This is a thread for telling people about your experiences with self help seminars.
I was at one last night, http://www.landmarkeducation.com. I got suckered into it. I'd asked a professor for a letter of recommendation and he was like, yeah sure, why dont we meet at my office? Then we can go grab dinner and head to this seminar that I've been involved with.
but he's really vague about it, just sort of telling me that it's about focusing on education through non-conventional means and freeing yourself from right/wrong dichotomy. So I'm like, uh, ok. It's from 7-10 pm, which is a bit much, but what can I do, you're writing me a letter.
So I go, with my girlfriend who he knows too and has invited. And it's totally cultish. They sit everyone in this big room, and newcomers are all recognized and have nametags and people get up to speak into the microphone about their stupid worthless lives and "i realized that i kept telling myself I was a loser and i just dont have to do that anymore! I dont have to hold myself up to my mother's standards! I just let it go! It's like letting a pen....Drop!" and everyone claps and hoots and its so smiley and weird.
Then they usher the new folks out - there are four of us, into this introduction room where they have exactly 4 chairs lined up in front of a blackboard and this guy with buggy piercing eyes and a soft but tenacious voice/manner takes us through a "possibility invention" process that basically tries to tell us that our lives suck and that this forum they run has all the answers and we should sign up for a weekend of it.
it was so weird and cultish, almost religious. we could periodically hear loud bursts of hooting and applause from across the hall where the regulars were having their meeting.
anyone else?
― AaronK (AaronK), Friday, 6 May 2005 13:04 (twenty-one years ago)
Hey, I saw that pen dropping guy on the Penn & Teller Bullsh!t show about self-help. His methods seemed weird, to say the least.
― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Friday, 6 May 2005 13:10 (twenty-one years ago)
I know a couple of people who got involved with Phoenix, I have no direct experience with this kind of stuff. You can drop some serious cash on it.
― teeny (teeny), Friday, 6 May 2005 13:13 (twenty-one years ago)
I can't believe your professor took you to that. It seems a bit unethical. Landmark is a spin-off of EST. From what I know of it, a lot of corporate types are involved in it and their workshops cost A LOT of money. Some businesses pay for their whole staffs to take it, I think.
I been involved with this one:
http://www.artofliving.org/courses.html
A friend of mine got really into it and I went to a few courses. They teach really great breathing and meditation techniques, but they also do this group kriya that gets a bit intense, but you feel really great afterwards. They teach you what is basically pranayama--Indian science of breath, and teach you these easy techniques that can be done 2x for 20 min a day. They also teach you meditation which you can follow the breathing with. I felt great after I took their courses, clear mind, low stress, fairly open, but I don't really have the discipline to do the practice each day in order to get the good feeling result. Also, most of the people who are really involved are sort of into the leader--Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. I never went to a talk of his, so I never really got that part.
― Mary (Mary), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:55 (twenty-one years ago)
twelve years pass...
I just ran across this thing: http://www.daniellelaporte.com/thedesiremap and had to vent about it somewhere. I feel like there was a thread on Tony Robbins and maybe the Secret on here but I can't find it; but isn't this shit like, basic multi level marketing schemes that sell fucking NOTHING?
― akm, Monday, 9 October 2017 00:25 (eight years ago)
I mean maybe there is something to do this but if you want to do breathing exercises there's probably some studio where you can do that, not some structured program run by a faciliatator. or maybe you could like, join a church.
― akm, Monday, 9 October 2017 00:26 (eight years ago)