NewDayNews Recovery Forum

est part 7: Getting it

Posted By: Joseph <Send E-Mail>
Date: Wednesday, 17 May 2006, at 10:21 p.m.

I went to work on Monday morning. I was working at a company called Paradice Decorating, which was a service contractor for trade shows and conventions.

I didn’t really have a place at Paradice. I just came in and did whatever job I was told. Sometimes it involved unloading trucks that had come back from the shows, and putting things away. Sometimes I cleaned carpet. Sometimes I folded backwall drapes and table skirts. Sometimes I was sent out to help set up events. It was day to day work, and my Father was the General Foreman.

Paradice had a sign shop where a new guy named Ray worked and printed signs. It looked to me like a pretty good job. At least it required the ability to spell, and looked like a nice break from the other mindless work I had been doing.

I was taking my morning break when Ray approached me and asked totally innocently what I had done over the weekend.

I told him I had done this thing called est. He asked me what it was. I told him I wasn’t really sure, but it was really interesting and involved a lot of looking at your life and taking responsibility for things that happened to you.

Then this woman named Judy, who worked one day a week doing payroll for Paradice walked over. She said, “Are you talking about est?” I told her I was. She told me that she was an est graduate.

Ray and Judy and I sat around during break and talked about est. Judy said to Ray that he should come with me to my post training. Ray said that he might be interested.

After work, I called Barbara, and she informed me that I might find myself in some really confusing space between the weekends, but I should just go with it. She asked me what I thought about the danger process. I told her that I thought it was pretty intense, and asked how one got to be one of those people who stare into your face.

She told me those were the “Presenters”, and that they had to do some special training, and that it took a big commitment to work in the space of the training, and that only certain people were selected to do that. If I wanted to assist at est, I should first complete the training, then go down to the est center and tell them that I wanted to assist. She said that I would be expected to make an agreement with Werner that I would receive more value from assisting than I would put into it.

I asked he if she was still going to be able to be at my Graduation and she said she would see me there. Only est graduates were allowed to attend a graduation, and I didn’t know very many of them at this point, so I was glad Barbara was going to be there.

I don’t remember a lot about that week, except that Ray had a lot of questions and seemed sincerely interested in what I was learning. I only saw Judy the one day, and I was so shocked when I learned she was a graduate, I didn’t even think to invite her to my graduation.

Meanwhile, back at Roadshow Players, my friends there were mildly curious about what I had done. Most were skeptical. I contacted Bobby, but he didn’t seem to want to talk about it very much, and didn’t really answer when I asked him if he’d like to come to the graduation. Newport Beach was a long way from home, so I figured he didn’t want to make the drive on a Sunday night.

On Wednesday night we had a Mid-Training. I was speeding on the 210 Freeway, and got pulled over. When the police officer asked if I was speeding, I said “Yes”. When he asked why, I said, “I have no excuse”. He wrote my my first ever ticket. I wondered if I had not been in the middle of est, if I would have made up something, and if I could have talked my way out of the ticket. I thought to myself, that I was speeding, and I was responsible for what I did, and now I had to pay the price, which probably meant spending 8 hours in traffic school, which now sounded like nothing compared to a 15 hour day at est.

At the mid-training, the trainer was not present. We had a seminar leader who talked about how strange it is to be between weekends. People got up and shared miracles they had experienced, and talked about “being dangerous”, which was our assignment from Lon following the Danger Process.

We did a process where we were to imagine that we were filling with liquid, and with our arms hanging down at our sides, our fingers became like faucets, and the liquid, which represented stress was draining from our bodies. I imagined that each finger had a different color liquid coming out of it.

After that, I finished my week up in kind of a daze, and on Saturday morning headed back to the training. I was actually looking forward to it, and seeing what Lon had to say.

When we were seated, there was a surprise. A stranger came up to the platform and announced:

“I AM RANDY MCNAMARA. I AM YOUR TRAINER!”.

We gasped. This was not Lon. Lon was like a beautiful, tanned male model. This man was middle aged and balding. He had a New York attitude about him. While Lon looked like a poster by for the master race, Randy looked like the Commandant of a Nazi concentration camp. He even had the jagged scar along his right cheek.

