Postcards from the Funny Farm

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Before I start this post I just want to give a link to a couple people who have asked me what makes up blog value these days in my opinion. I’ve actually written a series on it you can find here. Okay, now for the post …

I remember a few years ago hearing the son of the criminally insane Jim Jones discussing the mass suicides at Jonestown. The son had been away when it took place and after he returned, he learned the title of this post was the truth for him. Every family member and friend was killed and he had to call in to report the tragedy. His life changed after that with what would be a continuous string of experiences where he learned just how wrong he had been for so long. He chose to have an open mind, lucky for him.

Today teaching eighteen 8th graders I had an experience that opened my mind way up. Let me share it with you. I was explaining to the open-minded young adults about the word “pattern” with regards to sentences. I used an example from my youth (I like doing that and it often helps the lesson go better). I told them about my grandpa’s (now passed) cabinets that held his trash cans. They looked sort of like this table:

As a child I read it up and down probably because I was short then: “Keep stash, America your, beautiful trash.” That’s what my brother and I always though it was. Well, you can imagine my shock and sort of glee to find out I had been reading it wrong for decades! The student pointed out that if you read left to right is says: “Keep America beautiful, stash your trash.” Wow. I was humbled.

Another tip in keeping an open mind is that you probably think many things are true that are not. Strive to see things the way others see them and you will have a more open mind as a result. And last, remember this question from the title:

What if all You “Knew” was Wrong?

Embrace that thought and be less ordinary.

Below is yet another post about having an open mind:
I had a professor of a writing class in college who told us she knew a famous actress. I would tell you who if I could recall but at the time I didn’t know them since they were a very old actress and the name didn’t imprint in my memory as a result. At any rate, this professor of mine, who was getting to the retiring age herself, mentioned to us that the woman had such grace and elegance in the way she ran her affairs. My teacher took care of her library for her and cleaned the house a bit while in college which was nearby. Because I really respected this teacher as a confident writer, I was all ears when she told this story. One day she asked the woman how she lived with such grace, happiness, and success and was now aging the same way and the woman said this simple mantra:

Accept everything.

Let’s look at that wisdom three ways. It could mean:

1. Don’t shut any person or idea out. Let it run completely through your mind and stand or fall on it’s own merits. This is a tough one to universalize. It is more like an inner mantra that can’t be directly applied to some concrete issues. Still, I like the idea of accepting everything in this respect.
2. Don’t be too good for any offer that comes your way. When you get work accept it. If you get a job for $8 do it like it was a job for 80K. I really like this idea.
3. And finally, be gracious. This is by far the best way I can think of to interpret it.

We had to write something on those 2 words when she shared them and I don’t have the paper I wrote at the time. I do carry them with me and I say them often. She was Canadian, I’m starting to think they know something we don’t up there.I’d like to know what they mean to you, any takers? Don’t be shy, just throw one out there.

While I’m on the subject of acceptance: If you are not content to accept your weight, a good resource may be weight loss pills.  Thanks for your support of Postcards from the Funny Farm.

Last time I wrote to you about the Power of Mantra. Before starting this as part two, Listen for Half a Day, I went back and read it again. I also took a nice long walk around my neighborhood admiring lawns and pink flamingoes, trying to make sure the next post was helpful and relevant to the series. The subject I realized today is another key tip in practicing an open mind.

As creative, enlightened people, we should actively practice an open mind by listening as much as possible.

I hope that will make perfect sense to you after I have given you many ways to do it through the course of this series. Please feel encouraged to subscribe to this series via -or- . I’m excited about how valuable this is in opening ones mind.

To make a quick example, listen to this “open mind” tip on traveling:

Usually cheap flights have no issues in the flight performance but are a part of an economical deal, and hence cheap. The deals usually promote hotels. But if one does want to travel cheap, the best way is to stay at a travel lodge instead.

Here, you see having an open mind can save you money, and peace of mind.  I learned this deal because I took the time to listen.  In doing so, that which I thought was impossible is possible.

We’ve all heard the statistics about how women have larger brains and how they are better listeners and better at many other things than men. I am not here to argue that at all. My wife knows full well how much I believe she is playing with a larger emotional deck that I am. What I want to stress is that I believe women and men, based on my experience of family, work, and life, are all generally poor at listening. In fact, it might be a cultural thing that we as Americans do not like to listen. Many are like me, we like to talk, fast, hard, and loud, no matter who gets hurt or shut out.

What if you could be more enlightened about what the people around you think?

The other day I caught myself lecturing my son on how his things were in every room in the houses where they didn’t belong (including a shoe at the bottom of the pool). As I rambled on and watched his bulbous brown eyes begin to well up tears, I listened to myself and it was not the ideal I have for myself. Ever done that?

