. I think you have to be willing to take 90% of the Forum, and ignore the other parts (after due consideration). I think the only Landmark class I don't recommend is the seminars that come for free after the Forum. I and most of my friends who've taken them did not get that much out of them. If you do, it seems to be in spite of the course rather than because of it. A few of my friends have enjoyed the seminars, but I personally did not.
Jade
Thursday, May 6, 1999