Elese Coit

i'm in New York.  It's another Supercoach Academy weekend, I'm looking forward to being with the students again, and I am  greeted by beautiful sunshine and a warm spring day.  I have every reason to feel good.

As I walked around just enjoying being here, I suddenly became aware of what was going on in my head. My mind was bopping around like little bunny foo-foo scooping up everything it saw and judging, evaluating and labeling.  People got tagged anything from "weirdo" to "oh, they must be very sad..."

As I listen to my internal narration I realize ...  Simon Cowell lives in my head.  And the deeper truth is, in fact, I'm no better, kinder or more loving to people than he is. We are the same.   We are all Simon in little and big ways.  We take what we see, we decide what it means.  And we are pretty happy living like this.

As I caught myself, I marveled at this automatic impulse to interpret everything.  How my mind appears to just wander around and automatically use my eyes as the interpreters of who someone is.  Biologically speaking I suppose some impulse has taken over and it's looking for lions everywhere.  And although that might be understandable as a reason why this impulse is there - it is ridiculous. NY is a strange place and I do need to pay attention but when there is no imminent danger to me, my mind just slips into the Cowell function:  the judge.  And in this case, even on the basis of no information whatsoever - to decide who people are.

This behavior is no different when it comes love.  It wreaks intimacy, it makes assumptions about what people want and what they should do and totally kills our ability to be loved for who we are.  And even if people do love us, we can hardly let it in.  We don't know Love.  We don't know Real Love, that is, the kind without judgement or conditions, and although we are all trying to get that love from everyone all the time - we have almost no experience of offering it to others. 

So just think...everyone else is just like us.  They too have a mini-Simon Cowell, or the very least an undisciplined bunny foo-foo pulling the internal levers.  So let me get this straight: on the basis of basically zero experience of giving love in a pure form,  we want others so somehow know how to 'love us just as we are'?

I can hardly spend a few hours on the streets of NY without judging every moving creature. 

No wonder we all need love so badly.  And with so little practice at giving love, isn't it understandable why we can't find it anywhere we look?

For more on the key to unlocking real love in your life listen to my show with Greg Baer  or search by topic on the right. 

I turn my attention to the topic of love and human connection just as San Diegans are struggling with a heart-wrenching murder case. The predominant feeling is deepest sadness but in equal measure there has also been a burst of hatred and outrage. A friend of mine described how some men had gathered in what he could only find words to describe as a 'lynch mob'.

It is mind-boggling to try to make sense of why anyone would want to hurt anyone else. It's not OK. So we get angry. But as we consider this and other crimes, (including things like global warming) is that what we should get? Can you separate what needs to be done from what needs to be considered? What do you consider worthy of living and breathing space in your heart? Do I remember someone saying we should love, but ... only as long as x, y, z, ... and not 'those sinners' who are really bad?

But even considering that us normal folk who don't have the breadth of spirit or divine love required to rise above the transgressions and love regardless, as humans, do we really need to hate in order to take the action necessary to keep someone from hurting another? If someone needs to be put in prison to protect children, let's do that. The effect of letting our hearts fill with hatred as we shut the prison cell door, may be creating more than one prisoner. And more than one killer.

At the same time, I'm reminded of the students in SuperCoach Academy who, in their first weekend of training got the challenge of lifetime. To love unconditionally. One person.  Or all of New York. Whatever you could hold in your heart.

It sounds so lovely, doesn't it?  We want to think we are (and we also truly want to be) 'loving people'.  We have great investment in that idea. We like that as an image of ourselves.  But we've put less investment into the mental and heart shifts that are demanded of us when we try to open up to loving without conditions.

Friday at 10 am Pacific, is the Power of Human Connection with Jason Lee Mitchell as we explore the benefits and challenges of approaching life, ourselves and others without conditions. Unconditional love for all? If you've tried to practice it, you know it isn't easy. Most of us have never experienced it - making it all the harder to even identify what it feels like to both give and receive.

(gosh, could all of this be, perhaps, connected?)

The next week, March 19th, I talk to Greg Baer about Real Love. Don't miss this rare opportunity to experience someone who really lives what he teaches.

Loving people is not an idea, it's a verb.

And you have to conjugate it.

"If you think you can, or if you think you can't, either way, you're right." Henry Ford

We all experience the world, not as it is, but through the filter of our thoughts about it. No matter how you think of yourself, or how you have judged yourself - good news. 

Not everything you tell yourself is true.

