Last night, as part of my training to lead Introductions to the Landmark Forum, I attended an event called “A Special Evening for the Landmark Forum.”  I’ve been to several of these now and something about last night’s was extra special.

Three people shared stories that inspired me.

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The first was a woman in her 40s called M.  She’d done the Landmark Forum when it was “est” in the mid-80s.  At the time, she said, she was a meek little teacher who had lots of opinions, especially about Aboriginal land rights. 

I had a land rights sticker on my car, and a badge on my denim jacket.

She was the kind of person, she said, who after a few glasses of red would tell you what was wrong with the world and what you should be doing about it.

She also wanted to be an artist.

Out of doing the Landmark Forum she created a project in Fitzroy to paint, with a group of Aboriginal people, a huge mural.  And because no-one would let them paint the mural on their walls they also had to build a wall to paint it on.  So they built the wall and painted the mural, and it was a huge success.  She went on to work in the land rights movement, and she said,

For the last 25 years I’ve been an artist and my life is a joy.

Many years later she was watching 60 Minutes when Cathy Freeman (the Aboriginal woman who won gold in the 400m at the Sydney Olympics, and the pride of Australia) was being interviewed and Cathy said how the mural had always inspired her as a little girl.  And this woman, M, got that what she’d started all those years ago had inspired Cathy Freeman and, in turn, all those whom Cathy had inspired.

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The second was a man in his 30s called A who worked in IT.  He’d done the Landmark Forum about six years ago.  Soon after doing the Forum he decided to pursue his dream of flying a plane.  He booked in for a lesson and enjoyed it, so he signed up for a course of lessons. 

Around the fourth lesson the course started to pick up pace and the instructor started barking orders at him, “nose up”, “ease off”, and so on.  And when he was driving home from the lesson A started thinking,

I don’t like this … this guy’s being too hard on me … I’m going to tell him to stick it! 

This went on for a few kilometres until a bit later he had another thought:

Ah, OK, I have a choice about who I’m going to be this situation.

And in that moment he chose to become a pilot, and when he went back for the next lesson he told the instructor he needed him to tell him what he was doing right so he could keep on doing it, not simply what he was doing wrong.  The instructor agreed and A went on to get his pilot’s licence.  He now flies people all over Australia and loves it.  His next goal is to gain his commercial licence.

As the Landmark Forum Leader said,

… the breakthrough he had was not getting his pilot’s licence, the breakthrough he had was in that car when he chose who he was going to be in the face of circumstances.

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The third was a woman in her 30s called M.  When she was born, she said, her parents were very young, and had only known each other a short time.  Her mother was only 17.  M had a very difficult relationship with her parents.  She’d always felt her parents had only married because of her, and she felt unwanted.  She remembered a remark her father had once made jokingly when she was little,

… Lucky you were born in 1973 and not 1974, because that was the year abortion was legalised.

When she was old enough she left her native country of Denmark and lived in various places until she met her husband, an Australian, and moved with him to Australia.  For several years she lived in Australia feeling miserable, missing her family, missing her country, feeling alone and unwanted all over again.

Then she did the Landmark Forum and in the course she got to see how she’d made up the story of her life based on her parents’ circumstances and a casual remark made by her father.  She rang her parents and told them what she’d been doing and her parents were astounded and told her how much they loved her and were proud of her.  Now, she said,

my Dad rings me on his mobile when he’s driving on his trips in Europe just to tell me he’s thinking of me.

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To watch a video about the Landmark Forum, click here: http://www.landmarkeducation.com/
introduction_to_the_landmark_forum_video.jsp