est Training was the hip thing to do to find enlightenment and lead a better life. It was all about "getting it" and dealing with your own stuff without playing the victim. Instead of complaining about the traffic jam, or fighting the traffic jam, or being the victim of a traffic jam, the trick was to "make space" for the traffic jam and let it just be a traffic jam and avoid it. Then you could go a step further, and take responsibility for that traffic jam and fix it. My parents took the est training, and then signed my sister and I up for the children's training, which was a special new est training for children. The multi-day training was held in a large hotel ballroom, which was in San Jose or Palo Alto. It must have been about 1977, and the sessions were all professionally video-taped as it was one of the first (I distinctly remember cameras on tripods).
We learned how to get rid of a headache by asking questions about the headache, alternated an occasional "do you still have a headache" in there. Questions like, "if it could hold water, how much water could it hold?", "what color is it?, "what shape is it?", "Is it getting smaller", "Is it moving?", and the kicker, "Do you still have a headache?" which was repeated until you finally caved and said you didn't have a headache anymore -- this made for years of fun when anyone in our family complained about having a headache after that.
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| Vancouver Sun, 12 Jul 1980 |
There were some role-reversal songs, where the girls all sang a song about being a big tough cowboy, and the boys all sang a song about having pretty little fingers and ten little toes.
Girls sang,
Hey there broken nose, play me a tune on that there pian'y.
My name isn't broken nose.
Pow! Now it is!
Boys sang,
I've got ten little fingers, ten little toes, big brown eyes, and a turned up nose. Long wavy hair, and a cute little figure, but stay away boys 'til I get bigger!
I'm pretty sure none of the kids really wanted to be there, and the trainers definitely had to overcome that with a lighter version of the hard-core est of lore. I remember them asking if anyone wanted to leave, and at least one little boy raised his hand and was escorted out -- the rest of us shut up after that.
I suppose the children's training was supposed to get us to take more responsibility for our own lives, and not play the victim. I don't remember anything in particular about that sort of messaging, and I'm pretty sure that I wasn't "Getting It" while doing the training. However! I am fairly enlightened, so perhaps some if it did sink in somehow in an unconscious manner?
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| Anderson Herald, 16 Jan 1977 |
I am surprised to find that the est training has survived the 1970s, and is still alive and well renamed as Landmark Forum.
