The second is: is it possible to deliver not merely the results
Werner's work
delivers in-person online, but specifically is it possible to deliver
transformation
online, particularly for non-Graduates? I
share
my experience of this in this essay,
Online! II: Untethered.
Comparing one experience that produces insight, value, and the
access
to
transformation,
to another different experience that produces insight, value, and the
access
to
transformation,
is never a great idea. That's because comparing is an
in-the-stands activity not an on-the-court
activity. And it's never a great idea to cultivate an in-the-stands
view of life when the on-the-court experience is available and calling.
Cultivating the former, just produces more entrenchment and a loss of
freedom. We live mostly in the stands of our own lives when the only
skin to be had in
the game
is on the court (but that's a conversation for another occasion).
I recently participated in the
Landmark Forum online
as a reviewer, having participated in it more than a few times before
in-person. I didn't do it to compare the two. The differences between
the experience of any program delivered in-person and its counterpart
delivered online, would be obvious. Rather I had a long, carefully
constructed list of what I wanted to accomplish in it - simply put, of
the possibilities I intended to invent for myself and my life out of
participating in it. And along with it all I had a burning question
that wasn't so much "Is it possible to deliver the resultsWerner's work
delivers in-person online?"
which I had already resolved
for myself
(yes it's possible - in spades) as "Is it possible to
deliver
transformation
online, particularly for non-Graduates?". To be honest, my opinion at
the get-go was that it wasn't possible. I was already certain that an
in-person environment is the required milieu for
delivering
transformation,
that sudden out-of-time realization of who we really are,
the getting of which occurs not unlike opening the door of the fridge
to get something to eat, and being stunned, blown backon finding the Grand
Canyon in there!!!
That's what the experience of truly, authentically
discovering
transformation
(or for that matter, anything else truly profound) for yourself, is
like.
With that in the background, I completed the introductory evening
launching session, and the five days of the
Landmark Forum online
(it includes three full thirteen hour days of online classroom
sessions, two open days for trying out /
sharing
your
transformation
and possibilities with people, and an evening graduation and guest
opportunity session). In this regard, I discovered three things (there
were dozens of things I discovered in totality, which
include the three I'll distinguish now).
The first is arguably the most obvious, and yet it's one I unwittingly
overlooked going in. It's that if the people who deliver the
Landmark Forum onlinesay it will deliver
transformation
just as it delivers it in-person, then it will - or it
won't be delivered online until it does. And that's what they do
say. It's not a statement to be taken lightly, ordinarily. But then
again, the people who deliver the
Landmark Forum
online,
aren't playing by ordinary rules. They're playing by extraordinary
rules. I should have known. If they say the
Landmark Forum online
will deliver
transformation
just as it does in-person, then it will. And all there would be for me
to do is experience it for myself. So I, knowing who they are, got it
clear for myself that it was delivered online as soon as they could say
it delivered
transformation
online.
I suppose you could say what was up for me to discover, is how I
stacked my own opinion that it can't be done, against their given word
that it can and will be done. But in the end, I was delighted to give
up my opinion in the face of the overwhelming evidence in their favor.
Indeed, the
Landmark Forum online
delivers a fullness and depth of
transformation
which I, in over forty two years
being around Werner's
work,
haven't plumbed before. In this way it's nothing short of utterly
miraculous.
The second is my concern that managing (for want of a
better word) the group online would be a chore more epic than herding
cats, given everyone online is not as
accessible
as if they were there in-person (for example, what if someone too
confronted, disconnects?). That, I discovered, is managed by a
masterfully fitting set of ground rules which, rather than cover what
to do online to get the most out of the experience, cover what
not to do online to not diminish the experience. And there
are always ground rules (always, yes? - in life, there are
always ground rules ...). The ground rules also make it clear that
transformation
as delivered by the
Landmark Forum online
is only promised if you're in it for the entire experience. And if
you're not, you may get
transformation
... but you can't expect it. In the face of this, the
simplified yet iron clad set of ground rules, made that group
management look even easier (and effortlessly tighter) than group
management I've observed when the
Landmark Forum
is delivered in-person. But listen: people are whip smart. Word is out
that
Werner's work
is the real deal. And no one runs too far from that which
they've always wanted in their lives. It was palpable from observing
the Zoom "gallery view" of all participants faces. No one wanted to
leave this extraordinary event.
The third was my core concern: does the
Landmark Forum online
actually deliver
transformation
as unerringly, as pointedly as the
Landmark Forum
in-person? I got two answers. First (the one I overlooked going in):
yes, because the people who deliver the
Landmark Forum online
say so. Second: yes, a thousand times yes. And the latter
comes in retrospect from my own experience as a participant, not from
some disembodied, disengaged in-the-stands intellectual opinion about
its delivery methodology. At first I considered that could also be due
to the fact that the format of the
Landmark Forum
is constantly being reviewed and tuned ever finer, and so
transformation
is
accessed
more powerfully and more unerringly with every iteration. So this, its
latest iteration (now online) would of necessity embody enhancements
which would bring
transformation
out into the light even more
brilliantly,
both in-person and online. And there's also this: in all likelihood, if
you're participating online, you're participating from your home -
which means
transformation
even more immediately and directly shows up in your life at home where
it most appropriately and fittingly belongs. In this way, the
Landmark Forum online
may even be a more effective medium for delivering
transformation
than in-person - if that's even possible.
The
Landmark Forum online
creates a vast, complex, powerful ontological space in
which its participants can
access
the possibility of being
free to be and free to
act.
Even more than that, it creates an ontological space in which its
participants can
access
the possibility of being completely untethered to the
past, and be
free to be and free to
act.
In it, I created the possibility of healing my family, a possibility
which I made real during the breaks. That's something people work on
for years if not
decades.
For me in the
Landmark Forum
online,
it happened in hours. As for the rest of the items on my list, I got
them handled - and if I didn't get them all handled, I got them majorly
advanced towards being totally handled. Interestingly enough, what I
was left with was that the items on my list, although substantial, may
have been too small. The question to ask may not have been just
"What do I want to get out of participating in the
Landmark Forum?"
with a pretty good idea of what's possible, but rather "What do I want
to get out of participating in the
Landmark Forum
that until now, I haven't even considered to be possible?"
(it's that powerful).
Look: this is an extraordinary iteration of
Werner's work
ie another extraordinary iteration of
Werner's work,
a textured symphony of layered dulcet master-tones of which you'll
never tire of listening, as it reminds us at ever deeper and deeper
levels of the
brilliance
and extraordinariness that's possible in our lives, when we've somehow
always settled for less, having left unexamined our all too human
superstitious thinking
for so long, leaving our lives run for the most part by falsehoods and
absurdities, locked in place from the time we were five years old or
thereabout. We're adults run by the mindsets of children. It's no
wonder our lives don't work well.
If I were you, I'd run (not walk) to register. And given
it's online, now you can participate in
Werner's workfrom anywhere in the world - even from countries where the
Landmark Forum
isn't yet offered in-person. In the
Landmark Forum
online,
you'll get many, many more questions than you'll get answers. That's
its way. It gives you the
tools
to get answers for yourself, rather than selling you its version of
your answers. And whether you're already a graduate or not, there's one
question that may stay unanswered when things get to their all too soon
end: it's "Why didn't I do this sooner? This is too
important to not know about. What took me so long?".
