todayichooselove.com

Headline in last week’s Denver Post: “School aims to expel hate.”

There’s a new program called “No Place for Hate” designed by the
Anti-Defamation League. At its heart, it’s totally on the right track. As
are the Campaign for Non-Violence, the War on Terror, and the Fight
Against… fill in your own blank: cancer, illness, disease, obesity,
bullying, etc.

All of these programs want what we all want - a peaceful world where we
live healthy, productive, prosperous lives, and treat each other with
respect and compassion.

I WANT THAT, TOO!

However, what we just don’t get yet in our collective unconsciousness is
that we will never fully achieve those goals until we change our language.
You get what you focus on and put your energy towards. This is another
case of “don’t think about elephants.”

How can you NOT think about something if you’re using it in your language? How can you be NON or ANTI anything? It focuses all your energy on and creates a struggle against the very thing you don’t want, which by design is the very thing you end up creating more of!

Are you getting the irony here?

Our language MUST reflect what we want to move towards, NOT what we want
to get rid of.

So “No Place for Hate” becomes “The Right Place for Trust & Respect.”
The “Campaign for Non-Violence” becomes “The Campaign for Peace and
Compassion.” The “Fight Against Cancer” becomes “Creating Sustainable Health.”

The “War on Terror”… well, that’s just all bizarre in every way.

And it’s absolutely absurd to think we can “fight” for Peace!

I’m feeling a bit soap-box-ish this morning. And I’m okay with that. This
shift in our language is absolutely essential to creating the world we
want. And we have to begin NOW!!! Right now, this moment.

It’s not about choosing to make this shift in your language, then BOOM.
everything’s different and all hunky dory. It’s a moment-by-moment,
choice-by-choice process that helps you grow and evolve over time. It
takes patience and diligence to create new language patterns and habits.

As you make more and more of these shifts in your language, you’ll begin
to see different results showing up in your life. Be sure to pay attention
to those, too!

So get out there today and pay attention to the words you’re choosing. Are
you focusing on what you want to have and to be, or on what you want to
get rid of? Just begin noticing.

Okay, here’s a pet peeve popping up: the No Child Left Behind Act.

It seems as though this program continues to be evaluated for its effectiveness, and all the stories I’ve read on it say it comes up way short on accomplishing its desired outcome since its inception - high standards and accountability for the learning of all children.

I LOVE the idea of finding ways to assist all of our kids to learn and grow into healthy, socially resourceful adults. What makes me crazy is that it was doomed from the start BECAUSE OF ITS TITLE.

Try this experiment: DON’T think about elephants. No, really - DON’T THINK ABOUT ELEPHANTS! What’s happening? Are you thinking about elephants? And the more you try NOT to think about elephants, are they starting to stampede through your mind?

It’s a simple brain thing - the mind doesn’t register “don’t”, “can’t”, or “not”. It just registers what comes after it. Have you ever told a child: “Do not climb on the counter!”? Where’s the next place you found that child?

The subtle, unconscious problem with NCLB is that all the mind registers is “Child Left Behind Act.” It’s totally contradictory to what we actually want for our children.

So the obvious first step to turning our good intentions into real solutions is to change the name. What if it was called the EVERY CHILD INCLUDED ACT?

Think about the energy behind these opposing titles. What’s going on in your body when you think about “NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND?” For me, my body takes a fighting stance, fist waving in the air - quite the shadow energy of fear, defensiveness, ready to attack. This is NOT where solutions live.

Now pay attention to what’s going on in your body when you think about “EVERY CHILD INCLUDED.”

My body feels an expanding energy, a sense of community, and a belief that it’s actually possible to somehow include every child. I easily shift into possibility and solution thinking - how can we include every child?

We must be much more vigilant about how we are unconsciously sabotaging the very things we want in the world by choosing the thoughts and words that contradict what we want.

This is the way you can CHOOSE LOVE TODAY - pay attention and choose your words CAREFULLY.

In the winter issue (#21) of Shift Magazine (http://www.noetics.org/publications/magazine.cfm), a publication of the Institute of Noetic Science, there are three fascinating - and I think related - tidbits in the “Research Roundup” section.

From an Ohio State University press release (August 2998):
“We’re finding that hope is consistently associated with fewer symptoms of depression [in older adults],” says Jennifer Cheavens, assistant professor of psychology at the university. The reserachers characterized hope as “having a pathway to get what you want, and the motivation and strength to follow that path.”

