My introduction into the world of personal transformation

I was oblivious to personal transformation seminars all of my life until several years ago, 2004-ish, when a person I considered to be a close friend disappeared into the abyss of an expensive transformation. We were close for a few years before her employer urged her to attend The Choice Center in Las Vegas, NV. The Choice Center’s claim:

THIS WAY TO YOUR POTENTIAL
If you could have the relationship, career and lifestyle of your dreams, what would that experience feel and look like….and, what is stopping you from having them? In this training, you will get the answers to these and many other questions.

I tried to be as supportive and accepting as I could be during this new chapter in her life. As I felt increasingly less significant in her life it became more difficult to continue to support her. Through it all I attended a guest event with her, and even a graduation ceremony. I was uncomfortable with both experiences, particularly the graduation ceremony where the glass ball room doors were curiously covered in white paper specifically for this event. I went for her in an attempt to hang on to any shred of the “her” I had dearly cared for and began to miss.

We even had an agreement: I agreed I wouldn’t verbalize my disapproving thoughts of this transformation process while she agreed to stop trying to recruit me into it. Whenever we happened to get together, during her advanced stages of the transformation, her cell phone was constantly ringing. And she would take every call. And every call was someone coaching her, or checking up on her, or needing coaching, or staffing. Gah! It became insane. I started to see how she was always ‘doing’ for them. I realized she wasn’t living for herself anymore. That’s how it seemed to me. She would never tell me anything about what was really going on or what she was doing when she was with these people. She would disappear on mysterious retreats that she wouldn’t discuss. She was spending a lot of money and complaining about debt. I didn’t see anything authentic about her. The truly authentic friend I had was lost.

Eventually I reached the end of my rope and blew up at her by telling her I didn’t know who she was anymore. I didn’t understand any of the decisions she was making, or the destructive relationship with a man who didn’t even show up for their own engagement party. She somehow defended it all with a smile on her face. That’s when I knew that I was on the outside looking in and she wasn’t going to listen to a word I said. I pretty much walked away after that. We’ve been in touch on and off since then, and I’ve moved away. She didn’t marry the guy, who was also doing the courses, as she found he was cheating on her. Our conversations have never really been the same since and are few and far between. We’ve since not had any extensive conversation about that period of time. I hope to one day get more of her story about post-Choice Center and her current thoughts and conclusions and how it all relates to her life today, for the purpose of research and education.

> Read about my Second Encounter, in a different city & state