Charlie Mort
GRADUATE PROFILE
For Charlie Morf, forty-nine, the president and CEO of a billing services company that operates throughout California and Oregon, the Lifespring trainings were all about people. “One of the great beauties of the training is that so many people came into my life who are so valuable to me.
“Part of the magic is that in the training environment I had a chance in the exercises to be so open and honest. I said things and got things off my chest in an arena that was so caring. I really had an experience of trusting people. The rewards have been remarkable.
“Since the training, it has become a habit. Now, I regularly have conversations of the same caliber I experienced in the training; open,honest, trusting, caring.
“Because the training is experiential, it never, ever goes away. I have never had a day without something from the training having an impact. For instance, during the training, I expressed things that I had always hidden from people-thoughts or feelings that I thought made me less than I wanted people to think of me. Now, every time I act the way I used to,it hits me right in the face. I now have new choices about how I am. When I start pulling my old tricks, I see it and I know that I can either change it, stop it, or hang in there, knowing that it doesn't work. The risk of acting differently than I always did isn't any worse than letting the knowledge that I'm being dishonest eat my heart away. Once you've done the training, you know how safe it really is to be honest, and you are acutely aware of the distinction between honesty and dishonesty.
“Sometimes I make conscious, deliberate choices about behaving differently, but often the changes in my behavior are unconscious.In my marriage, my natural reaction to conflict has always been to get defensive. Now, though,when something happens that two or three years ago would have caused me to get my defenses up,I look up twenty minutes later and notice with amazement that I didn't have the habitual thought and take the habitual actions I always automatically used to in similar incidents. I do some things differently now, it works out much better,and my ego survives.
“The training was one of the turning points in my life. Not like I needed to change or was in desperation somehow. In other words,I didn't go into it wanting my life to be dramatically different, and it really hasn't changed much on the surface. Yet my perceptions of what I hold as valuable, especially people, are entirely different.That change has totally transformed the quality of my relationships.
“It has made a tremendous difference in how I am with people. For one thing, I am more at ease with myself. People are open with me in conversation because I am open with them. I give myself permission to say things that I formerly would have held back from people. We all have ideas about what we should and shouldn't say to people we are in relationships with, whether it's family,business, friendship, or just a casual acquaintance. We say one thing out loud, but think something else. It's so obvious to people when you are not being straight with them. It's also obvious when you are absolutely telling somebody how you feel and you're really honest and straightforward. Whether it's criticism or compliment, it's obvious that it's coming from your commitment to that person. The inner worth of every person is so evident to me now; I search for that and speak to that rather than looking only at my judgments of them. I don't accept anything but people's magnificence.
“I gained a whole new concept of how people can contribute to me and how I can contribute to them. It has become habit to listen more to people, even people whom I never would have associated with before the training. When I first went to the Basic, I wouldn't talk to three-quarters of the people in there. I had my judgments of everybody. There's the teenybopper. There's the little cutesie. There's the unhappy old lady. I just sat there in judgment of every single person. Lo and behold, guess what I found out? They were all in judgment of me too.It was remarkable to interact with each other, when normally we wouldn't have had anything to do with each other. Many of those people are now an important part of my life-two years later-as friends and supporters.
“Not only do people contribute to me when I listen to them, but I contribute to them by listening. So often when people come to me, they're not looking for anything except someone who'll listen to them. I always thought there was more to it, that I had to perform a more active role than just listening in order to help someone out. I found out that men in particular are so used to giving advice, especially when talking with women, that it really gets in the way of just listening. Two years ago, a woman could have been telling me about an experience she'd had and inevitably I'd chime in with how I'd handle the situation.She wasn't asking for my worldly advice, she just wanted to tell someone the story. Ninety percent of the time, people aren't interested in advice, they just want to get something off their chest, clear up their own thoughts, share. I find I'm talking at people less, and listening more. I've learned how to just be a good bouncing board.
