And I reiterate... I am here to learn *marketing* for a book I am writing. But last night I had a *psychological* breakthrough. If it happened spontaneously, I would have called it a "breakdown". But it was triggered by a workshop in the evening by a speaker and former member of this same program. Actually, the final push that made me sign up for this program was a video of her speaking in front of a group about how she and her husband had to use their emergency credit card to pay for this same program.
I usually avoid mentioning names to somewhat anonymize myself and the people involved, but in this case, I owe a lot to these people; therefore, I feel I owe them this mention:
Maybe because I was tired and short on sleep and I had a slight headache all day, so I was more emotionally prone anyway. But when Wendy had us write down our ultimate desires, I started getting teary-eyed. I went deep quickly to my ultimate desires and as she continued to prod us go layers beyond, I knew what I had written down was already layers beyond, because they were self-fulfillment desires, not material ones.
Then she asked us to rate those desires on a scale of 1 to 10 based on how badly we wanted those desires. And she talked to people who didn't have a 10 to see what was blocking them, and for most, it was their families. They were worried about how it would affect their families and their primary relationships.
Liana, an Australian lady who flew all the way here in spite of a flood and her car being smashed, was sitting next to me. I met her in the morning of the first day because we both got lost while looking for the conference room. And when Steve Harrison said that we should pick a buddy to be accountable to for what we choose to do, it was easy enough for us to choose each other, almost by default.
When she got the microphone, it took her a while to compose herself before she talked. And I reached over to rub her shoulder blades and kept my arm over the back of her chair as a symbolic hug. Then she started talking about her current relationship and it was a specific phrase she said. Something about him being in "a smaller world" and meanwhile her own world is expanding because of this venture. And that reminded me of Jon. And from that moment, I couldn't stop the tears but I felt it would be disrespectful for the speaker for me to leave. At this point, Liana had her hand on my back because she saw me crying and I had to ask for the napkin under her coffee cup to wipe my tears.
I was relieved when Wendy announced that she would not be taking a break so we were free to take one if we felt we needed it, and I rushed to the bathroom. Cheryle, another member of the class was also in the bathroom and she asked if I was okay. I shrugged and said that it was just that issues were coming up because of this exercise. I was crying while using the bathroom. After I washed my hands, Cheryle offered to get Hal for me. He was seated in the back because he had a supporting role in this presentation; his background is in psychology. In fact, Wendy joked that we could "abuse" Hal.
I stayed outside the conference room while Cheryle fetched Hal because I felt too embarrassed about going back in the room losing control of my emotions. At this point, I was sobbing and I couldn't help it.
Hal and I talked and I talked about the guilt I felt when I had to let Jon go because he was bringing both of us down and I had my dreams. What other people in the room were worried about and the decisions they were making, I had already gone through twelve years ago. And I had been carrying the guilt of that decision since.
I mentioned the fact that I realized that it wasn't losing Jon that I regretted the most after the divorce, but the loss of my dreams that included him. Then I realized that the upcoming hysterectomy could have also been a trigger, because having children was one of those dreams I lost and now it will be a permanent loss.
There were other things that just kept pouring out and I realized I had so many issues and the exercise Wendy was walking us through was bringing this out. Long story short, Hal got me to a point where I stopped crying and he told me to find a good therapist when I get home.
Wendy gave the class a break anyway and people were pouring out, so when Hal and I got back in, he realized that I was sitting next to Liana. He thought we had known each other before. I said I just met her yesterday when we both got lost. I said it was ironic that it would be her story that would trigger my own issues. He smiled. I got the sense that he believes in synchronicity too, or at least that we both had the same energy which pulled us together. And he thought that it might be a good idea to tell her my story because she might be of help.
It was difficult for me to focus again. I had missed the middle part of the exercise but it was a part I was confident about anyway. Then the third part was to come up with a new phrase that a 6-year-old would say. (I'm skipping a lot of details in the exercise due to copyrights.) I showed mine to Wendy because I couldn't come up with simpler words. She asked me what the long word meant to me and my answer caused her to call out, "Hal...!" I groaned. Not again!
Hal was talking with someone else so I waited a while. When it was my turn, I showed him my phrase and he invited me outside again. I joked that I'm afraid he'd send me a bill for seeing him twice already in one evening. He laughed and said tonight was entirely free of charge. We worked through it and I was giggling and crying at the same time. I said I just wanted to get through this exercise. And we found me a phrase, based on something he had just said in the room.
This is what he said: Feelings tell us two things -- either there's something to be enjoyed or a problem to be solved. If we ignore our feelings, we lose the enjoyment or we ignore the problem.
We decided that I would aim to be aware of my feelings. I know that it's just a key and there's a whole slew of stuff beyond that. But it's a start.
I understand why this exercise is in the program. The marketing tasks we are learning to do are easy. But we subconsciously jeopardize ourselves because of psychological stuff. To include this exercise in the program is pure genius.
Btw, I told my story to Liana over turkey sandwiches before going back to our rooms. I learned that she had a very similar experience with her first partner, and her current partner had a very similar experience with his ex-wife. Hal was right... same energy.
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