I took the Basic 137 Class with Mastery in Transitional Training this summer. I went in feeling highly skeptical. I was pushed and encouraged by a really great friend or two and their excitement and the transcendence with which they spoke had me convinced it was a cult. A google search told me it was a cult. It looked like a cult. I went anyway because of my belief in my friend and I got to see first hand, that it is not at all a cult. But there is brainwashing involved. Emotionally, I can be highly empathic. I won't watch the news because it makes me cry for people I will never meet. I walked into the room on the first day and immediately felt this weight of sorrow and desperation. So many people walked in with a plan for a breakthrough in their life, and I walked in wondering if I could get through without being brainwashed.
It started slow. There were 5 days that started right after work Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and had two all day sessions that weekend. There was a motivational speaker that was powerfully persuasive, but I was intentionally closed off and determined to not be brainwashed. There were psychological games we played with minimal instructions, and the lesson in who we are unfolded once the game was over. There were guided meditations and moments where we were pulled out of our busy Los Angeles lives, and we were cocooned in a place where we had no choice but to make our very human connections. How amazing is it to see who you are as reflected openly by other people who only want the same growth they offer you through their honesty? By Saturday, I could see what they were doing for me as I stood in a room full of strangers that were hugging it out and openly weeping. It was the most profound shared experience I had ever been part of.
I walked in with so much pride in who I am, and I was called out on the weakness in my inability to be vulnerable. I walked in as a person working a temp job with the lack of job security it comes with and I felt that I needed to make up for that when I entered a room with doctors, lawyers, business owners, paid writers, finance powerhouses, news anchors, nurses, and even a city mayor. I walked away with a deeper appreciation of my family and our connections. I walked away knowing that what has always been accepted as what my life looks like isn't an internal dialogue I have to accept. I get to choose what life looks like and I get to determine where I'm headed. It's profound and beautiful. The community built into the course is amazing in itself. We have taken the opportunities given to show up for those we care about and stand in strength for the ability and beauty we see in each other.
I wanted to wait until I could afford the class and the time off of work, but a friend encouraged me to set up a Go Fund Me account . I was surprised at how much support poured in from people that have never met me. I didn't reach my goal, and yet I didn't let that stop me. I get to start Advanced 139 today. I'm starting five - 12 hour days of intense reframing and I'm going in with an open heart and full of expectation. I'm excited to see the ways it'll stretch who I am into who I am meant to be. I get to make deeper connections with the world around me and I have the support of friends and strangers alike. I get to be the mother and leader I want my sons to have and this course will absolutely get me in position for this state of transition I feel is coming.
I get to do epic things and it starts in less than an hour!!!!