Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Suzuki {more}

Okay, so I have read this book (see sidebar) by Shinichi Suzuki and there were so many wonderful tidbits in it.
I will share two of them here:
These are quotations from his book.  I did not say this, Dr. Suzuki said this.
**There are many insensitive people in the world and many people think nothing of wounding the heart of another person in public.  When ugly words are said to someone, he will become angry.  If a person could feel the hurt and anger in another, he would not say such ugly words. He also quotes a musician named Leopold Stokowski as saying, "My life philosophy is not to hurt anyone, therefore not hurting my own heart."
*There are some people whose only ability is to display anger and their facial expressions always look angry. Such people may start by becoming angry only occasionally, but eventually as they scold more often, it becomes a habit to be angry. The habitually angry person is a habitual scolder and his face colors with anger at the smallest things.  What an unhappy person.
He goes on to explain how he trained himself not to become angry....usually anger was arising because of some other real emotion--nervousness, embarrassment, sadness etc.
This all struck a chord with me (pun intended we are talking about a musician here) :) ...
I do anger easily...I anger around my children frequently...hmmm...
Now, I do have a game with myself...let's see... are you being mean, mama?
why, mama?--(I am stressed, in a hurry etc)
Then I decide --I will laugh, or I will make a joke, or at least just calm down.
Dr. Suzuki made himself a sticker chart (like we do for children)

This is a good book...
I really do recommend it.

Nighty night...I am off to read my latest book --from my sister about Marie Antionette!  What a find!

1 comment:

Moore, Moore, Moore! said...

I think I need to read the Suzuki book too, you know I anger very easily and Gabriel will ask me "are you mad mommy" and I don't even realize that I must be making a mean face! I am going to request it from the library, thanks for sharing! Wish you lived closer so we could do a book club together!

Spot on!

Spot is our family's chihuahua.  He is what we call, "an evil dictator/stuffed animal come to life".  Sometimes, after he has ...