Ask. Believe. Receive. In The Secret, Rhonda Byrne compiles the words of successful authors, businesspeople, spiritualists and scientists to explain the “Great Secret” woven throughout human history — the law of attraction.
My mom went to the neurologist today. He confirmed she has mild to moderate dementia, something our family doctor suspected after a round of tests in early July.In “The Secret to Health,” Byrne says when we listen to people talk about their illness, we are “asking for it” and will only draw illness to ourselves. We’re to change the conversation to “good things.”I wonder what my mom would think if I changed the subject on her. I think I (more…)
While I was heading to work this morning, something very odd showed up on my face – a big grin.I was surprised to find it because it’s been a trying week to say the least. But I realized there was a reason for my lightened mood. It was the song I had on in the car, The Beatles’ “Getting Better” from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.“I’ve got to admit it’s getting better, a little better all the time.”Listening to Paul McCartney repeat that line in the refrain filled me with optimism. I started singing along in my car. I got weird looks at a red light. I absolutely didn’t care, (more…)
While clearing out some flowerbeds over the weekend, I came across something I never realized grew in the suburbs: poison ivy.Having spent my whole life in a rural area, I thought poison ivy only showed up in the woods. Who knew it could crash through the city limits? Apparently, I’m pretty naive.(I was working at the house I’m going to move into (more…)
The book doesn’t explain how to deal with this.I’m taking care of my family’s golden retriever, Marmie (who, interestingly enough, is Beckham’s sister), while my parents are out of town this week.Marmie’s been acting mopey and lethargic, but I thought it was doggie depression. She usually spends all day, every day, with my mom.Yes, I thought it was weird a 2-year-old dog didn’t feel like playing fetch Sunday, but she (more…)
I am so happy and grateful now that Marmie the pooch is home and safe.I am so happy and grateful now that Mom and Dad are home from vacation and can commence wiping Marmie’s drippy wound.The vet still isn’t sure what caused the horrible bleeding from Tuesday night, but he knew Marmie had an some kind of infection.She stayed at the vet until Thursday afternoon and came home with a good portion of her fur shaved off. Oh, (more…)
Water for Elephants is the story of a Great-Depression-era circus told through the memories of ninety-something-year-old veterinarian, Jacob Jankowski. Sara Gruen’s exhaustive research into the traveling circuses of the 1930s and 40s gives us a rare look into the fascinating, secretive subculture of that era’s big-top performers and roustabouts. Many of the most compelling anecdotes in Gruen’s well-told story are based on actual events.
Some people hibernate and lick their wounds after a difficult divorce. Not author Elizabeth Gilbert, who self-prescribed a year of exotic travel and convinced a publishing house to pay for it with a book advance. The result is Eat, Pray, Love, Gilbert’s journey of self-discovery in Rome (the eating leg of the trip), on an ashram in India (the praying portion) and love (in Bali, where she reconnected with joy).
Living History provides Hillary Clinton with a 566-page opportunity to describe her roller coaster ride as a bright young lawyer and working mother whose husband rose through the ranks of Arkansas state government, only to win two terms in the grand prize of American politics – the presidency. This book gives the reader a detailed, insider’s look at the high-stakes, power-driven world of political warfare. It makes for fascinating reading and more than justifies Hillary’s claim that her life is a work of Living History in progress.
John Grogan spun this engaging book from his years with the ill-mannered, psychologically-challenged Marley. Through the touching stories about this needy creature, Grogan shares meaningful observations of life, marriage and fatherhood — not to mention the unconditional love familiar to anyone who has ever befriended a dog. In this exploration, we examine that mysterious bond between dogs and their people.
After a rough and sometimes bitter primary campaign, Barack Obama has presumably won the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.
In Obama’s “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream,” the 46-year-old Illinois senator employs a love of American history and law to lay out his vision for how to restore faith in our economic and political systems.
For Dr. Jeannette Potts, a Cleveland Clinic specialist in male urology and holistic healer also known as “Dr. Tango,” nothing compares to dance — and one dance in particular. Find your tango, she writes, and you’ll discover your bliss. In her very approachable book, she guides and encourages readers to find their own tango — danceable or otherwise.
When I received the assignment for an exploration on a book called Tango, I was a little apprehensive. I mean, I enjoy a challenge, but I’ve never been what one might call an able dancer.
Which is to say, in a circuitous fashion: I can’t dance.
And not in the typical, self-deprecating way most people say they can’t dance. It’s impossible for me to move my hips independently of the rest of my body. I think it’s a bona fide medical condition. Ask my doctor.
But I can read, and reading Tango makes me wish I could dance. Jeannette Potts — the self-described Dr. Tango — writes about the connections between the sensuous tango and life writ large: the interconnectedness and beauty of life that people so often fail to see; the importance of trust and kindness in relationships; and the idea that we all need to take a breath and stop thinking about everything and just experience life.
More on that later.
But as I move on with this project, perhaps I’ll learn a few new moves (or any moves, really). Shall we?
I read Tango on a plane to Chicago, feeling slightly weird. It seems I was about to be that guy, the one who sits at the Chili’s near gate A7 reading self-help books with scuffed shoes and a rolling suitcase. I don’t want to be that guy.
I looked over the chapter titles: “The Stronger the Axis, the Fewer Feet Needed on the Floor;” “Always Keep Your Heart in Front;” and “Learn to Dance, but Let the Dance Teach You.” They didn’t really move me, no pun intended. How, I thought, am I going to slog through a book about dancing — which I can’t do (please see first post) — that at the same time preaches some sort of Best Life-esque techniques for better living?