It is phenomenal how much our mind is opened when we listen fully to someone else. Active listening is when you say back what the other is saying periodically and that is a good idea. But can you listen to people for half a day and not have a response? I’ve tried it and friends it aint easy. Just let what they are saying penetrate your mind, don’t respond except for the normal, OK etc. This is crucial to the experiment.

I could give you many statistics on how listening makes you a better person and such, but let’s just try the experiment what do you say? Starting right now at 11:26am until 6 or 7 tonight when I am doing my evening laps and jacuzzi time, I am going to listen. We haven’t been to church in a while and we decided to go to Saturday night services tonight … I might have picked the perfect day ;)

At any rate, whatever you do and whoever you interact with, this is a good exercise. I think you will be blown away at the paradigm shifts you experience and the broader, more open mind that you enjoy as a result. If you are a blogger you might try interviewing someone you respect. Heck, we may all decide to never speak again! …probably not, but it sounded like a good close. Whether you do this experiment or not, I’d love to get your comments on the concept of listening.

Remember: The goal of each of these posts is to give you a more open mind.

This post will introduce a series of posts I’m writing on looking at life a little bit differently, namely the practice of having an open mind.

I’ve been writing about psychology and inspiration here since December of 2006 and in the process I’ve done a lot of homework I love to share. Mark Twain once said: “When I turned 20, I was amazed at all my father had learned in ten years.” Our perception of the world is filtered through our point of view. If we have an open mind as we travel through life, we transcend much of the trouble around us. One invaluable tool in keeping an open mind is to have a mantra.  When I wanted to go on a vacation recently, I started reciting a vaction-related mantra.  What began as a “what-if” scenario opened up to a possibility heyday.  It began when I took a step and called the travel agency.  The one I chose has amazing packages.

Most of the travel deals offer all sorts of information, from car rental to the cheap hotels at the station. The airline information is updated as well, including the options of flights. If cruises are a part of the deal, they are thoroughly covered too.

Now you tell me mantras don’t work!

Remember when you were younger, about junior high age? You could run around all day: boys at the football field, girls at the mall or maybe the softball field. (Of course I don’t mean to sound like all women wanted to be at the mall but many I knew did). At any rate, physical activity back then had very few consequences. I would run 5-10 miles on the x-country team and have no soreness whatsoever the next day. Well, now fast forward to today. I can barely run to the end of my street without needing to stop and gather myself. Part of that is my fault for not exercising enough. Another part of it is just plain aging. Even as a youngster; however, practice had its place. Running those hill workouts paid off when I won the races. Our minds need practice too. A mantra can be part of that life-changing practice.

The big picture of this series is the way we feel about the world. Our mind processes things differently as it is accustomed to do. The good news is that as long as we practice the right mental things, we never need to suffer the way we do in our physical aging. In fact, if we stay mentally “worked out,” we can be more enlightened the older we get. Kind of cool eh? So, just to clarify the big picture here:

Physical Practice = Winning races/competitions

Mental Practice = Seeing the world the way it is.

One mental exercise we should engage in is the practice of having an open mind. Just like running one mile and skipping the rest of the week will not make a young runner any stronger, so we are made “mentally flabby” when we neglect this practice. The time this verb “practice” is most vivid to me is when I get angry or when I get disappointed or otherwise discouraged. It’s in those moments I can hear that inner psychologist on the couch in my mind say: “Calm down, this is what practice is all about.”

When and how to use a mantra to keep your mind open:

1. When we are out of sorts it comes from 1 of 2 sources: a) Internal - we have a chemical imbalance happening and need food or medicine to balance it out -or- b) External stimulus has disagreed with us in some way. The first step therefore is to determine which source is bringing you down. For example: Would a glass of water help? Some peanuts? You make the call there. This step is kind of like a stop and regroup.
2. The second step is to ACT to accept the cause of the problem. It could be your blood sugar or a person in your face. Either way: ACCEPT the cause for what it is.
3. The third step is a mantra. A mantra isn’t a middle eastern mystery, it’s just a phrase that has good energy for you. Remember the little engine that could? His mantra was: “I think I can, I think I can.” You can use many mantras that already exist or make up your own. I really like the mantra: “Is that so?” Eckhart uses it and recommends it in his book. I recommend it as well.

Other things you could say are (for example): “That’s one way to look at it,” “This too shall pass,” etc. I know you are creative because you’ve read this far. I encourage you to pick a mantra, write it on a card and when you lose your peace in the day, read the card, say the card, BE the card. I think you will as I have that the mental and spiritual rewards are mammoth.

