Talking to God About Love

Here’s what happened: I’m in the back of a cab, on my way from San Diego airport to Encinitas. It’s early morning. I’ve just flown in from San Francisco where I was appearing the night before on KQED for my PBS show Shift Happens! I’m feeling tired. I’m looking forward to taking a shower. I haven’t done my morning meditation yet. So, I decide to speak to God.

I said, “Hey God, let’s talk about love.”

God said, “I’d love a peanut butter smoothie.”

I said, “Love is the greatest thing.”

“The only thing,” said God.

“I need to remember that more,” I said.

“I can help you with that,” said God.

“Thank you,” I said.

“I like my peanut butter smoothie made with  Soya milk,” said God.

“I love that I can talk to you about everything  God,” I said.

“You are always talking to me, even when you  are only talking to yourself,” said God.

“Wow,” I said.

“And when I’m talking to you, it’s really you who is doing the talking,” said God.

“That must be why we both like peanut butter smoothies,” I said.

“Made with Soya milk,” said God.

“We’re really just the same thing,” I said.

“The only thing,” said God.

“One love,” I said.

“One love,” said God.

Falling in Love

Happy Valentines Day to you.  Today is a good day to pay attention to your relationship to love, and to commit to being the most loving person you can be.  Make it your intention today to love everyone.  Allow yourself to let love in today.  Don’t leave yourself out.  Loves excludes no one, after all.  To mark this occasion, here is a poem, Falling in Love, which I put inside a card for Hollie this morning. 

You can fall in love with the same person
for the first time at least ten thousand
times, if you play it right.
And that’s just in the
beginning.

After that, you can fall in love with each
other more times than you can count.
And each time it will feel more like
love than before.

Eventually, you will fall in love together
as often as you want.
And even more than that, because
you won’t have a choice
about it.

The last time you fall in love will
be when you finally let love do
away with you and me and him
and her and all of us.

In the end, only love remains.

Ha! It was love falling in love
with love all along.

New Beginnings

It’s nearly 6pm on New Year’s Eve. Hollie, Bo, Christopher and I have just finished our last supper of 2012. Hollie has taken the children upstairs for a bath before bedtime. I’m cleaning up in the kitchen (or I will after I’ve written this blog). The house is full of stillness. It feels like there’s an angel in the house. The stillness fells the same as the pause that happens between each exhalation and inhalation. It’s like the whole world is taking a deep breath. We are all breathing out, and letting go. We are all breathing in, and getting ready.

At 10am, Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), the New Year celebrations begin. The people of Christmas Island and Samoa send out a wave across the planet. At 11am (GMT), the people of New Zealand catch the wave, and they then pass it on. After that, for every hour, on the hour, another country in another time zone, rides the wave. Celebrations happen all over the world: fireworks light up the sky, people kiss and hug, crowds cheer in the New Year. This is a time for remembrance and celebration, honouring the passing of what was, and welcoming in the new.

Now is a time for new beginnings. It’s a time to remember what is important, and to commit again to what is real and true. And so I like to make time in the first days of a new year to think about what a new beginning really means for me. One way I do this is to take a blank piece of paper – a perfect symbol for a new beginning – and at the top of the paper I write a sentence like “A new beginning means to me . . . “ I then complete the sentence a few times, watching for the responses that feel most meaningful and true.

Here are some highlights from my inquiry so far: A new beginning means to me . . .

• Committing to my daily spiritual practice.
• Doing my daily “A Course in Miracles” lessons.
• Saying “Yes” to God’s Will.
• Listening to my heart more.
• Being a loving husband.
• Writing more poetry.
• Being a loving father.
• Writing my parenting journal.
• Learning to juggle.
• Committing to my daily yoga.
• Being a loving son.
• Letting go of all grievances.
• Looking after my physical health.
• Being a loving brother.
• Playing my guitar more.
• Being a more loving friend.
• Cooking new, fabulous, healthy recipes.
• Playing more golf than in 2012.
• Being a more loving person.

I wish you a happy new year, full of new beginnings.

Be Happy – An 8-Day Happiness Program

I have created for Oprah.com an eight-day mini-version of the Be Happy program. I have selected eight exercises for you, one for each day, to be completed over eight consecutive days.  I recommend that you give each exercise at least 15 minutes a day.  If possible do this program with a buddy, as this will give you a chance to get into some rich conversations and also offer you extra support.

