Great Life Foundation New Harmony Harrasment/emotional distress/ hard sell Salt Lake City, Utah

I am responding to the content of 2 complaints leveled against Great Life Foundation trainings. I took the training in 2006 and participated over the next few years as a staff member from time to time assisting with the trainings.

"It is a cult." - It is NOT a cult.  I am a devout Christian, and at the trainings, all belief systems were welcomed, accepted, and encouraged.  There were things in the training that helped me feel very close to God. There was at least one time I recall that we were specifically invited to pray, let that be in whatever format fit our individual belief system.

"It costs a lot of money." - Yes, but I felt it was very worth it.

"It broke up my marriage." - For me, it strengthened my marriage and gave me a sense of power and ability to influence my marriage for good.  Most of the married couples I had interractions with in the training were strengthened in their marriages as they faced head on and with honesty, in a loving supporting environment, the things that had gone unresolved and troubled their marriages for years. I did hear occasionally of a partner in a marriage using things they learned in the training as an excuse to leave their spouse under the banner of "being true to myself". Being true to your best self is a theme of the training, but another big theme is "being your word". So those people are cherry picking and being dishonest.

"It is 4 days for almost 10 hours a day" - Yes, it takes a lot of time, but is worth it, transformative. I consider it like an army basic trainig - intense and life-changing.

"He was brainwashed" - Did I experience brainwashing? No. Invitations to look at myself, my life, and others with new eyes? Absolutely. 

"No cell phones" - Yes, so you can be completely mentally present in the training.

"Not tell anyone else what goes on" - We could share generalities but not specifics.  Honestly, the activites are rather figurative of life and wouldn't make much sense out of the context of the training.

"They pair up married people with the opposite sex" - No, not even single people of the opposite sex. We were only partnered with participants of the same gender with the exception of a parent/child partnership that might be the opposite sex (ex: father-daughter).

"They encourage hugging, going out to eat, exchanging numbers, and even telling them that they love them." - Yes, we are invited to develop deep, sweet, loving friendships with other participants. Emotions do run high in the training so as a safeguard we are required to committ to not enter into any romantic or business relationship with any other participant or staff member until at least 30 days after our training is complete.

"Her husband was belittled and sent hate mail almost daily" - If a friend didn't move on to the next level, we often lovinly invited them, but definitely no hate or belittling. It was just because we loved and missed them and wanted them to experience this great thing.

My time in Great Life was one of the happiest times of my life. It was way hard, but I grew so much.  I looked hard at the negative stories that were running my life and learned to move past them, show great courage, and begin to become the best me I can be.  I also felt extraordinarily loved and empowered by the training and see it as one of the best things I've ever done.

I can relate to the above listed complaint. I too, was persuaded to sign up for this through a friend who also paid for me to go. The reason people do this is because when you are a part of it, you are basically told that if you cannot "inspire" people to sign up, that you, yourself are not inspiring. I was completely tore apart, told terrible things about myself by people who didn't even know me, and humiliated in a group setting, which has had terrible effects on my self perception. I did not have these problems going in there. It is the truth...you are told not to discuss the processes (the reasoning behind it is because once you're done, they tell you that you will want to give the gift to others and not to ruin it for them out of "love") so when you are completely vulnerable, you have no one to turn to other than the people who are there with you. If you question the processes at all, you are immediately told that you are hiding things within, unaccountable, or are in denial. They try to make it a loving atmosphere after you have been torn apart, and yes, some of the experiences are really wonderful, but of course they would be when presented to you after being convinced you were a loser before.

These people are not psychologists, counselors, and have no certificates in anything mental health related-but they don't claim to either, so there is not much that can be done about that. However, they have no business doing what they do. Attending this was one of the worst decisions I ever made and it's sad to see just how many people truly become brainwashed by it.