I wondered what the hell this was? Suck us in the first weekend with nice, comfortable Lon, and then give us this cranky old bastard for the second weekend?

Randy: Lon is not here. Lon is on a beach relaxing and not thinking about you. The sooner you get that Lon is not here, the sooner we can continue with this training! YES?

Trainee: Why didn’t Lon tell us he wouldn’t be doing the second weekend?

Randy: Because this training is not about Lon! Lon does not care about you and your bullshit stories. Lon is not coming back. Get off it about Lon.

Where Lon seemed to have a natural smile, Randy had none. When Lon said we were assholes, he somehow oozed charm while doing it. Randy had no such charm. He seemed unfriendly and a bit frightening.

I would later learn that Randy was one of the first people Werner ever trained to be a trainer. He had been doing it longer than anyone other than Werner. He was a highly respected person in est circles.

Randy: Listen up creeps! You are still all assholes. ASSHOLES! This will not change until you get it. Some of you will not get it, and you will continue to be assholes.

I began to feel like if one more person called me an asshole I would stab them in the neck with my keys. Then Randy said:

Randy: Relax, your Mother knows you’re and asshole.

I thought about that for a minute, and it struck me that he was right. I imagined myself going up to my Mother and asking her the question, “Mom, am I an asshole?”. I could see my Mom smiling at me and saying, “Well, honey, of course you’re an asshole. You’ve always been an asshole”.

I guess that came from having recently moved away from home, and coming to the hard realization that all I had ever done was taken from my parents, and never really appreciating it. Now that I had my own place, it was becoming obvious to me how many things they always did for me. So, of course I was an asshole.

Werner said, “Obviously, the truth is what’s so. Not so obviously, it’s also so what?”.

Randy explained that we were all machines, and that like machines we could get “plugged in”. The nature of all upsets didn’t have to do with what was going on currently, it had to do with being reminded of the past. People who live in the moment have no idea what is going to happen next, so they experience the present without fear and upset. Fear and upset comes from worrying that things are going to turn out like they did before. We have an actual “stack” of bad experiences that run our lives, and when we break down we are having a “stack attack”.

After delivering a lot of data, Randy would stop once in a while and remind us of what Lon had told us at the begining:

Randy: You are going to get nothing out of this training. Nothing. Zero. No-Thing. Space.

Then he would launch into more data on the anatomy of an upset, the nature of the mind. The third day was filled with all kinds of data flat out didn’t understand and thought was boring or silly.

At some point, that night, Randy began to tell us a little about himself. Apparently he got the big scar on his face when he walked into an airplane propeller.

Randy: WHEN THAT AIRPLAN PROPELLER HIT ME I DIED!!!!

Everyone gasped.

Randy: What you see in front of you is a walking dead man. I died. I shut down. But through the technology of this training, I got my life. I was able to relax my arm and stand like a normal human being that you see today.

Randy: And YOU are going to die in this training. More accurately, who you think you are is going to die, and who you really are is going to become available. You assholes will learn who you are in this room, this weekend.

In the wee hours of the morning, the third day of the training ended. I followed the nice Oriental woman home, and slept that night in her guest room.

The next and final morning, we returned. I didn’t feel any closer to getting it than when I started. I had looked at my ass in a mirror, and I actually had two bruises where the bones had pushed against the chair for hours on end. I was sick of it, and ready to get it and go home.

Most of the 4th and final day was spent on something called “The Anatomy of the Mind”. Randy talked on and on and used a chalk board to draw pictures and graphs about how the mind works.

Randy drew the stacks of problems and explained that everything we do is a reaction, but not a reaction to what is happening now, it’s a reaction to something that happened before. The stacks go back all the way to birth trauma.

Randy: So, what you are is a machine! A MACHINE! Automatic....Programmed....Response! A Machine.

Then Randy did something bizarre. He started to almost do the robot dance going “chug, chug, chug, chug”. He kept doing this for a long time, long after it seemed funny or entertaining. It became creepy.

Then he yelled out:

Randy: THIS IS IT! THERE’S NOTHING TO GET! YOU ARE MACHINES! THAT’S IT!

We all just sat there and looked at Randy.