We can stop because we started it
On the show today, It Is What You Say It is, (Jan 27) I talked about what builds the house you live in. Ever catch yourself saying "Oh, I'm not good at that"? Our opinions and beliefs build our limiting walls. I've had many clients tell me they can't manage this or that based on having never really tried it. We bust right through those to incredible new places. How? Because they are just lies.

They are lies that we install not just as our walls but also as the windows in our house. Through these lies we view the world outside: a limited place of ever decreasing possibility. It doesn't have to be this way. No matter how long ago you started, or how well practiced you are, or how scary the lie.

Luckily, you can't make a lie true, just by believing it for a long time

Love is one of the big, big areas where we make a lot of decisions about how limited our lives - and our chances! - are: there are only so many single people, only so many healthy single people, only so many not-entirely-insane single people.

Oh, we have so many fixed ideas!

But love isn't limited at all. Love is who you are and it doesn't arrive when your life partner does, or when your child hugs you, or when you complete a successful project. It is always there for you to have and depends on nothing at all. (see the show Jan 29 All You Need Is Love when I talk to John Welshons, author of One Soul, One Love, One Heart )

Greg Baer illustrated this so well in his Master Class with SuperCoach Academy this week. This is roughly the story:

So there you are sitting by the pool, enjoying the sun on your dream vacation. And someone from the pool is splashing you and splashing you, and you are getting wetter and wetter and angrier and angrier.

Then you finally move enough to look into the pool and give this person a piece of your mind, when you realize they are drowning. What would have to "happen" for you to lose you anger and get in touch with caring about them?

Nothing. Your anger is just gone in a poof, you become instantly overcome with a deep desire to help.

Love is just there, in every moment. It's a decision.

Love is just there in every moment. OK, I just said that. But...

Does that sound possible? Does that sound true? Why would you even care?
I'm reminded of an extraordinary day, a day when everyone in New York - and then around the world - suddenly became aware of the presence, the importance and the interconnectedness of us all. We were deeply moved by the preciousness of life.

What I notice when I think about 9/11 is, that day people made a choice to love, to care, to feel connected. You didn't have to. You just did. That choice is available always. Why is it important to know this? 

So you can.

Listen to the show here

The way to find out about happiness could well be to become a gazillionaire and see, but between now and then, there's lots you can do to understand what happiness is for you. The show looks at these, and you also have two archive shows with Robert Holden (on June 5th and July 24th) exploring the 10+ Keys to Happiness.  Great shows.

Meanwhile, if you'd like to explore this right now, here are some questions for you to journal on or think about:

What are the top  5 lessons on happiness your life has taught you so far?  For each one....

            How has it influenced your life?

            How well have you learned it?

And you might want to take on a practice for the week to notice

When you are at your happiest

When you feel most alive / on purpose

Let me know how you go...

I'm sure there's an answer to this question, but when did all this madness begin? Not the madness of the economy, or the madness of the markets ... but the madness of not thinking for ourselves anymore? The madness of thinking that what we think has no impact.

I've blogged on a similar topic before, about the things that come out of our mouths when they are left unattended.  Shocking.  The automatic unkindnesses, the unthinking gossip - as if we just tossed out one more teeny tiny toxic and non-biodegradable plastic bottle onto a very, very large ocean of humanity. Like it doesn't matter because it's just the one.  After all, how will the girl walking by EVER know you made fun of her hair, or compared her ass unfavorably....

I am not sure we can dissassociate what we are saying from the impact it has on the speaker.  Yes, the words leave the lips, but the feelings linger and the only one experiencing the effects is us.  Ever feel bad after cutting someone down or saying the mean thing just to be clever?

And that is just what we are willing to say other people!  Our inner talk is far less sensored and just as, if not more, damaging.  Our self- talk, or mirror talk... "I'm so fat" "I'm idiot" "I'm a pig" etc., etc., 

We are  hard on ourselves. We are hard on other people.  No one ever gets a break.  No wonder we need motivational speakers to  G-ourselves up with  'you can do it!' rhetoric.   It is like some insane cartoon routine, I smack you on the head with the hammer and then take back the hammer so I can smack myself or make sure I'm standing in the way when you smack you.

There's no reason why we can't take a moment to question the things we say and the things we think before we release them like toxic gases.  After all, we all know that poisoning the planet is the same thing as poisoning ourselves. 

It doesn't seem that far of a stretch that maybe, just maybe, it's one emotional ecosystem too? 

With all of us connected, what makes us think we'll escape the long terms effects of our own words after we are gone?   The same little voice that tells us it doesn't matter if you toss that gum wrapper on the ground?

If you feel affected by this post, give someone the gift of seeing that you and they are the same and treat 'yourself' to some loving kindness. Do it for me.