From a University of California at Los Angeles press release (July 2008):
An 8-week program teaching mindfulness meditation to HIV/AIDS patients was initially found to stop the decline in CD4 T cells, the cells that are attacked by HIV. They defined mindfulness meditation as “the practice of bringing an open and receptive awareness to the present moment, instead of thinking about the past or worrying about the future.”

From Science News (October 2008):
“Our data suggests that religious belief alters the brain in a way that changes how a person responds to pain,” says Oxford neuroscientist Irene Tracey. Devout Catholics in a study reported feeling peaceful and secure, as well as thinking about compassion and other religious concepts, while viewing a picture of the Virgin Mary. They related that image as especially helpful in coping with pain.

I see that these three research projects have at least one thing in common. Hope, mindfulness, and religious and spiritual practices are all a choice, and the choice is to focus on Love and compassion rather than on fear, worry, or pain.

These studies offer more evidence to the rapidly growing body of research that supports what we already know somewhere in our collective consciousness: choosing fear is de-constructive to our health, and Choosing Love is good for us.

I’ve been waiting for this…….

There was a two and a half page insert in this morning’s Denver Post advertising romantic getaways in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

It showed the typical pictures of couples engaged in a variety of couple-type activities: couple’s hot stone massage, breakfast, visiting a museum, purchasing jewelry.

What was noticeably - and delightfully - different was that the picture of the couple laughing at breakfast was of two men, and the picture of the couple visiting a museum was two women holding hands.

So BIG KUDOS to http://www.SantaFe.org for breaking through some big media stereotypes - it’s refreshing to see. Hopefully next we’ll see blended race families in ads promoting a theme park or a cruise.

And after that? Not noticing at all because it’s no longer a novelty.

Simply put, fear is not sustainable. That’s because fear naturally deconstructs. And if you keep deconstructing anything - finances, relationships, jobs - eventually there’s not enough to hold it together, hold it up, or keep it intact.

Look at our global economic situation (it’s not been just America as a separate economic structure for a long time). Our fear around money is prompting some major deconstruction right now - we’re all feeling the impact on multiple levels.

We’re also witnessing the descent of individuals that we’ve judged as corrupt, and we readily acknowledge that corruption is built on greed. And greed, at its core, is based on fear - fear of not having enough money, prestige, influence, acknowledgment, etc.

What about relationships? When two people in any kind of a relationship are thinking, speaking and acting from fear - fear of not feeling safe, connected or valued - that relationship is destined for deconstruction. If it hangs in there for a while, it takes its toll on both parties - emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually.

On the other hand, Love is constructive. It builds and expands whatever is infused with it, and there’s no limit to the expansion.

(Remember that I might be talking about Love differently than you’re thinking right now. See the blog post http://todayichooselove.com/if-it-hurts-its-not-love)

Relationships that are based more solidly on Love than on fear are “evolutionary”: they’re safe places for people to grow and evolve more naturally and gracefully.

Money systems and companies that are based on service, community and, yes, LOVE, are not only sustainable, I believe they can experience unlimited growth, expansion, and more graceful evolution.

As we continue to deconstruct what’s been founded on fear, our best shot at making it through this turbulent time is to remember to choose Love as frequently as possible - in our thoughts, in our words and in our actions. Oversimplified? I don’t think so.

I understand that this is not such an easy task when there are so many Chicken Little’s flitting around, but I know it’s doable. Surround yourself with people who are seeing solutions, hope, and possibilities in our future, and it will be easier to reconstruct a sustainable collective mentality of choosing love - TODAY!

Ripped from the headlines in today’s Rocky Mountain News:

“Find a party … to ring out the bad news of 2008″

That headline struck me as odd. It seems to imply that if we can survive until midnight on December 31^st, then we can say, “Whew, I’m glad that year’s over!”

Why is it that we think we can only start fresh on the first day of January every year? It seems that we’re missing out on a gazillion more opportunities to begin anew.

We actually get to start over every month, every day, every hour, every minute, every second. This is what it means to me to BE in the present moment. To know, and to really understand, that every thought I think, every word I speak and every action and response I choose is a chance to start fresh.

I think there’s a danger in placing such high expectations on the “new year” to fix everything that happened over the last 365 days. The higher the expectations, the farther the potential fall into disillusionment, anger, and frustration.

What if we “rang in” every day with anticipation and celebration? What if we intentionally and deliberately sought out the lessons from yesterday and applied that new wisdom to our choices today? What if we chose to bless the past rather than try to run away from it?

What if we created the intention to “ring in” every moment as a chance to begin anew?

I think I’ll give it a try, starting…….. NOW!

