There's no such thing as 'someday'.
Sonic Sparkle #11
I attended my very first Landmark seminar in 2002.
For those of you who have never heard of Landmark, the simplest way for me to describe it is as a highly effective training modality and set of courses designed to break people free from the ‘matrix of their minds’ and out of their programmed way of existing in the world.
Over an intensive 3 day weekend-long session, attendees undergo what is essentially a ‘de-brainwashing’ process. By being guided to recognize patterns of thought and using the stories of others to reflect to you your own blindspots, you begin to discover your unconscious beliefs- the ones that have been hidden from view, lurking in the shadows and captaining your ship for your whole life. You can finally see the puppet-strings you’ve been dangling from. They are so obscure and deeply rooted that we easily live without even knowing they are there. That is until Landmark hands you the flashlight, the scissors, and the motivation to look into your shadowy corners and snip them, forever untethering yourself from a past that need not become your future.
Most of us have been living the same way, day after day, on auto-pilot, without even noticing. And there’s a reason for this.
Think about it. Go back to the very beginning of you…a baby in a womb, existing in a place that is warm, dark, and safe for the process of your gestation.
Suddenly, one day you pop out into what is typically an overly bright room filled with strangers who are making noises and doing busy things. It’s quite the contrast to the place you’ve just been for the first nine months of your life. And so you learn to adapt and adjust to this new sensory overload. You are soon placed into the hands of your new guardians who are probably overwhelmed, if not overjoyed, at your brand spanking new existence. They may be young, they may be old, they may be in love, they may be in shambles but, in any case, chances are good that they themselves are still learning how to grow up and survive in a challenging world.
The truth is many of us find ourselves born into the hands of perfectly imperfect humans who have not yet healed their own wounds and traumas from their childhood experiences. This means we are bound to learn that our new world is not as safe as the womb from which we just came. For each one of us, there is always a very first time we feel a threat to our survival, to our lives. Whether the threat is real or not, it inevitably makes a permanent emotional and cognitive impact upon us.
The initial recognition that we are living inside of an unsafe world causes a pivotal shift in our being.
The guard goes up. Protection is turned on.
Most of us were so little when we first initiated our built-in defensive mechanism that we don’t even remember it’s there and still turned on. We live out our lives from inside our survival-mode, with our defences up and fully engaged. This quickly becomes our new normal. It becomes the lens through which we perceive everything. And soon we forget that there’s any other way to be.
Safety, however, is not freedom. Operating on auto-pilot is not really living.
We do not know what we don’t know. And we can’t change what we aren’t aware of.
Landmark powerfully grants you an awareness of and access to your embedded programming. It is in becoming aware of your current belief system that you can choose to install a new one. You can upload any software you want.
You learn how to choose for the very first time.
In freeing your mind from the barriers of old beliefs, you can open up your mind and perception to consider new outlooks and new ways of being It is with this ability to choose who you want to be and how you want to act that you are gifted with a brand new world full of possibilities.
the context
I was 27, living in Vancouver, and heading into the year of my Saturn returning. Right on schedule. “What am I doing with my life?” was the theme of the thoughts running through my mind, as I found myself continually struggling to satisfy my monthly financial obligations while also trying to fulfill my heart’s desire of being a free-spirited song-writer. At the time and in my mind, the only pathway to becoming a successful musician was the one that would lead me right up to the door of a major record label exec who would then invite me in, sit me down, and ask me to sign over ownership of my soul. From the second my pen lifted back up off the page, I would thereafter be molded into becoming what they wanted me to become, into wearing what they wanted me to wear, into making music that was “radio-friendly” enough to get me air-time, and to be heard by the masses.
I would no longer be an individual. No longer an artist. I would become a commodity.
This loss of life and freedom was not an option. I knew myself well enough to know that I’d be much happier living as I was: a poor musician on Commercial Drive renting rooms in shared houses with other artists and creatives who were walking the same road I was. Living with the mystery of not knowing how I’d ever earn enough to get ahead was less uncomfortable and way more desirable than the possibility of one day looking in the mirror and not recognizing myself in the reflection.
Instead of succumbing to the safety of a 9-5 paycheque, I was determined to walk my road less travelled. I just needed some empowerment. Some more tools in my tool-belt. Borrowing money from a friend who had just completed The Forum and was ecstatic about his life-changing experience, I signed up for my first Landmark session. I can vouch for the veracity of the common saying that is well-known to and oft-spoken by graduates of the course:
“There is life before Landmark and there is life after.”
If you show up fully and do it right, ‘before’ and ‘after’ become two totally different chapters in your life. You stop putting your past in your future because you stop living on repeat. Each day is wide open to be something completely new and different from any lived before.
Life is empty and meaningless.
The inherent truth to this existence is that there is no meaning in it save from what we ascribe to it. Everything is a story. And you hold the pen. So what are you going to write with it?
We live, we perceive, we think, we create, we believe in narratives.
You can create any story you want. And if you believe it to be true, then it is.
This is where true power and freedom and creativity lie.
I came away from my weekend, smashed apart, broken out of my old mold.
I was released from the fear that had held me trapped in survival-mode and I was born anew….inspired by the truth that anything is possible.
It wasn’t scary at all. It was deliciously exhilarating.
I was finally free to re-invent myself.
Free to choose.
the song
the words
I am creative
I can write stories
I can make meaning out of anything
I am a machine
Know how to self-clean
Just turn me on and off I go
Well it’s just one big long day
If you know that there’s no someday
It’s just one big long day
If you know that someday will not come
I am on my knees
At the foot of my beliefs
Trees from seeds planted long ago
I am a tender
Care-taker
The more I give to you the more I grow
Well it’s just one big long day
If you know that there’s no someday
It’s just one big long day
If you know that someday will not come
Thank you so much for popping by and reading my words and listening to my music.
I appreciate you so much!
powerful message Jacqueline.. This really struck me "No longer an artist. I would become a commodity." we were all born to be artists in our unique ways, The system decided to steal this creative potential from us! Thank you for pointing the way out of that system
I listened to the last 3 of your posts.
The two latest show you have the expertise to record.
I would like to hear your vocal a bit more in front of the tracks.
The earlier one I would suggest for live performance you try some exercises like you are singing to the back row of a 60 seat venue.
You obviously have a lot of listeners feed them a wider variety.
Just some suggestions.
Be well.
Seep singing.