“I take a lot more risks with people than I've ever taken before. The small risks seem to have as much or more of an impact than the sensational risks. Sometimes it blows people away when I simply come back after having had a conversation with them and say ‘I haven't said something I meant to say.' I'll be on the phone with one of my managers, and we'll fall into the pattern of business talk. We'll be talking about a project that we're working on and I can tell he or she is sandbagging me, but I let it go. I don't want to criticize them. And I hang up knowing that we haven't accomplished anything other than the fact that we both know that we hedged the issue. We haven't said what we really wanted to say. I'll pick up the phone again and say ‘You know what, we just had a conversation that wasn't really a conversation. Let's start again.' It's amazing how people react. They usually are grateful and tell me that they were thinking the same thing.
“Risking with my wife is more difficult. There is so much at stake with the person I'm in love with.And really,she's the person it's most important for me to be absolutely honest with. My wife and I were separated for a year. When she left, I had no idea what was going on, in my stupidity. I'm very proud of the fact that we're back together. I know I would never have been able to do that had I not taken the Basic Training. I believe we have been able to come back together and be in the relationship in a way that works for both of us because we finally got really honest. It has made us both much more loving to each other and to everybody else.
“I had never thought about my needs in a relationship. And I never thought of saying to a woman:‘Here are my needs, honey.'My history taught me that the man is the provider and protector, and that’s how I have been with every woman I've ever been in a relationship with. Make sure the lady is taken care of,but don't try to change her life. I would back off of what I needed in the relationship. Then when it didn't go well, I could be very self-righteous, saying ‘I did all of this for you and you didn't do anything.' I found a lot of reasons why I am that way. I also recognized that it doesn't work and that I am responsible for it not working, so I have the opportunity to change it.
“What happened between me and my children after the training was one of the most precious things that has ever happened to me. Particularly with my son, because I think we had more tension between us. When I got divorced from my first wife, their mother, it was very difficult for me not to be with my kids. I felt very selfish about the choices I had made. When Robert, my son, came to live with me and my current wife, there was a lot of friction between him and me. Since going through the trainings, we have never been closer. We're not holding onto a lot of judgments about each other. We have our problems, but there is unconditional love, support, and honesty.”
Charlie’s son, Robert, comments that “I had a lot of resentment that after the divorce with my mom, he just wasn't there a lot of the time. I held a lot of grudges from that. I held it all in. I hated that my father was away. I was at the age where a boy really needs his dad. I was playing baseball, I needed help with my schoolwork, and he just wasn't there. After going through the Lifespring trainings, having been through those same experiences, our communication level is great.We talk about everything.'
Charlie says,"The training taught me the golden rule. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It's so simple, but seems difficult to put into effect.It takes real effort and it takes time. The training made me a more caring person. Now I'm not just willing, but eager to demonstrate my caring for people. It has made me more effective with people. My relationships are much deeper.
"I experienced time in a whole new way during the training. Back then, the trainings went quite late into the night. I was surprised that I didn't get tired.I never got tired.I completely shifted my experience of time. I now find I have so much more time than I ever had before. I'm on the board of directors of Big Brothers. Big Sisters of Marin, as well as on the board of directors of a home for abused children. Before the trainings I thought I was too busy to do anything like that. I never had as much time for people as I do now.
“One really profound experience I had in the training concerned the death of my two-month-old daughter in 1969. I thought I had finished mourning her, but actually I had bottled up my mourning for years.This may sound trite, but I started thinking about how fragile life is. Someone said in a training ‘Life is not a dress rehearsal.' It's so true. This is it, the real thing. How I play it is my responsibility.
“I had a breakthrough about responsibility in the training. Acting like I'm 100 percent responsible makes me a little more concerned about people; it inspires me to function at my best. It isn't based on evidence.I may not actually be causal, or to blame,but it was a breakthrough for me to consider that I am responsible for everything. No blame, no credit, just responsible.
“Taking the opportunity Lifespring offers changed my outlook completely. It gave me something that I didn't even realize was missing.I was crying for it, but didn't know what it was or where to get it. There is no question in my mind that we owe it to ourselves to take responsibility for our personal transformation."