I hope to meet a man who wants to marry me and join that club. :) Check out the rest of their anniversary pictures at the Huffington Post.

A: One way that you inspire me is that you are always curious and questioning and in a state of wonder about the world. You are always growing and expanding how you create and love. I admire this about you.

If there were a recipe for how you would feel totally fulfilled and joyous in the world, what would the ingredients be?

Check out the rest of the interview at Superhero.

If there were a recipe for how you would feel totally fulfilled and joyous in the world, what would the ingredients be?

Love means to learn to look at yourself
The way one looks at distant things
For you are only one thing among many.
And whoever sees that way heals his heart,
Without knowing it, from various ills
A bird and a tree say to him: Friend.
Then he wants to use himself and things
So that they stand in the glow of ripeness.
It doesn’t matter whether he knows what he serves:
Who serves best doesn’t always understand.

Czeslaw Milosz

By Wendy Cope

At lunchtime I bought a huge orange
The size of it made us all laugh.
I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave—
They got quarters and I had a half.

And that orange it made me so happy,
As ordinary things often do
Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park
This is peace and contentment. It’s new.

The rest of the day was quite easy.
I did all my jobs on my list
And enjoyed them and had some time over.
I love you. I’m glad I exist.

Respectful of other people’s space, property, feelings, thoughts- appropriate boundaries

A willingness to work through problems and get over things

An ability to be light and playful and funny

A priority on relationships and family and friends, but mostly family, especially his girl

Knows himself, what he likes, what he doesn’t like. Is cool with that

Alpha male-ish - confident, comfortable with himself. Can get along socially in most situations. NOT trying to prove himself, comfortable just being who he is. Comfortable in his body. Comfortable with his thoughts and feelings. Does not have to go along with the crowd, but generally comfortable dealing with, hanging out with the crowd.

Wants a best friend for his partner and luvva and wife. Not into fantasies about some perfect ideal- wants a real woman. Wants to get to know me and what I think and what I feel.

Passionate. Loves kissing me and. Good kisser

Likes dancing with me. Willing to dance

Responsible- realize that he needs to work to create the life he wants- willing to do that. Has a plan. Wants to make sure he takes good care of his family. Gets that financial security is important and feeding the kids is important.

Also, wants to enjoy life and have a fun life. Willing to do what he needs to do to have that balance. Including not necessarily having the newest car, or the fanciest house. Takes responsibility for enjoying life and making the effort to do things he really enjoys.

Has made peace with the facts of life like age, death, change… that’s a big one to ask for… has relatively made peace with life. Is happy to be where he’s at in life. WANTS the things that come with the stage of life he is in. Is ready to enjoy where he’s at.

Really wants a family or at least is willing to have kids if I want them and when he has them, is in love with them and enjoys them. Kisses them, hugs them. Plays with them. Adores them. Is responsible. Takes care of their safety, like driving safely and noticing if they are sick.

Can do things, make things, figure things out like packing for a camping trip, or making dinner, or chopping wood for a fire. Is a can do, problem solver type of guy.

Is interested in things. Enjoys how interested in things I get. Enjoys my enthusiasms.

Is generous in his assessments of people, especially of me! It’s so nice to have someone interpret my actions generously.

Wants to get married and have a family- wants that in his life and knows why he wants that

Just generally knows what he wants.

Thinks I am hilarious.

We can have fun just shopping together, or hanging out at home, or cooking dinner together.

Occasionally does the wild romantic thing, although it doesn’t necessarily have to look romantic to others, but it is romantic to us.

He’s just a really, really decent guy, and he knows what he wants, and he’s willing to work to get what he wants, and one of the most important things he wants is to be with me.

—-
Ok, I want most of these qualities for myself too. I have some of them, but I’m still working on knowing exactly what I want (thus the list!), and as much as I want real love and a family, I AM afraid to commit. It’s scary to me! So, I need to work on this stuff, but this is the kind of guy I want, or someone who is close to it who is willing to be brave and is growing into this type of man. I’m being brave..
—-
Ummm.. if you know man like this WHO IS NOT TAKEN, (no funny business) please write to me.

I can give you the simplest of all possible rules of thumb:

Any time a voice is talking to you that is not talking with love and compassion, DON’T BELIEVE IT!

Even if it’s talking about someone else, don’t believe it.

I’ve been experimenting with applying this and I think my head is becoming a happier place to be.

