I know the word sharing gets thrown around in these emails quite a bit. Sometimes we become numb to the word. To get back to basics, sharing means giving something of ourselves.

It can be sharing with someone we’re not used to sharing with. It can be opening up with someone we’re not used to opening up to. It can be calling someone with whom we’re holding a grudge and wishing them well and saying something nice, some words of wisdom. It can be anything. It just has to be an unconditional stretch.

As a certified est-hole and Landmark junkie, I have heard the urging “Share, share share.”

In Landmark they mean “Bring more chumps like you so that Landmark can become a World Class Organization, here to stay.” They mean: do our selling for us. Maybe they don’t, but that is how it lands for people.

In multilevel marketing companies (network marketing, MLM) they say the same thing, but mean, definitely, selling.

Now, I didn’t stay in Landmark for 20 years because it didn’t work for me. It did. And when I look back, the part that worked best was sharing.

After I did the first Landmark course, back in 1985, (it was called Werner Erhard and Associates then, WE&A for short) I was stunned at the new way people related to me. I used to be very unpopular, and that changed then, temporarily. I was loving it. I enjoyed people’s attention, interest, I enjoyed that they wanted to know what happened to me, or what I was thinking.

Previously I would push it to them. My thoughts, my opinions, you know the usual know-it-all stuff.

So I was more than happy to tell people about my experiences, and they would flock to Landmark. (WE&A)

By 1987 it wasn’t that comfortable for me to talk about myself, I was starting to see some pretty bad stuff about myself, and talking about myself meant being willing to get “naked” and being willing to change. That was both frightening and exhilarating.

I talked and changed, and talked and changed. I have (mostly) changed my condescending ways, I have (mostly) changed expecting people to take me beating up on them in good humor. I have changed a lot, and the technology I used is very similar to Kabbalah: I was sharing MYSELF, the good, the bad, and the ugly, with a commitment to become the best I can be.

I cried a lot. I turned people off a lot. I gave a lot and received, from the same people, or people in general, very little. But I got a lot of light. From the 99%, for my efforts.

In the 20 years I worked off almost half of my negativity. That is a lot, if you are wondering.

Every time you share yourself in a way that forces you to look at your dark side, your world becomes a little brighter. Your heart becomes a little lighter.

Then there were the relapses. Like a week or so ago.

I was in a seminar, online, and I publicly humiliated two other participants, by publicly telling my observations about them. My observations weren’t flattering. They were harsh, and condescending. I, according to Kabbalah, was shedding blood, like a murderer.

I needed to take a deep look into myself, with the help of Diana, my friend, and found that the behavior comes from an entitlement.

As a child I was abused. I decided that therefore I am entitled to abuse others, the way I was abused. The decision of a 4-year old. Self centered, uncaring, and plain wrong. (see another of my posts about this)

That relapse is now giving me a chance to transform that behavior and that thinking. The amount of light that has already come out of that incident is amazing. Finally, after 7 failed businesses in the past six months, it seems that he 8th is going in the right direction, I have made some sales… amazing.

The only thing I need to do to continue is find some other dark spots in my universe that need the light of day… (sharing) so that I can draw more light.

I have found, by the way, the next one. As tough and as painful as the previous one.

It’s about “fake” generosity… I’ll talk about it in another post… this one is getting too long.

I spent 20 years in Landmark.

The most important thing I learned there was that all the power for you lies in the part of reality that you don’t know that you don’t know.

They demonstrate the proportions with a pie chart: the whole pie is all that could be known. A thin slice is what you know. Another thin slice is what you don’t know and you know that you don’t know. For example I know I don’t know how to fly. These things you can learn if you have the time, money, etc. But what about the rest of the pie? That is the 99% of reality. The part that you don’t know that you don’t know. The part I considered non-existent until Landmark. The part is that is like water for the fish.

Imagine a fish swimming around happily in an aquarium. Do you think the fish knows it swims in water? Don’t guess, it doesn’t. That is the only environment it knows, and it is invisible for him.

Now, imagine the fish jumping out of the water, flying in the air looking down at the water, gasping: “Oh my Gosh, water!” Just before it plops back into the water.

In that split “Kaizen second” he suddenly gained access to the DKDK (don’t know that don’t know) paradigm.

Very easy to notice and promptly forget. Or explain away. Like my last boyfriend’s alcohol breath at 11 am at our first date.

But when it jolts you out of your normal sleeping mode, it is invaluable. That is why I stayed in Landmark for 20 years.

One of these moments were when, at age 40, after complaining all my life that my mother didn’t love me, I managed, for a split “Kaizen second” see, what it must have been like for her to have a child whose attitude was “My mother never loved me.” For a split Kaizen second I saw it, and I could never complain about her again. I couldn’t. Because I suddenly had no idea what she would have been like, had I complained about her loving me too much. Or, G-d forbid, hadn’t complained about anything.

That Kaizen second was my first foray into the 99%.

For many it is the “Necker Cube Demonstration.” (see illustration)

The power of those seconds to alter past, present, and future is the “Real Power”.

The power to become well, wealthy, fulfilled, connected, significant, exuberant, and to making a difference. Even to becoming thin, or having a clean house, or having a wrinkle free face at age 61.

Once you “really” know about that whole big paradigm, the 99%, you arrive to the state of certainty. And you will appreciate the Kaizen seconds, you will even become diligent at generating them, instead of waiting for them to pop up.

Just watch the movie: Back to the Future, and you see the character played by Michael J. Fox physically did stuff and that changed the future that he traveled back to. It changed the people, their income level, their behavior, their social status.

But what if our limited thinking is not the only way to look at this phenomenon?

Let me tell you something that I had first hand experience with.

Some 20 years ago, in a Landmark Seminar, the Leadership Seminar, (for those of you that care,) we needed to do a group project to practice leadership.

My group decided to create a self help group, somewhat based on the 12-step principles of non-coaching.

The name of the group was “Playground: It is never too late to have a happy childhood.”

We had 12 topics, ranging from money to sex, and we cycled through them, one topic per week.

All we did is retold our life from the particular perspective of the week, but made sure we separated fact from fiction: i.e. what happened and what we said it meant.

The group ran for two years in living rooms of the participants, and we all experienced major results that were totally unpredictable. Weight loss of a hundred pounds, regaining one’s potency as a man, creating loving, mutually supportive relationships, a loser of a realtor suddenly making a lot of cash, and for me, creating a business that was both profitable and enjoyable.

What happened in those Monday night sessions is time travel. We managed to go back and change the past. NOT what actually happened, but its significance, its meaning, its “bearing” on the future.

I must have given up being a martyr on the cross, because finally I was able to have it all without any suffering.

I wish I could form a group like this today to help me reevaluate some of my past, so that I can increase my sense of my own value and increase my ability to accept abundance in my life.

Anyone interested in teaming up with me? We could do it on the phone!

Please write in the comment section of this article if you are. I can’t wait!