It takes a lot of courage to choose Love right now. It’s so much easier to unconsciously get sucked into the anger, drama and fear that’s running rampant through our collective consciousness – make that our collective UN-consciousness. And this collective unconsciousness begins with just two people agreeing to something. Then one more, then one more, then one more. Pretty soon, we have what we often refer to as “mob mentality.”

All it took for the Cowardly Lion in “The Wizard of Oz” to lapse into his knee-knocking, tail-crumpling state of fear was to buy into the Scarecrow’s belief that there were things in the forest that you’re supposed to be afraid of. In short order the Tin Man jumped on the band wagon, then Dorothy joined the panic party. Pretty soon, they were all huddled together, skittery and nervous, afraid of every noise and movement - real or imagined - in the forest. In that mindset they were a helpless and easy target for the attack of the flying monkeys. Not a very healthy way to go through a day - or a life, for that matter.

The good news, however, is that the collective UN-conscious can shift and become more conscious and healthy – it works both ways.

When Dorothy was captured by the Wicked Witch, her timid pals decided that rescuing her was worth moving through their fears. They stepped up. They worked together. Collectively, they chose Love.

And at the end of the movie, all it took was the Wizard, or more accurately, the “man behind the curtain,” to tell them that there were new possibilities, - and voilà! - their perceptions of the world were transformed. With a mere suggestion of a new “truth” about who they were and what they were capable of, they became the embodiment of Courage, Love, Intelligence, and Hope.

Did the world around them change? No. All that changed was that each of them made a new choice; they chose to focus on what was possible rather than on their fears. They chose to focus on Love. Then their world began changing, too.

So, in the midst of all the stock stuff, the mortgage mayhem, the bail-out ballyhoo, and the political pandemonium, you actually DO have a choice.

You can choose which collective mob mentality to contribute your own energies and agreements to, thereby making it more powerful. You certainly can choose anger, drama and fear. Many of us have.

Or you can step up with the rest of us and choose Courage, and Action, and Love… OH MY!

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NOTE: Sending out Love and Thanks to my dear friend, Chet Sisk, who, in his YouTube video announcing his new program, “Welcome to Life Part II,” simply and eloquently shares this concept that it only takes two people to make a new agreement. I know it’s not really a new concept, but it resonated with me, and it made sense to recycle it here. Watch the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dT8pHnrgpLQ.

Here’s another interesting juxtaposition of news stories. On the front page of yesterday’s Rocky Mountain News business section were two main stories:

"Panic rules day on Wall Street" and "Spirited times for craft industry"

Apparently, along with the still pervasive panic and uncertainty about the stock market, it seems that Colorado’s craft spirits industry (small distilleries that specialize in handcrafting whiskey, vodka, gin, and fruit brandy) is undergoing one of the biggest growth spurts in the nation.

While my thinking naturally goes to the question of whether there’s a direct correlation, I also choose to use this as an opportunity to take the broader, mile-high view of the world. Yes, we’ve collectively created a global financial situation that will require more creativity to transition through than I can possibly wrap my brain around.

At the same time, I also choose to focus my thoughts on the signs of growth, possibility, expansion, and healthy businesses.

Choosing Love (which is the focus of this website!) in our collective situation is, to me, choosing the path of creative possibility thinking. This approach DOES NOT suggest that we all pretend that everything’s fine and dandy. We DO have some tough decisions to make, both individually and collectively.

But instead of creating more of the same panic by only focusing on the panic, and instead of spending time and energy pointing the finger and searching for someone else to blame, it seems that a more productive approach is to ask more productive questions:

What CAN we do about the situation right now?
How CAN we find our way through this financial upheaval we’ve created for ourselves?
Where can we put our attention and intention in order to get the outcomes we want?
How can we work together more collaboratively?
How can we do MORE of what’s going right?

There’s no quick fix when it comes to our collective evolution. Our best choice is to continue to put one foot in front of the other and always be open to new opportunities to choose love instead of fear.

I’ve been talking to and hearing from lots of people in my network that are all saying the same thing: this is a tough time to be sensitive to other people’s energies.

When the news hit of the major plummet of the stock market, and then the world-wide ripples began trickling – or rather gushing – around the globe, I started feeling depressed. Then, as the days went by and the market dropped lower and lower, I felt even more fatigued and dragged out.

Even though my own financial situation has been adversely affected, too, that didn’t really feel like it explained the depths of my feelings.

Then it hit me – I was “channeling” the energy of everybody around me, and around the planet. This happened after Columbine, 9/11, the hurricanes and tsunamis, too. But I was far less aware of this acute empathetic response back then.

