What I Learned from a Mysterious Self-Development Program in SF (Atlas SF19 Explore)
I’ve cried more in the last 4 days than I did as a kid. Every single day – without fail – I was brough to tears by the program I attended.
For context, I attended part one of a program called the “Atlas Project,” which is a self-development program designed to help people level up in all aspects of their lives. They hold the program in multiple cities, but it has been around the longest in San Francisco.
Now, don’t get me wrong – I hated San Francisco with a passion, and travelling over my Spring semester reading break was the last thing on my mind after blowing my savings on travelling during my exchange semester.
San Fran smells like piss on every corner, is covered with more homeless people than one could imagine, and is expensive in every way unless you make a tech salary. But when I saw my cousin complete this program and emerge from it with whole new levels of passion and dedication to music, I knew I had to do this program in some way or another.
With her blessing and graceful sponsorship, I was able to rake up the funds required to fly out to San Fran and attend the program. I didn’t know what to expect, but I knew I had three main goals:
Discover my blindspots and ways to tackle them so that I can level up and live up to my fullest potential
Improve my relationship with my parents, hopefully to a more open and less resentful one
Improve my romantic relationships such that I have the awareness and capacity to form long-lasting, healthy relationships should I choose to do so (though this also applies to friendships)
Was I able to do so after 3.5 days of “transformational programming”?
Not quite, but I found a great starting point.
Here’s what it made me realize:
There’s no such thing as perfect parenting.
One of the reasons why I am hesitant to want kids is because I don’t want to “fuck up their childhood.” I held so much resentment from how my parents parented me (even though I turned out fine) and had this belief that the world could be solved if everyone was better parents.
However, at Atlas, I realized that, even with warmth and affection from parents in your childhood, you can turn out to have insecure attachment styles or deeply ingrained self-limiting beliefs due to interactions with peers, culture, education, gender, and more; all these layers act as lenses that layer upon one another to form your unique POV.
2. I’m obsessed with “being right”
More than trying to avoid pain or staying safe, I realized I had an overarching pattern of trying to be right all the time. When I am “right,” I get to feel temporary empowerment from a sense of moral high ground. However, this stems from a place of insecurity.
I was also trying to sell myself on the idea that I am a victim, so I would tell myself there was nothing I can do to perform better.
For example, comparing myself to those “worse than me” for moral high ground means I feel like I am not enough where I am and that I need cheap dopamine from comparing to others to feel good about myself. Meanwhile, comparing myself to those “better than me” only serves to reaffirm the limiting beliefs I had about myself.
I try to be “right” in more situations than one:
I try to be right about myself not being lovable or pretty enough, which leads to me snacking late at night and overeating even though my gut tells me to stop eating.
I try to be right that I can only reach a certain level of career success because I’m a female and because there’s “no other choice in life” but to work the corporate lifestyle. This leads to me not taking enough risks in areas where I would love to excel.
I try to be right about my parents and how to chose to raise me, holding resentment that they didn’t show up enough or give me enough attention. As a result, even though my grandma tells me my parents are doing a pretty great job, I choose to see them in a negative light and blame my attachment styles on them. This made me realize how much I need to let go of: my desire to be perfect, my resentment against my parents, my limiting self-beliefs, and my negative reinforcement cycles.
Prior to Atlas, I would feel compelled to combat this desire to “be right” by trying to “be wrong.” However, being wrong also implies a moral hierarchy and black & white; therefore, it is best to try to be neutral in that you see everyone as being at the same level as you instead of on a different frequency. In addition, everyone is a mirror of myself – they’re either representing traits I want to be or don’t want to be, but either way, it’s a learning opportunity waiting to be tapped into.
Although I knew the principle of treating others as equals before I went into Atlas, Atlas truly showed me how to see your loved ones in a stranger’s eyes.
3. Equalism
Not only did Atlas help me practice new depths of empathy and equality – by seeing familiar faces in a stranger’s eyes –, but Atlas also helped me realize that we all have the same desires inside.
As I heard stories of what each person desires, I realized that our human desires are agnostic of age, gender, or race. We all want to feel loved, desired, and appreciated.
While I knew this going in, it was inspiring to hear the stories themselves from diverse people who lived them and to understand we are all, to a degree, still children at heart.
A key part has been identifying my unconscious biases (such as my biases against older men) and making the active choice to try to get to know the other person. It’s amazing how much of the human experience is universal.
