I took the basic in 2004. I had my protective armor on for most of the weekend as I have understanding of other like natured programs, like Landmark Education(Est from the 70's) of this sort where the focus is the bottom line, selling the next seminar. The facilitator for my Basic weekend was incredibly egotistical and full of himself, bully natured. What I discovered in that weekend, had less to to with the facilitator and more to do with each step of, the unfoldment process. It was an opportunity to have a good look at my self. My beliefs and my limits, made by my society, peer groups and family of origin and ultimately by myself holding on to those limits to stay safe or familiar. I realized, facilitator or not, I wanted something from that organization that I would never get in the world as I knew. My dreams, goals, aspirations and the ability to connect in with other individuals who to were wanting and working for their own self realizations. In the end of the basic, I paid for the whole kit, all the seminars and went on to do just about everything before I hit my own snag.
Within this corporation, that makes its money on your strongest desires to become your own self realization, is a lot of sales, sales and more sales, with the subtle message that you are not being your best person or the person you are ment to be without...the next class, without enrolling others. Enroll, enroll, enroll is the bottom line mantra. you are the machine for this company grinding out their sales so that you will feel your best that you are ...and so on and so on! Organizations of this kind, utilize that deeply seated doubt each one of us has that we are ...not enough unless we do this one thing...and so it goes. It also is a kind of adrenaline.
This program has great goals but falls short of remembering the biggest picture of all, the single individual taking the program You and Me and its other parts. I started meeting everyone as a salesperson. In SD I had confided some deeply personal things regarding my family of origin and how I had at that time viewed myself and my marriage to the head of the SD, PSI. She utilized that information to sell me her own program that she said was similar to, The Hoffman Process. The Hoffman process was not on my radar until she mentioned that she could do the same for me as the Hoffman Process. I researched the Hoffman process following her solicitation of using her program. I opted to take the real deal, Hoffman Process and I enrolled in the Leadership Path. It was my best piece of personal work to this date. The emphasis is always to help each individual person to discover within themselves the power of changing dynamics and how belonging is a vital part of being HUM
Had I not been in PSI and on the path of evolving my own path and life, I never would have found the Hoffman Institute. The integrity and care The Hoffman Institute puts to its work and respect it gives to each person participating in his or her own process is incredible. At the Hoffman Process, you the individual are the bottom line. There are no sales people in your class, no one is connecting with you for his/her own monetary purpose. The food served is top of the line, from a local fine restaurant where the owners themselves are hoffman grads.
This is what I got from PSI that I really value even today!
1. I am responsible for who I am today, I have a right to discover within myself the patterns that keep me from living a more authentic life.
2. Participation in any group activity will empower me to be the best and to learn and grow. Of course choice activity could be negative so I chose who I am in company with almost always value the ability of others to share themselves.
3. Every organization has some bottom line goal. There is alway a price tag at the end of anything and this includes personal growth groups. PSI is all about personal Growth. ( I participated in a lot of various personal growth groups, Byron Katie...even her groups bottom line is the $. Go to any of her free seminars and you will be bombarded with a slew of CDs, Books etc. all influencing your consumer mind that you need more and will not be enough without that one...book, cd, seminar.)
4. I always check in with myself and my own motives for attending anything, I ask myself what interests me, what draws me in, I ask will this serve me long term?
My PSI training and volunteering has helped me tremendously. I would not trade my time with them. I take that with me. What I do not like and what even today gets under my skin is the high dollar amount for each of their seminars, the deepening message drilled into the personal seminars. There are a great deal of individuals participating in the PSI seminars that would benefit more from just doing the basic and taking that extra money required for the other seminars and putting into themselves, savings, down payment on a home, college tuition... read more