Randy: Get it assholes! There’s nothing to get! You’ve been HAD!

A few people began to gasp, some others giggled.

Randy: This is it! This is it! There’s NOTHING to get! You stupid fucks thought that we were going to reveal something here? No fuckin’ way. We’ve got your $350, and you’ve been fucked!

Then he started to blow raspberries at us. He walked stage left and blew one, sticking out his ass as he did it. Then he walked center and did it again. Then he walked stage right and blew another big one.

Someone raised their hand. Randy called on him.

Trainee: I don’t get it!

Randy: Good! There’s nothing to get! You got it. Sit down!

I sat there thinking that this must be another in a long line of stupid processes in the training. But, then it struck me. Barbara, Bobby, Judy at work..... they had pulled one over on me. I sat in a ballroom for sixty hours, and paid $300 for nothing. I started to laugh. And then I had this odd experience that I only had on a certain three letter drug, and when I became a Christian. It was like I felt lighter than air. I was elated, and I didn’t have any idea why.

Randy: It’s just tough shit, isn’t it? Rocks are hard, and water’s wet! What is, is, and what isn’t isn’t. That’s the meaning of life. All your bullshit theories and stories are just what’s so. This is all there is. This is it.

Randy: Life is simply a succession of moments of now (He snapped his fingers), and now, and now, and now.

We all just looked at each other in disbelief. Some people still didn’t get it, and Randy kept explaining it to them until they got it. This went on probably for another hour.

At the same time, I wanted to strangle Barbara, but I also wanted to make all of my friends do this. It just seemed hysterical to me. I could not believe I was ever so stupid as to sit there for sixty hours to be told that “this is it”. I remembered Lon from day one telling us that we would get nothing from the training. I thought that was just a threat! Son of a bitch!

Randy: Listen up! Now I’m going to tell you who you are. Who you are is the chooser. You are that which makes the choices in your life. The nature of enlightenment is that you get it, and you lose it. You get it, and you lose it. When you’ve lost it, and you will, I want you to remember my voice through the fog. (Randy cupped his hands over his wireless mike) YOU FORGOT TO CHOOSE!

Randy: You are God in your own universe. Everything in your life you put there. An asshole doesn’t know that, and lives their life at effect. You have the ability now, at any time, under any circumstances, to transform the quality of your life. How you do that is by choosing. When you take responsibility for your own life, by choosing it, you are at cause. You control every situation. You create being fired? Great! Create another job! It’s all an opportunity.

Randy: Now I’m gong to tell you about love. (We all sat up in our seats). To love someone is to allow them to be exactly the way they are, and exactly the way they are not.

I stopped to think about that. I believed I had been in love with Barbara. But, if this were true, then why was I always trying to change her and make her wrong? I thought about Barbara, and nothing about her was okay with me. That she lived in San Luis Obispo with Bruce was not okay. Under this definition I could not possibly be in love with Barbara. Then, I began to think of people I knew. Was there any female I knew that was just okay with me?

Then someone came into my mind, that I knew had to be some kind of mistake. It was Jane. At this time, Jane was a friend of mine. I would go over to her place every once in a while and just hang out and talk. On occasion we had gone to have a meal together, but it had always been strictly plutonic. Jane was older than me, probably a member of a religious cult, and was the single mother of two small children. I had never imagined myself in a relationship with Jane. But, that’s who popped into my mind.

Randy announced that it was now time for our graduation. In came a crowd of applauding graduates with balloons. Most of the room was crying. I looked around to see Barbara. She was short, so I figured she must be covered up in the crowd, but I was certain she was there someplace.

Randy told us that our graduate friends were going to help him tell us everything we would ever need to know about sex. All at once the graduates yelled out “WHEN YOU’RE HOT, YOU’RE HOT, AND WHEN YOU’RE NOT, YOU’RE NOT!”.

I guess that is some kind of est right of passage. Soon Randy declared the training complete and released us to meet our friends who had come to our graduation.

I walked around the room with a big smile on my face for about twenty minutes looking for Barbara, but she wasn’t there.

I told myself that I created that, and I wasn’t disappointed. But, I was. She promised to be there, and broke her word. I tried not to be upset about it as I drove myself alone back to the valley.