Self-Help and Transformations

At 6 o'clock I was planning to post something really positive....At 10 it's turned a little more cynical.

I had a good day today.  I've almost stopped coughing, for one thing, I finished my sewing yay! and I got to go make some art at a camp for sick kids, which was pretty fun.

It was a long drive out and I had a chance to chat with this woman I just started working with, Amy.
She has a lovely manner, and greets everyone with real warmth.  I am already watching her to see if I can mimic even a small percentage of that energy. 
On the drive out we talked about life in the arts.  On the way back, we talked about more personal things...I talked a bit about my family...did I say too much?  Ack.  She's quite open about her life and told me about a few hard times she's been through, in a rather matter-of-fact way.  As positive and friendly a person as she appears, she said she suspected she is currently mildly depressed.  Huh.
She spoke about a 'personal growth course' she took that led her to creating a community project.
I showed her a book I was reading, 'Community' by Peter Block.  I'm only on Chapter Two, but I'm really excited that I found something I'm passionate about (building community, although my definition is still a bit hazy.)  Amy looked at the book jacket and noticed one of the endorsements was from Landmark Education.  "That's the course I took!"  I said I'd look it up.  She said, "Yeah, just be prepared that some people call it a cult."  She explained that she resisted taking the course for years even though a friend recommended it, because she didn't approve of the marketing and style of delivery, but that she had a positive experience from it and so did everyone else she knew who had taken it.

So I went home and looked it up, and yeah some people really hate it.  You spend three long days in a room with 150 people sharing your life problems and getting questioned until you have a breakthrough and realize it was all your fault.  Then your homework is to call someone and apologize, and to invite your friends to come to next week's session.

There are a series of articles by journalists who take the course, are skeptical, have some small epiphanies but remain critical of some of the methods used.

I just spent an hour reading about this stuff.
People love the idea of transformations.  If I thought a three day course was a magic bullet, I'd probably sign up in a heartbeat. 
The basic lessons of the Landmark forum seem to be the same as most self-help stuff- think positively, live in the moment not the past, get over fear, practice forgiveness and self-reflection.  Amy said there's a lot of Buddhism in the mix, and maybe some philosophy and pyschology.

I don't think I'll take the class.  It has got me thinking about the phonecalls I would assigned for homework- the broken relationships in my life.  My dad.  A few friends, one in particular.  Maybe my sister. 
Can they be repaired, or is there a reason those people aren't key to my life?

And the most tantalizing possibility of a complete transformation simply by declaring it to be so and living in a new way.  (Landmark teaches that modifying behavior from the past in a long slow process of change doesn't work.  I think I disagree.  Apparently some people who take the course get very caught up in feelings of euphoria and then crash and burn later.)

Now the 'Community' book is tainted by this endorsement from the Landmark guy, and by the fact that the author draws slightly on the teachings of Werner Erhard (his est workshops are the foundation of the Landmark teachings, and he's a controversial figure). 

Sigh.