So, I sat in my aisle seat and opened the book. It was then I realized that tango — literally, the dance — meant so much more to Potts than an assemblage of dance steps. Even though I’d never tangoed in my life, she was able to bring the dance to bear on many other aspects of my life:
1. You define the boundaries and rules of any engagement. If someone or something makes you uncomfortable — or doesn’t respect you —leave immediately.
2. If you anticipate too much, you’ll kill the moment.
3. You accomplish more and greater things when you work as a team.
4. Trust in yourself and look like you know what you’re doing, and you’ll do well.
So much of Tango the book and tango the dance follows these principles. Don’t dance with a domineering partner; don’t work for a domineering boss. Don’t try to plan every step; don’t plan every minute of your day.
Essentially, it boils down to this: Relax, and enjoy yourself. You’ll feel better and — a shock here — you’ll enjoy yourself.
My daughter is now 15 months old. My wife is entering her final year of grad school. I work a full-time job, and spend about as much time outside of work on other work, plus everything else that a 15-month-old daughter and a wife and a house require.
I have closets full of notebooks full of to-do lists and an Outlook task list that stretches for gigabytes.
I work a lot, and spend a lot of my time thinking about the future. And deadlines. And if my laptop is charged and the balance of Mira’s college savings fund and my own student loan payments and the gas bill and e-mails I have to write and we’re out of sippy cups again and did we pay day care this week?
In short, I spend most of my time planning. It’s a rotten disease, one that takes over your life. I can count on one hand the times in the past few months that I have actually been able to be what the gurus call “totally present.”
I read a story a while back that talked about surfers and nuns who would reach a state of Nirvana when, respectively, riding waves or praying. It seems that your brain always sends out signals to the body, asking, “Where are you? What’s going on?” And then your body responds, “On the sofa. Watching football.” Or, “In the car. Stuck in traffic.”
But in the case of the surfers and nuns, they would reach a point where their brains were sending out the signals, but getting nothing back. The body was so focused on the board or God that it wouldn’t respond to the brains questions. And so a loop forms, and the brain doesn’t know where it is. This is called by laypeople an out-of-body experience, or something the sports folks call being “in the zone.”
But sitting in a cramped Continental flight to Chicago, reading Tango, made me realize that, even though I don’t surf or wear a habit or even tango dance, I can take the time to appreciate the things around me when they’re around. Because they won’t always be, and neither will I.
Potts the author is very approachable. Potts the doctor is less so. I don’t mean that she’s cold or hard to know or anything like that. She’s very good at what she does, and as such is in high demand. She travels internationally for various professional and dance-related functions, and can be hard to pin down for an interview and dance demonstration.
But, thanks to her connections with a private club (http://www.clubhillbrook.com/) near Cleveland, we were finally able to record a demonstration of her dancing with her friend David Palmer. (I keep calling it a demonstration because Potts is quick to point out that she doesn’t teach tango or give lessons.)
In the low-ceilinged room the day after Christmas, Potts and Palmer danced up a storm while Dave Wilson, DelMio.com’s editorial director, and I watched. Dave and I were rapt as the couple spun across the floor, sweeping their legs out and up and over each other. Potts completely left the ground several times, and Palmer was no slouch himself.
But what was so amazing about the dance is that the two were so focused on each other and the music. Dave and I and the club and everything else seemed to drop away
Before I drove the club to meet with everyone, I e-mailed Potts some questions. I got an out-of-office reply that said, effective 2008, she wouldn’t respond to e-mails after office hours and she was canceling her BlackBerry service. I asked her about it after the dance demonstration, and she said it was because she wanted to be less connected.
Having it didn’t make me a better doctor, she said. It just made me good at checking my e-mail.
Much of Tango (and tango) is about focusing on the present and appreciating it for what it is, even if it isn’t perfect. It likely won’t ever be. But that doesn’t mean you can have a great dance just the same.
The Dangerous Book for Boys is not only a spillway of information on growing up boy, its contents for the intended “Boys” takes hold of the adult who has fond recollections of having been there and done that or wishing he had been there and done that. Taking the book, turning through the pages, the chapters melt into your hands, going beyond the scope of the intended “BOYS.”
In his first novel The Kite Runner, and now A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini writes about the Afghans caught in the middle of a seemingly endless string of wars and battles for power. Both novels paint a grim and moving picture of life in a war-torn country, and of lives lived in the face of hunger, death and a bleak future. Hosseini makes you realize that, even while bombs rain down and people are dying of hunger, people still fall in love, seek friends and, mostly, try to remain human.
Describe your creative process for writing this book.
I become inspired when I am discussing my thoughts and ideas with others. And, I can discuss the topics that I have written about in my book very easily because I have been researching these topics and devoting my life to furthering the understanding of brainwaves and their correlation to positive states of consciousness such as peak performance, meditation, forgiveness, and joy ever since I was a student in college. So, to write this book in the midst of 18-20 hour days, I spent time with enthusiastic advocates and supporters of my work who interviewed me and recorded everything I said until I had enough material to organize into a book. I was lucky to have a supportive Graduate from my Biocybernaut Institute’s training program become interested and motivated to take the time to put all the interview material into writing. From there it was a matter of organization and of editing and expanding upon what I had said.
Written by Mayra Calvani
Read more here: http://blogcritics.org/archives/2008/03/10/211734.php
