Since I finally had dental insurance, I decided to find a dentist in Austin. A few weeks ago I had an initial exam and I had to come in today for a filling. I had a previous filling on one tooth and somehow decay had snuck in under the filling, somewhere below the gum line. My new dentist said the old filling needed to be removed so that he could start from scratch, cleaning out the decay and putting in a filling with a better seal.

This involved slicing my gums open, peeling the flesh back, doing the filling and then stitching everything back together. I was then instructed not to speak for about 48 hours or to chew anything for the next few days.

I had the Landmark Forum in Action seminar to go to later as well as a date tomorrow night. The old me might have thought that I had a reasonable excuse to back out of these commitments. The new me found it an interesting challenge to communicate with everyone by writing on a notepad.

The actual mechanics of the Forum aren’t all that important. What is important to me is the impact on my life.

I went into it afraid and distrusting of men. I was never going to let a man get too close to me as they were inherently dishonest and possibly violent. That’s gone. Most of my friends in Austin are male. I have no qualms about approaching strangers and engaging with them about anything.

I went in to the Forum convinced that I was broken, deep down. I believed that I was ugly, unattractive, grossly incompetent, and talentless. I thought I had everyone fooled, but it was only a matter of time before I was found out. So I reigned in my creativity and my participation in the lives of others. No need to get their hopes up or to accelerate things so that I would fail them sooner rather than later. I apologized for my talents, I downplayed everything I ever made, and I sabotaged relationships to avoid anyone finding out these dark secrets.

Of course, these dark secrets were all made up. They were things I told myself  as a way of coming to terms with events in my childhood and later life. They became my reality and I never thought to examine them as anything but.

Now I know that I am wildly creative, extremely smart, quite attractive, and worthy of loving and being loved.

Personal growth is neat and all, but the real value is the impact one can have in the lives of others and the world in general.

I had pretty much written off my family. I felt like I had failed them as a son and a brother and I was embarrassed by how little connection I had in their lives. So I told myself that they were bound up in their own problems and that they resented me for having an easier life, so I just go on and live it without them. That was easier than trying to make a difference.

But I realized that I made up all those things about me and them too. That wasn’t reality. It was an invention to explain why I was doing what I was doing. So I created the possibility of a closer reconnection with my family by calling them up and having a genuine conversation. Some of you are really close to your family and this doesn’t seem like a big deal. I haven’t seen my family in years. I hadn’t spoken with my sister in many years. I hadn’t had a real conversation with her since I was in college. I thought she hated me and I was afraid to ever create an opportunity to confirm it.

My sister is one of the strongest women I know. She has faced more medical problems than a lot of entire families combined. She (and my mom and nieces) deals with scenarios that some of you will only see on COPS or the evening news. She struggles to raise three children. She somehow finished college and got her degree during all of this. Where I would have given up and bailed or just shot myself in the head, she has forged on. When my life seems overwhelming and impossible, I can look to her and know that it *is* possible.

I probably would never had tried to begin to re-establish connections or tell my sister who she is to me without going through the Forum.

And this is only a start. The real work lies ahead.