Here is Day One for you:  Click HERE to see the entire course on Oprah.com

Day 1:  Defining True Happiness
What is your definition of a happy life?  Are you living it?  Do you remember to include yourself in your definition?  Think carefully on this because your definition of happiness will influence every other significant decision in your life.  For instance, if you think happiness is outside you, you will turn happiness into a search, a pursuit, or a destination; whereas if you know happiness is inside you then happiness becomes a compass, a guide, and an enabler that helps you to live a rich life.

Be Happy Exercise:  There is a world of difference between searching for happiness and following your joy.  Your first assignment is to reflect on the question “When am I at my happiest?” Identify what inspires you, nourishes you, and fans the flames of joy within.  Being clear about this will help you to be true to yourself, to be honest, to make better choices, and to have the courage to say a big YES to what really matters most to you in life.  Say “YES” to joy today.

Being a Leader

For the last two years the Success Intelligence team has been running a leadership program for 1,000 people. Today, Ben Renshaw and I are facilitating our sixth event for these leaders. Leadership is evolving now. One of the key messages of our program is: leadership is no longer the prerogative of a few; it is the responsibility of us all. 
 

Some people switch off when they see the word “Leadership”. And yet, real leadership is relevant to everyone. In essence, leadership isn’t just about titles, positions, pay grades, and a job of work; it’s much more interesting than that. Leadership is about how you show up; living from your heart; and allowing yourself to be inspired. Leadership is what helps you to “take a lead” in your life so as to create a life you want to live. Here are three more thoughts for your consideration:

1. Success is being yourself: How you show up – in your relationships, in your conversations, in your work, in your life – has a tangible influence on how you experience things. How do you feel about the idea that success is being yourself? The law of attraction begins with an understanding that you attract what you are being. Daring to be yourself is the key to attracting great things in your life. 

2. Success is being the goal: Leadership begins with an awareness that the world is an effect; not just a cause. The world would not be the way it is, if we were not being the way we are. “Being the goal” means you have to be what you want. For example, if you want more love, be more loving; if you want deeper friendships; commit to being even more of a friend. Whatever you want, be it.

3. Success is being even more of who you are: What you bring to a situation is what you are experiencing. If you think something is missing in a specific situation (a relationship, a conversation, a conflict) – it might be you. To attract more of what you truly want you have to be willing to be even more of who you really are. Where, when and with whom could you apply this principle in your life?

Being Available

I’m sitting on a plane. Seat 11D. Up above the clouds. Over the Atlantic somewhere. I’m going to the I CAN DO IT Conference in Atlanta. I feel sad to have left my family for the weekend, but I’m also happy to be participating in another wonderful Hay House event. I’m experiencing one of those poignant moments in which I sense a beautiful orchestration to our lives. As Hafiz says, “This place where you are right now God circled on a map for you.” So I say “Yes” to this wonderful journey. I say “Yes’ to this life. And I say “Yes” to making myself available to all good things.

When you make yourself available to inspiration,

inspiration makes itself available to you.

When you make yourself available to joy,

joy makes itself available to you.

When you make yourself available to peace,

peace makes itself available to you.

When you make yourself available to love,

love makes itself available to you.

When you make yourself available to your spirit,

your Spirit makes itself available to you.

When you make yourself available to God,

God makes God available to you.

When you make yourself available to Heaven,

Heaven makes Heaven available to you.

Becoming a Dad

Today our daughter Bo is five years old. Bo has been nearly five for a whole year now, so we are all super excited. Being a child is such a big adventure, and so too is being a parent. Below is a rough draft of a poem I wrote, called Becoming a Dad. Some poems are born all at once, and others become poems over time, just like children and parents become themselves over time.

You don’t just become a dad

once.

It happens many times over with

the same child.

When your child is born, you

become a dad.

And when you take your child home

for the first time, you really

become a dad.

When you rock your baby to sleep

in the early a.m. hours, you

become a dad.

When there is no one else to clean

up the sick, you really

become a dad.

And when she smiles at you,

not just with her lips, but with her

eyes and her heart, you are

anointed and blessed and you

become a dad.

Across the years, in every moment

that passes, you become a dad,

and you are given a chance to be

who you really are.

One day, as you sit there, waiting

for a business meeting to begin,

or something, it hits you. Really

hits you. Between the eyes. “I

am a dad.”

A real dad.

And as you smile to yourself, your

heart takes off, like a big balloon,

floating high into the sky.