"28 Days"

with Sandra Bullock

Viewed November 17, 2001

For a video about going through drug and alcohol rehab, we all agreed that this was a funny movie. There were quite a few serious parts, but the seriousness was offset very well with comic relief. And that balance seemed to characterize our discussion too; we alternated between a serious atmosphere and fun.

We started out with a discussion of how much we've depended on romance, or attraction, or marriage to make us feel better about ourselves or our lives (Question 1), and that set the overall theme for the evening. One person really wanted to stop depending on romance, and is trying to feel satisfied with her life even if she sleeps by herself for the rest of her life. She simply doesn't want to give herself up to a relationship ever again because it has hurt so much when she's lost herself in the past, and if that means not being in love again then that seems like an acceptable price to pay.

Someone else described the heartbreak she felt when she and her husband both decided that they needed to separate in order for both of them to heal (Question 8). Several people said that as they grew in awareness, old relationships that weren't working any longer disappeared from their lives (Question 2). That often hurt for a long time, but they knew that it was necessary to do for their own healing. Others said that the reverse was true: they needed to walk away from certain friendships and/or romances IN ORDER TO grow.

Near the end of the discussion one of the guys described how, when he was a rather unhappy 11-year old, he heard his inner voice tell him, "Don't worry; everything will be fine as soon as you get a wife." Now, three divorces later, he's realized that it's not just any marriage that will help him feel better; there's this little issue of WHOM he decides to marry.

Here are the questions:

28 DAYS

  1. How much do I depend on romance as a measure of the quality of my life?
  2. How does my level of growth bring people in and out of my life?
  3. How do I know when my consciousness changes?
  4. What has built or destroyed community in my life?
  5. Why is it so hard for me to ask for help, and what does that mean about me?
  6. How have I learned to let go of being totally in control?
  7. What unproductive behaviors do I have a hard time changing?
  8. How do I handle terminating relationships with people?