When you exit a room of dissent and feel like you’ve made a contribution of peace, it’s one of the most powerful victories you can imagine.

Did you know that science has looked into anger and rage as they relate to the brain? The findings have been quite interesting. A Harvard study found that when subjects revisited tapes they recorded about events that made them angry or enraged they had measurable chemical reactions in the brain. The beginning of what I refer to here as possibility thinking is having an open mind. Many people in the media and in the everyday world struggle with anger and rage and so I’m tackling this issue in hopes it might offer understanding and direction to open minded people who are concerned with their anger and rage.

Here is a somewhat long quote (for me anyway) that explains what happened in the Harvard study better than I could. It is fascinating:

A look into the brains of normal subjects revealed that anger increases blood flow to a reasoning part of their brains, an area over the left eye just behind the forehead, technically called the orbitofrontal cortex. This flow inhibits thoughts of rage. At the same time, blood flow increased activity in the amygdala, an almond-shaped knot of tissue deep in the brain that deals with emotion and vigilance.

Angry feelings arising in the amygdala are normally cooled by activity in the frontal cortex, part of the thinking region of the brain. However, in some severely depressed people a lack of both recognition and control of anger, can lead to violent rage.

“All of us get angry from time to time,” comments Darin Dougherty, an assistant professor who led the research. “At such times, feelings of wrath in the primitive parts of our brains seem to be balanced by inhibitions of our will to act on those feelings.” Source

This process is like a miracle. Of course, the brain itself is a composite of so many apparent miracles it boggles any brain that seeks to understand it. Still we try. While one part of the brain is fed blood and reacts in anger, in unison other blood is fed to an area that controls inhibition that sort of keeps the angry thought under a lid. Of course, brain damage and mental illness can upset the balance of this process. This is why we see movies of people in mental hospitals screaming in rage without stopping. Somehow the delicate balance their brain was meant to have has been disturbed.

So what does this mean to me and you? Once again, it points us to the truths of Phineas Gage: our mind is a delicate instrument that needs care to stay in balance. When we are getting angry often we should ask ourselves: “Is this chemical?” Is there something disrupting the balance between those two parts of the brain? If so, there are likely drugs that can help … see a psychiatrist or a psychologist that has a practice in concert with a psychiatrist. There are so many triggers that make us angry and even despondent. It could be as big as someone ripping you off or maybe just suffering the empty results of top diet pills.

If you feel the issue has more to do with behavioral issues such as a recurring annoyance in the form of a memory or if you are suffering from some of the cognitive distortions, get thee to a therapist and discuss those issues. Or, you can go to a book store or library and do your own study on these issues. Personally, I would recommend going to a professional instead but just make sure you tend to the problem in some way.

Your brain is your lens to the rich pageant called life. Don’t let anger steal anything from you, there is no reason for that.

I was thinking this afternoon about that story “The Gift of the Magi.” I think it’s a work of pure genius. If you don’t recall, it’s the story where the poor couple sells something they value to buy the other something special. The man sells his pocketwatch to buy her combs for her long flowing brown hair. She cuts her hair to sell it and buy her husband a chain for his pocketwatch. Ultimately neither can use their gifts and all their money is spent.

Everyone I’ve been talking to lately, it seems, is in a similar situation. I talked to a woman the other day I work with who needed her brakes done. She paid someone to come over and do them and he skipped town. Sad. She’s a single mom living off an hourly wage. I know people biting their nails because the recession threatens to put them out of work. I look at the gas pump prices every day and get more and more amazed. They are showing nearly $4 a gallon. And that brings to mind Iraq. I found a blog in my travels yesterday that had a spinning ticker showing the cost in Iraq. I think it was in the trillions, it was a LOT of numbers.

So how do we stay sane and happy in this kind of situation? Well, it isn’t easy. Maybe the answer is to accept our insanity instead of denying it. Maybe being insane is a part of being human. Most famous people I look up to were at one time seen as “out there.” Einstein said that being crazy was a normal part of life. At any rate, we can’t assume all this stuff is normal and we can’t assume that it is going to ever change. At the end of my rope, I think about the couple in the Gift of the Magi. What did they do after they discovered their misgivings? The story stops short of telling us. I think that is on purpose. It reveals your character to imagine something next. As for me? I say they cried tears of laughter, hugged each other, made peanut butter and jelly (since that is all they had) and then made love. Hey, why not? Like Guns and Roses said in the late 80’s “Use your illusion.” That’s my story and I am stickin’ to it. Now I am off to laugh, even despite the gas pumps and everything else going down.