All I do is this:

If I notice a thought that is not compassionate, I say to myself, “You can think that, but I don’t have to believe it.” Its very freeing and the interesting thing is, often, when I say I don’t have to believe it, it’s not just an exercise, I find that I really don’t believe it!

Example: I was walking with a friend. She asked a couple if they knew what time it was. They didn’t look down at their wrists, the woman just looked at my friend, laughed and said, in what I thought was a snotty voice “NO.” “Bitch.” I thought. “You can say she’s a bitch, but I don’t have to believe it.” I said back to myself. I relaxed, the indignance went away. I realized, I don’t think she’s a bitch. She’s just a person.

When I write that out, it sounds simplistic to me. I mean, I can imagine arguing with that, “Yeah, maybe someone acting in what you thought was a snotty way in one moment in time doesn’t need to have the overall label of “bitch” applied to her, but there are evil people in the world.” Oh wow, my mind has really gotten into this habit, “You can think that, but I don’t have to believe it.” It says right back.

And you know, once again, I think that voice is right. There are just people. We all have dark sides to us. We all have deep angers, deep fears. Who knows what we would do in certain circumstances? Some people, it’s true, have a pattern of actions that does not make them safe to be around. I want them locked away until they can act in a manner that does not harm others. But I don’t want them to be tortured or hurt. I hope the best for them. I know we can all act darkly and I’ve had a different life, and different choices that have led me to not want to hurt people.

I have a lot of thoughts that aren’t the most compassionate on the planet about myself as well:

I want to go out and have fun. “No one is going to like you until you lose weight, so, lose weight and then go meet people.” “You can think that, but I don’t have to believe it.” says me right back to myself.

Wow, when I don’t believe that, guess how much enthusiasm to go out and do something fun suddenly bubbles up? In the past few days, I’ve gone from wondering how to meet people to having a flood of old interests come back into my brain. Suddenly there are so many things I want to do. So many ways to have really interesting and wholesome fun all around me. “You better lose weight first, get yourself together first, look perfect first…” “You can go ahead and think that, but I don’t have to believe it.” Says the girl who went salsa dancing last night and had a great time, says me right back to me.

Sunny Road by Emiliana Torrini

Wrote you this
I hope you got it safe
It’s been so long
I don’t know what to say
I’ve travelled ’round
Through deserts on my horse
But jokes aside
I wanna come back home
You know that night
I said i had to go
You said you’d meet me
On the sunny road

It’s time, meet me on the sunny road
it’s time, meet me on the sunny road

I never married
Never had those kids
I loved too many
Now heaven’s closed its gates.
I know I’m bad
To jump on you like this
Some things don’t change
My middle name’s still ‘Risk’
I know that night
So long long time ago
Will you still meet me
On the sunny road

It’s time, meet me on the sunny road
It’s time, meet me on the sunny road

Well, this is it
I’m running out of space
Here is my address
And number just in case.
This time as one
We’ll find which way to go
Now come and meet me
On the sunny road

This year I was rooting for Chelsea because I thought they had the strongest connection. I got a sinking feeling when he was at his parent’s house and they asked him who he felt more comfortable with, “Shayne” he said. Then he said he felt more passion for Chelsea. Damn. You know what that means. He chickened out. Chelsea said it as she rode away in the limo, “He’s a fool.”

I’m not saying this because I like Chelsea better. Shayne would be in the exact same situation with someone else. I’m not talking about either women. I’m talking about Matt being a wimp.

Playing it safe has not been a winning strategy for these men. Shannon Gossage writes:

Out of 11 seasons of The Bachelor only season 6’s Byron Velvick and Mary Delgado are still together. Reportedly a marriage is planned for sometime in the future. And out of three season’s of The Bachelorette only Trista Rehn and Ryan Sutter are happily married. Rehn was a cast-off from the first season of The Bachelor. Rehn and Sutter welcomed their first child – Maxwell Alston – in July 2007.

Trista, from the Bachelorette stepped it up. She was choosing between Charlie and Ryan. Charlie was handsome, charming, had a great job. Ryan was introverted, also quite handsome, and was a fireman. She had more chemistry with Ryan and she went ahead and chose him. They are the one couple that has gotten married! Is there a lesson here? (No, “choose the fireman” is not the lesson.)

