Postcards from the Funny Farm

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe via -or-

We all have those blissful memories of youth and summer. Whether it was eating watermelon in the cul-de-sac or enjoying snow-cone or popcorn machines the grownups on the street rented for a special event like the Fourth of July. Or maybe it was just traipsing through the mud out behind the house or down the creek. There’s something about the discoveries and kaleidoscopes of youthful perception that stay in our psyche forever.

Some of you know I am taking a brief vacation from blogging. I’ve asked some excellent blogger friends of mine to do some guest blogging and so far Marcia has been kind enough to offer her muse during my “get my head together” and “recharge my writing batteries” time. This summer should be an amazing time for my family and I know I will be writing some of my best stuff. Furthermore, I feel a sense of arrival with my “inspiration” writing niche. I’ve had one other niche since I started, you may recall the “language blog” days … that ended up being forced. I’m hopeful I will stay excited about writing on inspiration until I am old and grey … well, old … I’m already turning grey ;)

A few others besides Marcia have shown interest in guestblogging so stay tuned for theirs. I should be back full-swing in a week or so. Thanks for being patient and checking back. For now, since it doesn’t require much effort on my part, I checked in tonight with a question for you:

What is the strongest memory of youth and summer you can recall?

Do you keep a calendar on your fridge? If you’re like us in our house, that’s the place we compare our lives with one another. If Sarah has a doctor’s appointment or the girls have birthdays to go to, we find it all there. That’s where we check ourselves. If a stressful event is coming up, such as moving, which we are scheduled to do May 14th, we all count the days and wonder ethereally what life will be like on the other side. Now if you are a self-improvement junkie like I am, you have probably read a dozen or more books on the aphorism: “Life’s a journey, not a destination,” but it really is true and yet even we can lose sight of it. I am not that old, but I’m old enough to know that the baby clothes that fit today will be in a bag out for Goodwill before you know it.

I ran across this video at Grow Thyself and it really made my evening, reminding me of that little aphorism we say so much as self-improvement junkies. Enjoy!

Is there a destination you “can’t wait” to arrive at? How does this video affect you?

Have a great day, and remember: It’s a journey thing.

You know it isn’t often I run across a blog and instantly become a fan. That’s how it was for me a few months ago when I found It Might be Love. Of course I am a hopeless romantic so this blog appealed to me right away. It’s an unobtrusive, unassuming blog that has a post every day on the issue of love in our lives. With so many blogs focused solely on material things or building traffic, it is refreshing to find one that is a niche blog about something so visceral and universal as love! Michelle Stein is the owner and main author of this blog. So far I have enjoyed reading her blog and writing there as a guestblogger. I asked her for an interview last week and was so pleased when she accepted! The 10 question and answers are below.  I hope you enjoy it and visit her blog.  My words are italicized:

Q1: Hi Michelle, thanks for letting me interview you I think your blog is great. How did you come up with the niche and/or idea of a love blog?
I didn’t really have a plan when I bought the domain name. I was plugging in random website names to see what was available and “it might be love” was a phrase that entered my mind for some reason. The more I thought about it the more I liked it - because what is love anyway? Does anyone really know? Love can be so many things for so many different people. Everything else sort of just took off from there.

Q2: Do you hold any degrees or special training to talk about love online? If not, what is it about you that makes your contribution special?
I am glad you asked this question because I would not want anyone to ever think I’m an expert when I’m not. I don’t have any formal training or degrees in psychology, which suits me just fine. I have adopted the “Good Will Hunting” philosophy of learning, meaning you can learn anything you want to know for “”a buck fifty in late fees from the library”.

I think that is what makes It Might Be Love so unique…I’m just a “real person”…sharing what I’ve experienced and learned along the way. There is no one-size-fits-all textbook definition of love. While I genuinely respect the “experts” I think you can only understand love through your experiences. I believe we are all capable of learning more about love and teaching what we learn to others.

Q3: Do you draw from your personal experiences a lot or others?
I would say 90% of the things I write about are from my own personal experiences. The other 10% comes from various people I’ve met and the situations they’ve been in or the things they have taught me. I hopefully have a lot more in life to experience and learn, so I don’t think I’ll ever run out of things to talk about!

Q4: Would you say love takes work or are you one who sees “the one” scenario as the secret to bliss 24/7?
I think you need to be able to find “the one” you can work with. We get caught up in the idea of meeting “the one” so we are often fooled by things like romance or compatibility. I know I thought I met “the one” long before I actually met “the real one”. Staying together in my opinion is all about how well you work together, problem solve, communicate, and how much trust and respect you have for each other.

