Pushkin

In September 1976, a month before her 34th birthday, Jean found the thing she was sure would save her.

It was called Life Spring, and Jean's parents, Colorado Baptists, did not approve.

Life Spring was part of the human potential movement, a four-profit self-improvement group like Landmark or AST,

the promise to help its followers attain the heights of happiness and success.

Jean signed up for a five-day basic training course. There would be lectures and guided meditations, and she hoped to come away with clarity.

Fred was on a long haul in Hawaii, overseeing a bunch of knuckleheads trying to dig a trench on the ocean floor. His marriage to Jean was at an all-time low.

She told her friend Barbara Warner that she'd already broken things off with Dick. It was just too destabilizing, given how volatile things were with Fred.

She said, with the thought she'd possibly be trying for them, he had more than a spare. And she thought, possibly, could the canceled her own health deteriorate?

Better pull out of that, because he was having a little fright. And they decided to end it with what they did do.

Jean filled out her life-spring forms in big, loopy handwriting. Her main goal was to decide, quote, whether or not to dissolve my marriage of seven years, unquote.

She was also hoping to disentangle herself emotionally from Dick. She noted that the affair had been going on for three years, but that she'd stopped the physical part of the relationship three months earlier.

And one more thing, the affair was not the reason she was doubting her marriage. Life-spring encouraged people to tune into exactly what they wanted to rest back control of their lives and experiences.

Through meditation and insight training, they would realize they weren't lost. They already had the answers. The answers were inside them.

The first step is to create a vision. A vision brings the future to life and provides a structure for laying new track.

Declaring your vision is an act of freedom which releases you from the past.

Jean was hoping that life-spring would be transformational. And it was. So much so that, soon after completing the basic course, she signed up to do the advanced.

The clarity she'd been after, she'd found it. She was dialed in on the life she wanted.

How would your relationships be different if you lived your life based on your own heartfelt vision?

Forget what she'd said about moving on from Dick. She'd meditated on it and she knew she wanted him back.

The number one thing she wanted to work on at the advanced training was, quote, setting myself up for my future with Dick Felthelon.

Unquote.

...