Marriage and a Crossroads

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I met Lisa in late 1994 while participating in a Landmark course.  We flirted through most of the course and then finally, she asked me out.  If you want to know, really know, generosity, you must meet my wife.  Here’s a woman who while in relationship with me, helped me deal with the loss of my relationship with Colette.  It was like life brought me an angel – someone who’d be there for me, someone who’d bear witness to my life.  In many ways, Lisa has been like a cocoon that has held me tight and allowed me to grow.  She watched my struggle over the last decade to understand, to learn and through it all she loved me.  Not sure yet if I’m a butterfly, but it doesn’t really matter.  What matters is that I’ve had a true partner to walk with me.  Lisa and I were married in 1998.  It was the most magical day.

During this time from 1995 through 1998, I graduated law school, got my first legal job, lost my first legal job, started my own consulting business, closed my own consulting business, and went back into law as an attorney for the New York State Insurance Fund.  During this whole time, I was training with LEC, and finding every opportunity I could to transition into the field of transformation.  In fact, in my mind, that’s what makes my break with LEC so totally outrageous and yet courageous in some way.  Logic said that participating with LEC and eventually working for them was my best bet into the field of transformation.  I was an engineer turned lawyer who at the age of 25, now wanted to be a coach/consultant in the field of transformation.  It’s like I laid all of the track for a train heading in one direction, the only alternative route really to where I wanted to go was the LEC train and I did the most illogical thing – I got off the train!

One thing I began to be aware of were two distinct experiences I was having in my life.  I noticed that there were times that I was totally alive, full of possibility for my life, and in action.  And not just in action, but in action naturally, without force or manipulation.  I wish I could say that was the dominant experience but it wasn’t.  The dominant experience of my life was frustrated, not in action, stopped and depressed.  This one simple awareness began to more sophisticatedly frame the question of my life as I moved forward.  The question simply stated was, “What is the source of natural action in life?”  So I wasn’t really saying “no” to Landmark as much as I was saying “yes” to this new question, and I simply no longer believed that Landmark was equipped to help me answer this question.

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