When I was driving my son back to college last Sunday, we had a long talk. He's having trouble figuring out how to proceed. He just turned 20, and is finishing fall semester of his junior year.
Some of the things he tried to express sounded so much like myself. I tried to say things to help him out, but I've said them all before. At one point he said "I've heard all this before," not in a mean way, more like in a desperate way, like what I had told him wasn't helping.
So I was thinking about trying to help him, and the whole subject of leaving the baggage of your youth — and the ball of angst your parents leave you with — behind you, moving on, realizing that it's up to you what happens in your life, that if you try to please your parents on top of trying to figure out your own path, you can never do it. Too many constraints. An over-constrained system.
And as I turned all this over in my mind last night (well, the early hours of this morning really) a memory of something I read about Erhard and est training came to me. And I was wondering if there was anything there that might help him.
Then it occurred to me that the people here at FR are so widely experienced, and so articulate and thoughtful, that this might be a good place to ask the question.
There’s a lot of Tony Robbins stuff out there that probably is now seen as dated but might be helpful. Problem I have with Tony Robbins though is to me a lot of his motivation stuff is negative. Like if you want to achieve something, visualize the negative consequences if you do not. And some of it I just found weird. Or maybe I was just not paying very good attention at the time.
Something in your post (”ball of angst”) reminded me of this book; I’ve only read a couple of chapters so far, but it seems very interesting to me:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004T4MI8A/ref=oh_aui_d_detailpage_o00_?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Landmark acquired the rights to the est training, revamped it and stripped out the sketchier elements, and now offers it as the Landmark Forum, which I took in 1994. The next few years I attended other Landmark courses, and I found value in all of them. If you or your son is interested their website has more information, and there are events where you can go to learn more in person.
Although my favorite book of his is "Hand Me Another Brick" but that one might be better for later.
Both of them are very good books on learning to deal with life. Both are Christian based. Not sure if that is a plus or minus for you.
I did something called Actualizations in the late 70’s when I lived in NYC. It was a cousin of est. I learned to see life in a different way that was very helpful at the time. I was in my mid-20’s.
Some of what I learned was similar to est..being responsible for me, making concious choices. A couple of things stood out that I’ve used a good deal. “Make real through action”. The other was a simple and by now well-known exercise of getting to do something rather than having to do it. We were to think of a boring or tedious task we had to do daily, then say to our partner “I HAVE to (I chose kitty litter) empty the kitty litter every day”. After repeating it aloud (with appropriate emotion!) we then said “I GET to empty the kitty litter every day”.
This seems a silly and insignificant little mind game, but it opened my eyes to the mental habits I’d developed and the dreary way I viewed many things.
Smoke and mirrors? Perhaps. But it was the start of my growing up inside.
When my son reached the stage that it sounds like your’s is in I remembered something else I learned. I stopped telling (preaching!)and started asking him questions...about anything, everything. It was quite useful. He began having to think his own thoughts, ideas instead of reacting to mine:)
Steely, just keep the open talking (interspersed with plenty of silence, too, of course) with your son about what you have figured out from life. They listen. A parent’s words are like water on a rock. Appears to do NOTHING but over time actually shapes the rock.
has heard from you that the Marines are looking for a few good men ?