With an increased sense of equalism, I was able to reflect on my last relationship with new eyes. I wasn’t being fair to him back then because I admittedly perceived him as having lower EQ, and since it led me to treat him as such, the notion of inability was just being reinforced for him. I essentially babysat him into the role of the baby. However, after Atlas, I’m able to feel more at peace with that relationship because I can recognize how his problems with setting boundaries and overcoming limiting self-beliefs are things I struggle with as well.
4. I’m passive as fuck.
I always thought I was an active participant in my own life because I was outspoken and liked to take charge. However, playing a game at Atlas made me realize how I’m always on the sidelines, letting other people take charge while I secretly want to lead the pack.
I realized how I’m scared of failing and how I avoid being accountable for group outcomes because I don’t want to be looked down upon or seen as a leader who failed. As a result, I’m haphazardly in extracurriculars I can’t fully commit myself to and I’m not owing up to leadership roles the way I want to.
Here I was, thinking that I was doing all I can to take charge of my life, but this exercise taught me how hesitant and paralyzed by fear I am. I see this play out majorly in my life because I often overcommit to different career paths for fear of one not playing out well.
I realized how I’m just going through the motion of things and not risking myself as much as I would like to believe.
One such key example of this is the startup I’m trying to build through an entrepreneurship program. I’m so obsessed with getting things right on the first try that I’ve been paralyzed and slow to start. Despite knowing that speed is key to startups, I’ve been mongering myself over getting customer-market fit right without even doing enough to put myself out there and interview potential customers.
5. How I feel about my relevant position to my peers
In one exercise at Atlas, I realized that I was comfortable with differences in status in a mentorship situation, with either me as the mentor or mentee. However, I felt very uncomfortable and unsafe when re-enacting myself to one social rank lower than others – almost begging and pleading to be seen as an equal to them. And yet, I was very comfortable when simulating myself being two ranks below others because that meant my peers were so far ahead that there is no point in me trying to catch up with them anyways. I can see this to some degree with how I haven’t gone full force into recruiting for product roles at big tech companies because I convince myself I am not worthy of such prestige (even though I know the image of these companies are far overblown beyond the experience of working there).
This exercise made me realize how, even in a leadership position, I want to consider my team members as equals and ensure that everyone feels supported. I don’t want anyone to be my “peasant” and do my bitch work, nor do I want to feel unsupported in my role; I want to build team bonds while genuinely understanding how we can uplift each other.
6. I want status and power more than I’d like to admit.
In one of the exercises, I came to realize that my subconscious wants approval, recognition, and power in this stage of life. In the past, I was hesitant to desire these things because they felt superficial, but I think that rather than relying on a title or position to give me fulfillment, I want status and power to be able to help me achieve a larger impact. I want to feel like I'm doing important work, covering a great scope, and having a supportive team in the process.
7. I could be more vulnerable.
One of the things I was proudest of by the end of the program was the fact that many people expressed how vulnerable and open I seemed. However, in a confession to my small accountability group, I didn’t feel as if I was being vulnerable. I had long been comfortable sharing things such as hardships I faced, bottled-up emotions, and weaknesses. Essentially, I was open but not vulnerable; I had long been comfortable sharing pre-processed thoughts, but I struggled (and still do) in sharing thoughts I’m still forming. Part of me finds it hard to share stories without having the “this is what I learned” piece from it, as well as stories of failure (though this is one of my 2023 goals).
You might be wondering, why is vulnerability so important? Aren’t we all better off just hiding our weaknesses and fuck ups?
Well, I believe that vulnerabilities will make us stronger – not only can we bond with others over our struggles, but we also make ourselves more unfuckwithable by sharing our vulnerabilities while not giving any fucks.
In summary, if baggage could be symbolized as boxes in an attic, part one of Atlas not only pushed me to take a deeper look into these boxes but also opened boxes I never knew about and flipped existing boxes up and over.
Going to this program not only provided me with a community to grow with, but also served as a wake-up call to all the ways my actions were misaligned with my values of growth, authenticity, and appreciation. I gained a clearer picture of how mediocre my future will be if I continued on like this and thus realized all the ways I need to take steps forward toward crafting the future I want.
I came into this program thinking that it will “fix” me as a person and I would emerge as a 100% no-bullshit person. While part one has not “fixed” me, I realized that the tools provided, such as the frameworks taught and the community built, are great starting points in a journey called “life” that continually awaits self-development and re-invention.
So, this was me — up until now. Going forward, I commit to making changes from my realizations towards the present and future I want. Can’t wait for part two of training soon!