Martinis or Demartinis?

I have become addicted to listening to books on tape (or CD). I've always enjoyed reading but since opening the store, I haven't had time. Or more specifically, I haven't figured out how to knit or crochet and read at the same time. Watch TV, yes; read, no. When I was recovering last year, my brother was kind enough to lend me his iPod which he had filled with 40 books! It was wonderful. I find now that I must be listening to something when I go to bed or I find it hard to fall asleep.

Last night, I was listening to a story on my computer when my daughter asked me to copy the story onto a CD so she could listen to it. This meant that I could not listen to the story at the same time and was therefor forced to turn on the radio or go through auditory withdrawal - not pretty. (Geez, what a big setup for my point. And I do have a point, I think.) It was late-ish and a rather obscure new-agey type of show was on. I wasn't going to actually listen to what they were talking about because it sounded a bit too touchy-feely for me but I found myself paying attention after a bit. (We're getting closer, I promise.) It turns out the host was interviewing a Dr. Demartini - a self-help kind of guy who seemed extremely full of himself and very A.D.D.. I did a lot of eye rolling and "whatever" muttering as I listened. Basically, his philosophy has to do with neutralizing all your positive and negative feelings about things in order to balance out your life and make yourself happy. He didn't say that in such simple terms - there was a lot of talk about "love matrix" and "divine love," blah, blah, blah; yatta, yatta, yatta. Here's a description of the Demartini method:

The method involves the use of a pre-determined series of questions and actions directed toward the objective of bringing an individual's conscious mind to states of presence and certainty, and to their physical body the feelings of gratitude and unconditional love.

The gist of it is that you think positive about the negative and negative about the positive and it all comes out in the wash and you can be rich and happy and live in a big house in Australia. If someone tells you your an asshole, you say: "why yes I am, thank you very much for noticing," and go on about your business. (I call this the Popeye Theory o' Life - "I am what I am.") He also talks about something that I'm going to call Fickle Feelings. That is, you can transfer your neutralized feelings from one thing to another without penalty because you are finding the positive in all things. So, when his wife died suddenly, it was okay for him to boink the young neighbor because all he was doing was transferring his positive feelings for the dead wife to this living person. No mourning necessary. How convenient for him! It's also okay to get paid enormous amounts of money by people who are miserable with their lives because money is just an exchange medium for services - all positive - and he has no attachment to it. (He isn't attached to it because he spends it all on houses in Australia and his Gold Rolls Royce, etc.) Damn! I want a method!

Although I find this guy nauseating, I did find one thing he talked about thought-worthy. If you set unrealistic goals for yourself, you will be unhappy. I think that's not to say that you shouldn't have your dreams exceed your reach but you actually have to have the (metaphorical) arms to reach with or your screwed. So I can't be a superhero with x-ray vision but I can learn to fly. (Finally, a reference to Martinis!)