Hello everyone!
I am so, so sorry for being out of touch for so long! I AM NOT DEAD!!! LOL. Nor have I vaporised into the cosmos.
But I have been extraordinarily distracted by so many things while time itself seems to be vaporising. Most people I know are saying the same thing: time is flying by, we are working hard, yet somehow it feels like we are achieving less. Have any of you been feeling that too?
Apart from renewing my visa, spending six weeks in Australia as part of that process, moving to Dallas, finding a place to live, and settling back into life, I also caught a virus and lost both my voice and my hearing for six weeks - which was horrible. And a little inconvenient for a speaker!
But it did give me a much greater appreciation for anyone who is hearing impaired. I was also fascinated to discover that if you indicate to someone that you have lost your voice, they automatically whisper back to you! LOL. Since I couldn't hear either, life became quite an isolating experience for a couple of months.
But this week, for the first time in ages, I felt like myself again. And I realized how deeply grateful I am for every speaking event I get to do.
I had a wonderful experience in Fargo, North Dakota, where the people are AMAZING. I had the blessing of speaking to a group of wonderful dental practices, sponsored by some equally wonderful orthodontists with names like Go Ortho and Molar Bears. I mean honestly - I want a dental practice with a sense of humor like that!
I was sharing my new work around JQ - Joy Intelligence - the next evolution of leadership and life - and the practical tool that helps increase our JQ: The Joy Switch. The method is F.A.R.C. It is simple, practical, and focused on what I believe is one of the most important choices we make, every moment of every day:
Do I choose love, or do I choose fear/judgment?
Because judgment always - always - comes from fear, the real choice is this:
Do I choose fear, or do I choose love?
At the start of this year, I set myself a goal to learn how to surrender - which, for someone who is VERY good at control, has been quite a challenge!
Part of that practice was to notice how much I judged - people, situations, experiences, everything - and to stop doing it, because I really have no idea what is going on for anyone else, or what deeper reasons lie behind what is happening.
That journey has been enlightening and disturbing all at once.
I had no idea how much I judged. All the time. Everything.
It was incredibly humbling.
Ever since I first started speaking, I have focused on connecting head to heart. In fact, my first business was called Head2Heart. Fear and judgment live in the head. Love lives in the heart. It grows there, and then expands out to everyone around us.
So the first half of my career was about making that connection. The second half was about eradicating fear. Little did I realize all of it was preparing me for the simplest expression of the last 38 years of study.
Because here is what I have come to believe:
Most of us are not actually conscious of the choices we are making. Epigenetics shows us that it's 95-99% of the time we are literally unconscious of our thinking!
We are making choices every minute of every day - yet so many of them are automatic. And once I started truly paying attention, I realized how many of my own choices were being driven by fear.
My terrified toddler had been ruling my life.
Maybe yours has been too.
So this is really what I want to share with you:
Start noticing.
Notice what goes on in your head. Notice how often you judge. Notice what you are choosing, moment to moment.
Because once you become aware of fear and judgment, you can bring them into consciousness - and then you can make a different choice.
You can choose love.
I was astonished to realize how much I judged absolutely everything while simply walking down the street.
What if, instead, we chose to see the divinity in everything?
What if we chose to love it?
And most importantly - what if we chose to love ourselves? (It's the most important thing in life!)
How often do you judge yourself?
How often do you give yourself love?
How often do you acknowledge the Divine spark in you - that IS you?
Something that may help comes from a gift my mother gave me years ago.
My mum and stepdad were married for 25 years, and when he passed away she was devastated. She came to stay with me for about six weeks. I loved my mother dearly and truly wanted to support her. And when it was finally time for her to leave, I am slightly ashamed to admit I felt a little relieved.
When I got home from dropping her at the airport, I found a note she had left on my pillow. In it, she told me how much she loved me, all the special moments she remembered us sharing, and what a wonderful daughter I was. By the time I finished reading it, I was sobbing - overwhelmed by how lucky I was to have her as my mother, and also feeling terrible that I had been glad she had left!
At the bottom of the note, she had drawn a big heart on one side, a big heart on the other, and a whole lot of little hearts in between.
That was her way of sending me love.
Those little hearts became our symbol of love. At the end of every card, letter, and email, we would write: zoot, zoot, zoot.
Each little heart was a zoot.
Since then, I have taught this concept to hundreds of thousands of people, and it has become a tradition in thousands of families across generations.
Back to that beautiful group in Fargo - there was a very creative bunch at one table, and when I said, “Send zoots from one person to the one on either side of you,” their imaginations took off and they created a zoot train.
I loved it.
We had everyone do it, and it completely changed the energy and dynamics of the event. I am so grateful to them.
Normally it would have taken me ages to create an image of that, but thanks to ChatGPT, it took minutes. And I thought you might like to have the image - and the mantra - for the rest of your lives.
Print it out. Put it on your fridge, your computer, your car, your mirror - anywhere that will remind you to:
Consciously choose love.
Not occasionally. Not when it is easy.
All the time.
Watch your world change as you emanate love - because that is what and who you really are.
You were born as a little bundle of love.
Your essence is love.
You are love.
Babies are not born terrified and evil. Our first seven years are when we begin telling ourselves the stories that create fear - and fear becomes the basis of judgment, which we use to protect ourselves. Those stories make us forget who we really are.
So let this newsletter be your reminder:
You are love.
Your purpose is to emanate love.
And you are deeply loved.
Choose love over fear and judgment.
Notice what you are thinking.
Notice what you are choosing.
And then - choose consciously.
Zoot, zoot, zoot. From my heart to yours!
PS. I will share more about the full F.A.R.C. process next time. Stay tuned!
PPS. Share this with as many people as you can so we can create a zooties movement!