Q5: How old is the blog and how is it going in your opinion? Why do you say that?
I’ve had the site for almost 2 years - but the site you see today has only been the way it is since this March after I accidentally deleted everything that was on there before! I decided to start over completely from scratch and switched over to Wordpress. I think it’s better now than ever – and now I have an automatic back-up system for my database in place! Traffic is steadily increasing each week and I’ve received nothing but positive feedback. I’m hoping to launch a couple of contests and freebie promotions in the upcoming months so I’m excited about that as well!

Q6: That’s awesome, we will be watching for those for sure and I hope you don’t mind if i promote them on Postcards from the Funny Farm, I think your blog is GREAT! Okay, now for a personal question: What is your current relationship status and how did the two of you meet?

I am married to quite possibly the funniest guy in the world. When we got married he had me laughing so hard they actually said to me “Honey, you know this is serious, don’t you?”

I initially met my husband because he needed a Sharpie marker at the place we both worked. Nobody seemed to have one until he finally came across me. I was very skeptical about letting him borrow my marker, but he brought it back to me as promised, which really impressed me! We soon became friends and before long it only seemed natural for us to start dating.

Q7: Since it is somewhat of a how-to blog, can you tell us the secrets of a great love relationship?
A few weeks ago I wrote an article for Associated Content called the 5 C’s of a Happy Relationships wherein I wrote that happy relationships need these 5 things: Communication, Caring, Consideration, Courage, and Creativity. While I wouldn’t call that the “secret” I do think if you can learn to understand and apply those principles in your current or next relationship it’s a very good place to start towards having a happy and healthy relationship.

Q8: What is your biggest love about blogging?
The thing I like most about blogging is that I can write to my heart’s content and share what I wrote with the rest of the world if they want to read it. We always think we’re too insignificant to make a difference in anyone’s life. But if just one person finds something I write to be inspiring or enjoyable than I consider it “mission accomplished.”

Q9: What is your biggest pet peeve of blogging?
It used to be spam but since I activated Askimet I haven’t had too many problems with that lately. So I guess now it would have to be the technical side of the blog - writing html and php and getting pictures to display correctly. There have been times it takes me 4 or 5 tries to get something to look the way I want it to!

Q10: If you could give us “lovers” out there one piece of advice, apart from subscribing to your RSS and reading your blog every day, of something we can do to make our love relationship better, what would it be?
Well I definitely like the subscribe idea! One thing I think most people could do rather easily is to start giving your partner just one little thing every day. It doesn’t have to be a huge thing. It can be a hug, a joke, a half an hour of your uninterrupted attention, an offer to wash the dishes, a phone call just to say “Hi”. It doesn’t matter what you give them, just the fact that you gave them anything. I honestly believe the more you give to your relationship, the more you will get back out of it.

Thank you so much for the interview Damien! I really enjoyed answering your questions!

You are very welcome Michelle, I enjoyed asking them :) If you, my readers, are interested in reading Michelle’s blog, I highly encourage you! Here is the url: itmightbelove.com/

My mom and I have been talking a lot lately about the book A New Earth. If you haven’t heard of it yet, you soon will. Oprah has fully endorsed its author, Eckhart Tolle, and we all know that what Oprah endorses, sells like crazy. But Tolle is a very humble guy. He claims his ideas were all around him and that he didn’t invent them. Pretty humble for a guy who’s probably going to become the next psychology writer billionairre. More and more people I talk to about the book tell me they have either read it, or want to read it. But this guy isn’t hype, he has great vision in his book. If you haven’t read it yet, you should.

I remember getting a similar feeling about a book when I read M. Scott Peck’s psychology book: The Road Less Traveled. ” When I read great books like these, so full of truth and help, it’s like relaxation comes from he page, into my eyes and throughout my body spreading calm and joy. I’m still on chapter one of A New Earth, but what I have read so far is pure genius. My goal is to write a review of it very soon, so stay tuned to Postcards from the Funny Farm for that. I want to do this to spread the news about this amazing little book. Tolle’s insights on spiritual meaning in the world around us are really revolutionary and life-changing. Whether you are going through something as simple as trying to experience life more or something as serious as working through drug rehab and the like, this book brings out a strength you didn’t know you had.