We are all – EVERY ONE OF US – sensitive to the energy around us, even if we can’t see it, touch it, or explain it. And each one of us is aware of it to different degrees.

Regardless of our ability to articulate it, we sense it. And it affects us. The less aware we are of what’s impacting our own energy, the lower our capacity to do anything positive about it.

It’s easy to just feel the collective fear and get sucked into it – the Chicken Little response of “OMIGOD, OMIGOD, OMIGOD!” When this “virus” spreads throughout the collective energy “pool” that we’re all swimming in, it’s real easy to catch it and fall ill, adding all our own fears to the epidemic.

The other option, which requires a lot of awareness and vigilance, is LOVE. My preferred form of LOVE at this time is a belief that we humans are extremely resilient. I have faith that we will – individually and collectively – learn something from this and come through it smarter and more evolved. Even just a little bit smarter and a little more evolved is still going in the right direction.

You might hear a bit of scoffing coming out of your mouth right now, which is also coming from fear. And that’s okay. I respect whatever choices you make in response to your own situation.

If you want a little immunity boost from the latest strain of the Fear Virus, though, I’d like to prescribe large doses of creativity and possibility thinking.

My personal response comes in the form of some questions (no surprise there!):

“How can I continue to do what I’m here to do and also take care of my own financial needs?”

“Even though I may have my own fears pop up now and then, how can I keep my vibration consistently high?”

“What are my options and what CAN I do about my own financial situation?”

“How can I stay focused on Love, Faith and Hope when Fear is blustering all around me, threatening to infect my Peace of Mind?”

“How can I maintain that Peace of Mind no matter what the economic situation is?”

“What can I do today to help others feel better and more confident about their lives and their options?”

I’m feeling better than I was a week ago – more in control of my own feelings and energy and life, and less at the unconscious mercy of other people’s fear-based choices.

Here’s the bottom line for me: I’d rather use this opportunity to get smarter and to create my own future with some Love and Joy, than let this latest Fear Virus create my future for me.

In addition to my annoyance that 2 of the “3 R’s” (reading, writing, arithmetic) do not actually begin with the letter “R”, I think there’s one important “R” missing from our schools – Relationship: teaching our children how to make confident, healthy relationship and life choices.

All the emphasis placed on making sure our children know how to read, write, and do math is most definitely valid. A community, country, or world filled with people who are functionally illiterate is a scary thing. And at the same time, when these skills are in the spotlight of every debate on school reform to the predominant exclusion of teaching them how to treat each other with respect, it’s kind of like focusing just on exercises to build your biceps, and ignoring equal time to build your triceps – it creates an imbalance.

And the imbalance we’re experiencing right now is what I call a cycle of “Relationship Illiteracy.” We cannot teach our children what we haven’t learned yet. So even though they probably WANT more peace and harmony in their relationships, they just don’t know how or what to do instead. Then the only choice is to fall back on what they’ve learned from us adults. This is just as scary as functional illiteracy.

To my delight, I’m starting to see many more articles about bringing these “soft skills” into our schools; about bringing “soul” into our schools. (”Welcoming Soul to Our Schools”, Shift in Action magazine, June/August 2008) I’m jazzed to know that people out there who care about the development of our children as whole, complete people are doing the studies, gathering the statistics, and developing programs. We like the statistics. They make us feel smart. And when we feel smart, we feel safe.

Try for a moment, though, to suspend the need for statistics, data and studies and to prove what we already know in our hearts to be true:

When our students feel more confident in their relationship and life choices, they’ll feel safer, be more engaged in school, and be more proficient at learning and applying the other three “R”s. Attendance, standardized test scores and graduation rates will go up, dropout rates will go down, and the other “social ills” associated with poor performance at school will be positively impacted.

Sure sounds like a fabulous idea to me! And as I talk to more and more people about it, I’ve been greeted with unanimous and enthusiastic agreement. We just know that teaching our children how to make conscious life choices and engage in more compassionate communication is important. It feels to me like we breathe a collective sigh of relief and release just to think about the possibilities.

I also think this is one of the things I’m here to do with my Work/Calling/Mission: to Break this Cycle of Relationship Illiteracy.

I also know that this shift will happen gradually along the path of our cultural, spiritual, and emotional evolution. And, at the risk of indulging in a few worn metaphors, Rome wasn’t built in a day, every mighty oak tree begins as a small acorn, and a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

So, to Choose Love Today, I’ll keep talking about it and writing about it, reading the articles, planting the seeds, and taking the steps. And I’ll continue to be open to ways I can further define and articulate my unique contribution to our children’s growth, peace of mind, joy and happiness.

How about you?????