Leela Music Newsletter, May 2008Michael Stribling Here's an overview of what you'll find in this issue:
The new CD, Love, Light, and Water, arrived a couple of weeks ago. However, there was a problem with the color on some of the printed material so the whole project had to be redone. The "do over" has arrived and promotional packages are heading to their destinations all over the world (special thanks to my mailing room elves). Radio promotion starts June 1. In spite of the delay, I'm still hoping to have the CDs available for you at CDBaby.com, Amazon.com, iTunes, etc. any day now. The first reviews are starting to come in. Visit the website to read what others are saying about Love, Light, and Water. Work continues on the hypnosis project, and the first compilation CD -- Union - Music for Lovers -- is essentially done; I'm just trying to figure out how/when to release it.
Mountains and molehills ... problems and situations. We've all heard the expression: "Don't make a mountain out of a molehill." Nevertheless, we often tend to blow everyday events out of proportion. At least I do. We turn minor events into catastrophes, and everyday situations into problems. A splinter in the finger becomes time off from work and an application for a handicapped parking sticker. A simple mistake becomes a public humiliation. A minor inconvenience becomes a life-damaging event. We've confused the difference between problems and situations. Many years ago, a very dear friend taught me the difference between the two ... "A problem is something that you will still be dealing with a year from now. Everything else is just a situation." Think about that for a moment. We get all upset over the typical situations that affect everyone of us. We make a big deal out of a common human experience. How we react/respond is up to us. We can choose to get all worked up and generate a lot of stress for ourselves (and everyone around us), or we can give a little shrug, be grateful for experiencing what all human beings go through, ask ourselves what we might learn from the situation ... and just deal with it the best way we can. Here's a common example. You work hard on a written document -- let's say, in a word processor or computer -- spending a couple of hours getting it just right. Then, there's a power outage and, because you didn't save your work every paragraph or so, you lose everything. All your hard work is gone! Here's another, more recent, and personal, example. I completed my work on the new CD, sent everything to the manufacturer in a timely manner, and received the CDs according to schedule. I had plenty of time to prepare the promotional packages and get them in the mail before the radio promotion starts. There was just one problem ... The color was wrong on the CD insert. In both examples, there is a choice we can make; we can either react, or respond. We can either throw a tantrum and react to the problem, or we can just respond appropriately and deal with the situation. In any event, it's our interpretation of the event that determines whether it's a problem or a situation, and we have to take responsibility for our interpretation and subsequent behavior. Chances are, we're still hooked on the drama juice that comes from blowing things all out of proportion. The ego feeds on drama, and we create the drama to feed it. I don't know about you, but I don't need the extra adrenaline and cortisol boost that comes from making a mountain out of a molehill. Besides being a waste of time, and trying to resist something over which we have no control (another good opportunity to say the Serenity Prayer again), it's just unhealthy to turn situations into problems. With a new definition of problems and situations, all of a sudden we have fewer problems than we thought we had, and the everyday situations become easier to manage. So, here's an invitation to remember the difference between ... mountains and molehills ... problems and situations.
Newsletter subscriber, and long-time friend, Philip Brewer, shared with me this lighthearted look at how silly and absent-minded (okay, stuck on stupid!) we can be sometimes. Say What? Question: "If you could live forever, would you and why?"Answer: "I would not live forever, because we should not live forever, because if we were supposed to live forever, then we would live forever, but we cannot live forever, which is why I would not live forever." "Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can't help but cry. I mean I'd love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff." "Smoking kills. If you're killed, you've lost a very important part of your life." "I've never had major knee surgery on any other part of my body." "Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country." "That lowdown scoundrel deserves to be kicked to death by a jackass, and I'm just the one to do it." "Half this game is ninety percent mental." "It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it." "I love California. I practically grew up in Phoenix." "We've got to pause and ask ourselves: How much clean air do we need?" "The word 'genius' isn't applicable in football. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein." "We don't necessarily discriminate. We simply exclude certain types of people." "Traditionally, most of Australia's imports come from overseas." "If somebody has a bad heart, they can plug this jack in at night as they go to bed and it will monitor their heart throughout the night. And the next morning, when they wake up dead, there'll be a record." "Your food stamps will be stopped because we received notice that you passed away. May God bless you. You may reapply if there is a change in your circumstances." Feeling smarter yet?
Every issue, I give away a free CD (autographed, of course :-). If you're on the mailing list, you're automatically entered in every drawing. This month, the winner is Jonathan Mathis. Congratulations! ============================================================ That's it for this issue. Feel free to drop me a line and let me know what you liked, or didn't like, in this issue, and any recommendations or requests you have for future editions. Thank you for your support. Please invite your friends to visit my website and sign the guestbook. Oh yeah, it's okay to order some CDs, too! They make wonderful gifts :-). I also have a page on MySpace.com. Have a look and join the list of friends at www.myspace.com/leelamusic I wish you peace, joy, and love. Namasté, Michael Stribling If you would like to be removed from my mailing list, please reply to this email and type the word "unsubscribe" in either the subject line or the body of your reply. One more thing: if you change your email address without telling me, I won't be able to send you any more newsletters. So, please keep me in mind if/when you change your email address. Leela Music Newsletters
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