This is SO true and is part of what I will cover in my class at Brick Factory Nashville Monday evenings, May 7, 14 & 21. Tickets are $45 -get tix soon at the Skillery. 



"Be Grateful To Everybody"

If we were to make a list of the people we don't like-people we find obnoxious, threatening or worthy of contempt-we would find much about ourselves that we can't face. If we were to come up with one word about each of the troublemakers in our lives, we would find ourselves with a list of descriptions of our own rejected qualities. We project these on the outside world. The people who repel us unwittingly show us aspects of ourselves that we find unacceptable, which otherwise we can't see. Traditional lojong teachings say it another way: other people trigger the karma we haven't worked out. They mirror us and give us a chance to befriend all of that ancient stuff we carry around like a backpack full of granite boulders.
"Be grateful to everyone" is a way of saying that we can learn from any situation, especially if we practice this slogan with awareness. The people and situations in our lives can remind us to catch neurosis as neurosis-to see when we've pulled the shades, locked the door, and crawled under the covers." - Pema Chodron

Happy Spring!

So many great things are happening in my life, my head is spinning!

I haven't written in a while because I've been in a sinus infection funk - not sure it was an infection for the last 2 1/2 mos., but I was convinced it was and had doctors prescribe antibiotic after antibiotic. I'm feeling much better. I still get bad upper sinus pain once in a while - allergies here in Nashville are horrid! But it's not continuous and I have a CT scan scheduled in a couple weeks to see what's going on up there. I just finally got over my fear about it. Funny, that's when I really started to feel better.

Anyway, here are all the awesome things that I've been manifesting. The band has been getting quite a few opportunities to play good shows lately and we've been playing our best. We've been getting lots of press lately too. People at our shows seem to really like us and want to buy our CDs and T-shirts. And we are finally going to meet with a recording engineer this next week! Finally we can get started recording an EP! This guy has recorded some really good bands we like and has worked with this producer we really want to work with, but who is taking forever to get back to us. He offered to record a song for us for free because he knows we can't afford his usual $50,000 for recording a full-length album, but he's very busy and in high demand, so we're going to record with a very good engineer he recommended. I'm hopeful he will still be able to do some producing for us.

I can't wait for our show on Sat., May 12 at 12th & Porter! We're going to have back-up dancers! I'm going to have someone video that and put it up on youtube.

I'm finally going to teach my dream class! I've been developing it for what seems like a long time and have decided to call it: Improving Relationships: Improving Happiness. It's based on the importance of love: loving yourself, loving others, and loving life (necessarily in that order). It's going to be for 3 Monday evenings starting May 7, 14 & 21st. You can read more about it and buy tix here: www.theskillery.com  I can't wait - I'm so excited! I'm imagining people who are ready and need to hear this information will come to the class.

Next week is the last week of classes for the semester! I can't believe it's over already! I'm going to teach 1, hopefully 2 classes this summer but will have a few weeks off before that starts. I can't wait for vacation! It's going to be full of recording, playing out-of-town shows (if I can get through to these booking people!), and camping. Maybe even a trip home to Chicago.

Happy Spring!