At any rate, my mom told me a story from his book the other day that really intrigued me. She also watches the author every Monday she can on Oprah’s website where he does a regular video “town hall” style class where people can participate and ask questions. She gave me some good advice from him regarding negative people. Lately I’ve been getting some bad energy from people in all areas of my life and it’s beginning to worry me. Why am I attracting this sort of energy? Is it the way I talk? Is it the things I say? How do you deal with negative people anyway? We’re supposed to stay positive ourselves but what about when we can’t control bad energy around us. As I’ve speculated on here in the past, we should ignore it but as some of you commented, that isn’t always the best option. There is an alternative to ignoring Tolle offers that I prefer. It’s a phrase to have waiting in your back pocket. When negative people spout all sorts of negative things, just tell them this:

Is that so?

You can respond without reacting. Reacting is the “ego” as Tolle calls it. Responding is more of the being who you are inside coming out. There are so many good energies in my life these days now too, but why is it that I allow the bad ones to bring me down? It isn’t even rational to pay the most attention to negativisim. Another book by Tolle is called simply: “Stillness Speaks.” I would agree with that, wouldn’t you?

Anyone coming into your emotional space and saying “blah blah blah (something negative - you fill in the blank here)” should never take your good energy. Simply nod your head and say “is that so?” I love this mantra and I intend to use it from now on. If you tell me the sky is falling, I can say calmly “is that so?” If you tell me something is impossible I will say “WHY?’ Then, if you tell me why I will say: “is that so?” If you make a point on a forum I don’t agree with, there is no need to argue or even debate. All I need to do is consider what you have said and then say: “is that so?” Think about it, for real life or even social internet connections, it’s a pretty good mantra! Revolutionary thoughts like these take meditation. Here is a video I ran across of Tolle talking about getting that into our daily lives.

How are you reacting to bad energy in your life?

I got that title from an old Alarm song. It’s a great tune with an even greater message for the visionaries among us in 2008.

Instead of waiting for others to be our inspiration, we have to be the inspiration to others AND to ourselves.

As you may have gathered from this series’ title, I grew up in Orange County. 45 minutes from Disneyland and 2 hours from the Mexico border. Nice living! When I moved up here to the high desert of California in August of 2002 I had nothing more than 300 bucks in my pocket and what seemed like a mystical job contract to teach public school. I left behind a rental apartment and everything else that had been “home.” I had decided some months earlier that a return to teaching was what my life and soul needed at age 33. You can read more about my transition back into teaching in my article entitled: Success and Relativity. Anyway, I didn’t mind the details of the move, I just knew this was my return to teaching and return to joy. It was as if I was in the story Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the teaching job was my “golden ticket.”

The people I met up here, from the interview onward were magical. They saw the light in me and in turn I saw theirs. People offered to let me sleep on their couches, rent their condos, go out to dinner with them, set me up with women … note: I was single then … it was like out of a dream. The dream wasn’t so much about what they offered me though, it was about the light they shined into my heart. I remember thinking of the high desert as a magical place that no one in Orange County, where I grew up, could ever touch. Well, of course, I see now after nearly six years that wasn’t the case, it was merely my perception brought on by simple things people did.

The people were and still are magical but many have left the desert. One woman in particular who was instrumental in hiring me sufferred unspeakable loss when her son and his wife lost a baby in delivery. This world can be so harsh. She left the district and I don’t see her anymore. Others have retired and some have just moved on. I find myself sometimes asking: “Was the magic real? Where has it gone?” There you have the place to put my title: We are the Light.

In life we are lucky at times to be touched by the magic of others. We must never forget however that we have that same power to touch others. We see the light in people they often don’t see themselves. Let your words and actions pour light like water into the “vases” of people. Let them be better for knowing you. I’ll never forget the time my Grandpa had such an impact on me when he bought me a set of Callaway irons as a kid. I used to polish them nightly. Golf was a better game for me because of his generosity. That’s the kind of impact we should all have.

Remember also that the world is not always a mystical place. It is most the time, at its most complex level, just people walking on sand getting to their next destination. It takes people of vision, like you and I my friend, to to create the perception of magic.

The things that are eternal are actions and words you dream. Only you can start them. Only you can bring them back. Only you can keep them going. There really isn’t much to say on this except: GO AND DO!

An aside here at closing: Below are 4 of my family pictures. Each person in them “happened” post-desert … post-magic. Looking at them reminds me that home is where I probably need to shine the brightest, before I take on the world. Wouldn’t you agree?