Many of you who have heard me speak will know the story of my Mum and her zoots! For those who have not…zoots began in 1994 when my step dad passed away. A devoted couple, he had been ill with cancer for five years and finally succumbed. They lived on his 5,000 acre ranch in the middle of the outback in Australia for 17 years (and my step dad had been there even longer)! My mother was devastated and two weeks after his death, added anger to depression when one of my step brothers who inherited the property decided to sell it and asked her when she planned to move?!?!
What most people don't know is, anger and hostility are the #1 predictors of heart attack in humans. It's not stress! We MUST get rid of anger and hostility no matter who or what has caused it - we must. If we hang onto that stuff, it festers and makes our hearts hard (literally) and clogs up our arteries. The antidote to anger is forgiveness and science shows us that when we send loving thoughts to someone, we not only boost the strength of our immune systems - we boost the strength of THEIR immune systems, as well! After all, "forgiving" stands for "for-giving!" If we are going to forgive someone we need to send them love.
Well, by now I know that if we don't help Mum SHE will get cancer because it's not at a period of intense stress that people get sick - it's 18-24 months AFTER the period of intense stress that people are diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, cancer, heart attack or something else nasty. We must deal with the stress WHILE it is happening! If we don't, it's as if a seed gets planted and over the months roots and branches grow, and then blam…the disease is there. It appears sudden, but it's actually not.
Desperate to find out how to help Mum knowing what I knew, I had the fortune to meet Paul Pearsall, a heart transplant expert, who he taught me about sending love and what it does. Excited that I had found the answer, I raced home to Mum who was staying with me and said I had found the secret! She (being used to me) said "What secret?" I said she just had to send love. And she said "What do you mean 'send love'?" I replied "I don't know!" (Because I didn't!)
We didn't talk about it any more and two weeks later it was time to take her to the airport so she could go home. When I arrived home, I found a note she left on my pillow in which she wrote what a wonderful daughter I was and of times we had together and how much she loved me. By the time I finished reading it, I was a blubbering mess thinking "I love Mum so much" (and how awful of me to feel a bit glad I no longer had a house guest!!!). At the very bottom of her wonderful note, she had drawn a great big heart on one side and a great big heart on the other side, and a whole lot of little hearts in between. That was my Mum's way of sending me love and each little heart had the word "zoot" written beside it!
I have now taught this technique to hundreds of thousands of people. And hopefully they have taught their families and used the technique to improve relationships at work, too. I have heaps of stories from audience members telling me of how they used them at home or at work and the positive changes that followed.
Please zoot your loved ones and your children! And touch them just above the heart as you start with your heart and say "zoot zoot zoot" as you make an arch from your heart to theirs! And you can zoot your colleagues and clients, too! (Silently is probably better - or they might think you're a bit weird!) But I promise, it changes the dynamics of the relationship if you are sincere with your zoots! And you can be creative with it, too. One day, Michele who works in our office sent me an email and wrote "Have a zootiful day!'" at the bottom. And I thought - brilliant! If we all had zootiful days, how much better the world would be because it would remind us to use love in everything we do. If we would zoot instead of judge, imagine the impact we could have on the world! If in times of arguing or at tense moments with one another, we could get out of our heads and into our hearts and imagine little zoots flying through the air from our heart to theirs, anger and hostility would fizzle! Now for you skeptics out there who are thinking "She's being a space cadet again," just try it before you judge it. It works!
My mother left many great legacies from her 81 years on earth and now I see her sending us one from the heavenly place she's in. She's teaching us all how to have zootiful days! As soon as you have finished reading this article, think of someone who needs your zoots. And send them. And when you go home tonight, zoot your partner, family, friends or children. When they say "What are you doing?!" you can answer "I'm sending love from my heart to yours'." And just see what happens when you try to live zootifully on purpose!!!