Matt seems like a committed kind of guy, maybe he and Shayne will make it work. Maybe I was reading it wrong and he really has a lot of chemistry with Shayne and they are the best together. They certainly seem like they could have fun together. I wish everyone involved in the show, and every one in the world, true love and a best friend.

Whatever happens with Matt and Shayne, I want to emphasize this:

Don’t be fools, any men who happen to be reading this. Don’t be cowards. Be a MAN, for goodness sake. Pick the person who could really hurt you.

More Gossip about people we don’t even know:

• Mandi Bierly at Pop Watch thought he was going to pick Chelsea too. Right up until the visit with his parents.
• Noelle who was one of the last four women on this season of the Bachelor talks about her experience.
• People who are WAY more into and knowledgable about this show than I am talk about Chelsea on The Bachelor. They had it figured out a long time ago just based on the way the women were edited on the show. I guess there is a typical pattern for editing the participants, which leads me to believe that I have no idea what really went on between the people on the show. I am not watching this stupid show anymore.

Where are they now:

• A conference call after the show with Matt and Shayne.
• Shayne poses for the cover of Girls Gone Wild.
• I don’t know what Chelsea is doing.

At times I’m reminded of the universes I used to live in and I’m sooo glad I live in a better universe now. But I vaguely sense even better universes that I want to live in, and I clearly long for much that I don’t have now. I feel very lucky to be where I am, but I want more and I want to be more! I want to be more skilled at living a rich and full and kind life. I especially want to be more skilled at loving people, and taking care of myself, and richly appreciating and connecting with people, and having fun.

I have discovered in my life, and so can attest, that building skills can significantly increase the quality of a person’s life.

One way I built skills several years ago was by taking NLP training from Anchor Point. I want to take more NLP training, and get guidance from someone kind, wise, and skilled in NLP. Here are a couple videos I saw online while I was surfing for NLP training:

A strategy for thinking about information that is presented in the context of a serious health problem:

Perception vrs Conception. He is talking about “sensory acuity” which is training yourself to really notice all kinds of external sensations. (Rather than just being in your head.) This video is an example of the clear ways of framing experience that were taught in NLP. My brain felt more clear after taking the training.

For those interested in NLP training

Caveat emptor: So much of what has been **learned in NLP has been incorporated into our disciplines about learning, performance, and therapy, but I don’t think NLP is the holy grail or anything. I am a thoroughly post modern chick taking everything with a grain of salt. I did find it very enlightening and effective though.

Here is a guide to selecting good training. (I thought the training at Anchor Point was excellent, but I’m not sure if they have a current training program.)

*I think it’s interesting how much variety, even within cultures, is in people’s experiences of life. It’s like we move in different universes, near each other, but without being able to fully sense or comprehend the worlds of those near us. We move in circles that have specific ways of communicating and looking at the world. I think there is a lot of variety even in circles very geographically near to us.

(And if you are having a very unpleasant experience of life, I feel fairly safe in saying that there is a better world somewhere nearby. I think physically moving to a new location can be useful and choosing kinder and more fun people is useful. I also think that increasing your own skills will automatically put you in a new universe; like being in another dimension. Sometimes, with new skills, you will be able to perceive the better world that is right where you are. I mean this in a completely practical and non-spiritual way, although it does feel pretty amazing.)

**NLP is a body of knowledge and it is also a methodology, called modeling, which is used for gaining knowledge.

But then comes this one redeeming week. So, The Bachelor, for the wise uninitiated, is this show where they take one guy and 25 women and week after week he whittles down the women from twenty five to one. Da, da, da! You can see how it is just the worst version of the Cinderella story ever. Why do I watch this crap?!

Oh yeah, this week. So, this week, he is down to four women and he gets to visit their families. I should really just watch “The Hometown visit” episodes. I guess what I like about these visits is that their families are always so important to the people. So, during the earlier shows, you see a lot of posing, a la high school, but when people go home, you can really see them being genuine and genuinely caring about their families. Also, their families usually look and act like normal people which is rare to see on TV. I just find it touching.

So, although I DON’T recommend the Bachelor. I do recommend this week’s home town date episode!! Look at the cute families! See how the one dad says that he married his best friend and that’s the best you can do. CUTE!

I want to find me my best friend. (said in a Colorada accent) Where are you best friend? I promise I won’t make you watch the Bachelor with me.

The Bachelor, episode 6. (Skip the earlier ones. They might make you hurl.)