Remembering Joan McNeill ~ Her gift to us was OURSELVES!

Today I honor and celebrate an incredible woman I had an opportunity to grow and work with at a most important time in my life. Joan McNeill was and is a Mother Theresa of sorts, seeing the beauty and good in each human being as if it was what God has placed her on the earth to do. A svelte, angelic woman who was a pure ball of energy, she exuded pure possibility. “No”, “can’t” or any type of excuse just didn’t live in her language. She was gentle, yet fiery, empowering to the individual, but always speaking from her ultimate stand in life: the transformation of human beings.

Just shy of 30 years old, I was given a very unique opportunity at Landmark Education (where I met Joan) to take a leadership position that would change my life. For those of you who don’t know, Landmark is a global education enterprise offering programs that enable people to live extraordinary lives. Their flagship program “The Landmark Forum” is a 3 day seminar on what it is to be a human being, at the cause of your extraordinary life at all times.

As I progressed through Landmark’s programs I became an Introduction Leader (leading introductions to people about the Landmark Forum). I somehow fell into a conversation with Boaz Gilad and Joan McNeill about becoming the team leader of the Introduction Leader Body, a group of over 200 stellar individuals who lead Introductions to the Landmark Forum all over NY, NJ, and CT.  Joan at the time was a staff member in the New York Center, as the acting registration manager, and I would be working closely with her.

It is through Joan that I truly learned to interact with the highest level of a person’s being. Someone could be occurring as a total ball of crud, and she would elicit their best selves within a few seconds. How do I know this? I was often being the ball of crud. Within a few minutes Joan would speak right through the junk to who I was. When you choose to live into the listening of another who is seeing you as you are, you have the choice literally shift your being in the moment.

Joan became a wise sage in my life wo taught me the part of Landmark’s definition of integrity that I struggled with the most. I seemed to grasp that integrity was honoring my word, doing what I said I would, on time, and communicating as soon as possible if I was not going to be able to deliver. The second part of integrity is KEY: Keeping an empowering context (conversation for possibility) present for myself and my life. This is who Joan was and still is in Spirit: an ongoing empowering context. In the face of disease, she was going to be a “YES” to life as long as she possibly could.

Upon Joan’s passing, I have been reflecting on the gifts that she gave me, and the power to dig deep and pull up this empowering context for myself and my life is the thing she has left in my soul.

I have the capacity to feel things very deeply, moving through the human experience quickly; seemingly unprotected, with little to no guard. However within hours, or sometimes a day I am once again present to the extraordinary gift of life, and the opportunity I have each day to make a difference with my students, friends, family, and the stranger I might meet in the elevator. This does not mean I don’t get angry, sad, hold grudges at times, or make mistakes. I say things I regret, make errors in judgment, like everyone else.  I am still working on Joanie’s instant turnaround time, but I know it is possible!!

When I heard of Joan’s passing, I tried to remember the last time I had seen or talked to her and I didn’t. This at first made me sad. I knew it was probably just a few years ago.  It is not the details of Joan we will remember most, but the gift she was to so many of us. Sure, I remember her “magic wand”: her precious yellow led pencil, and the way she seemed to just float through a room, brightening it within milliseconds. For those of us who had the unique opportunity to be trained by her, we will remain forever blessed.  We will remember who she was for us, and the possibility she brought forth in us. Her gift to us was ourselves, and for this we will be eternally grateful.

Today many of us will celebrate her life together. Through tears of joy, we will connect to the Spirit that was and is Joan McNeill: PURE JOY AND POSSIBLITY!