Vive Magazine, an Australian publication for businesswomen, issued an article titled “Five Steps to Mindfulness” in its June/July issue.The article, which discusses various means by which to live in the moment in life, extensively mentions Landmark Education, including quotations from Landmark Forum leader Cathy Elliot. Excerpts of the article appear below:
But beyond psychology, how does living in the present work in practical terms? Landmark Education addresses this issue in the courses and forums they run geared towards professionals. According to Landmark, much of the way we live our lives is based on the meaning we attach to the things that happen to us. The theme of breaking a habit and working to create a new or more constructive behaviour recurs. “It’s very human that when something happens, we interpret it in some way,” says Cathy Elliott, a program director at Landmark Education. “The moment we make it mean something in relation to something else, we collapse what actually happened.’
Examine the Vive Magazine site for more information.
1 comment
I am a university academic resident in Melbourne, Australia, and was persuaded to enrol in the Landmark Forum by a dear friend who had recently completed it and was actively involved in its operations.
Accordingly I attended on the evening of Tuesday 9th November when several of the “graduates” made presentations with high praise of the program and detailing how it had transformed their lives and careers.
From the outset, I couldn’t help but notice several distinct features of the organising work and the ambient environment that had been created for the guests.
There were many “registration tables” set up strategically around the hall. The new graduates who “volunteered spontaneously” (according to the many stalwarts present) seemed far too articulate and fluent in their promotion to have been randomly picked by Cathy Elliot that evening, from a show of hands. As I had to remain behind long after many of the guests had left, to accompany my friend, as many as six “volunteers” approached me and persistently gave me the “hard sell” despite quite explicit and firm statements of polite refusal until I had time to think it over a couple of days. Finally, around 11pm (session ended 10.30 pm) I was rather taken aback to be lectured to, admonished and what bordered on ridicule by Cathy herself in insisting that I had to enrol that night itself if I was serious, and there could not possibly be any valid explanation other than my existing nature of indecision that was holding me back from “progress” in life!! I found that attitude very confronting and unsettling, and rather unbecoming of a respected professional. However, as I too practice mindfulness as taught in Buddhist meditation practice, I maintained equanimity. I do want to experience the Forum course out of curiosity in spite of these observations and sentiments and hope to attend next year.
Lasantha Pethiyagoda
12/11/2010