2010: Begin Again – Seven Success Accelerators

Thrills, chills and spills! The Olympics delivers it all and keeps us on the edge of our seats in the process. We yell, scream and cheer for our favourites. Crowds jump up to applaud fantastic feats carried out on snow and ice. We rejoice over the incredible accomplishments for others. Wouldn’t it be amazing to feel the same way about our own lives?

What’s that you say? There’s nothing happening in your day-to-day existence that warrants such accolades? I know what you mean. Sometimes it can feel like we’re just going through the motions. But what if there was a way to get fired up about our accomplishments and start to see greater levels of success in life? What if there were Seven Success Accelerators? Oh, wait a moment! There are!

Andrew Barber-Starkey, a Master Certified Coach and president and creator of the ProCoach Success System, shared the magnificent seven with an enthusiastic group at the Geomatic Attic in Lethbridge on Saturday.

Andrew is a fascinating guy who practices what he preaches. When he shares about his life, you know he’s speaking about personal success from experience. A former hang-gliding dude, Andrew was once among the top gliders in the world. He’s taken a glider up to 19,000 feet and was the first person to fly across the Rockies from B.C. to Lake Louise, Alberta. Now he’s an extremely successful business coach, having started in the field in the early 1990s.

On Saturday, Andrew captivated and inspired us with The Seven Success Accelerators™.

1. Prioritize Your Actions: Identify the priorities that will advance you towards your goals. Focus on the 20% of things that will give you 80% of your results. Do them first!

Andrew notes that all work is not created equal. Remember the 80-20 rule – 20% of your efforts will yield 80% of your results. You don’t need to work harder, you need to focus more strongly and get more results from the time you invest.

Success hint: Before bed each night, identify the three most important things you need to accomplish the next day. Write them down. Focus on completing them and check them off as you go. Don’t beat yourself up if you don’t get them all done. Refocus for the following day.


2. Focus on the Next Step: You do not need to know exactly where you are going. Simply choose one next step that will move you forward and take action on it. All goals – no matter how large – are accomplished one small step at a time.
Having goals is obviously important, but you don’t need to know exactly where you’re going in order to get there. Andrew used the example of a mountain climber who arrives a base camp to discover the peak is fogged in. What does he do? He can’t see the ultimate goal, but he knows he want to go up, so he starts the climb and adjusts along the way.

Without taking action, we can risk basking in the golden dream. “I can’t wait until I’m financially free.” That’s great. But if it’s what you want, what are the steps you need to take? Identify them, even if they’re small, and start moving forward.

Success hint: List 10 things that are part of what you want to achieve and where you want to be, and then start moving towards them.

3. Cleanups, Completions and Deletions: The fastest way to energize yourself is to clean up the clutter, messes and incompletions that surround you. They sap your energy, keep you stuck and limit your freedom.

I can really relate to this one. How many times have you started something and then didn’t finish it? Andrew drew a number of circles or loops, open at the top, to represent those things in our lives that need to be cleaned up, completed or deleted. Left open, they drain our energy. Close the loop and you’ll feel energized. When it comes to clutter, what are you holding onto and why? Clutter is like a ball and chain holding you back.

Success hint: Realize there is no right and wrong when it comes to clutter. Different people are affected differently. Explore your own energy level. For some people, it’s OK to have what for others would be clutter. That’s why in marriages you’ll see fighting over things like clutter. If you’re the one bothered by it, realize it’s not right or wrong, it just impacts people differently and maybe you need to eliminate the clutter if you feel drained by it. It can help if you remember what Mom always told you; put your stuff away when you are done with it!

4. Expand Your Comfort Zone: Successful people move forward in the face of fear; unsuccessful people procrastinate and avoid things they fear. When you feel fear or resistance, find your courage and step towards it instead of holding back.

Picture a simple box drawn on a sheet of paper. Fill it with circles of different sizes. Andrew used this to demonstrate the Comfort Zone. We need to realize that everything we have exists within our Comfort Zone. Surround the box with X’s of different sizes. These are the things we want but don’t have. They all exist outside our Comfort Zone. If you really want them, you need to expand the size of Comfort Zone. Becoming familiar with getting outside the CZ will lead you forward. The further outside your CZ you go, the greater success you will experience.

Success hint: Always ask yourself, “How can I consistently step outside my Comfort Zone?” This is what changes you.

5. Do What’s Hard: When you do what’s hard, life become easy; when you do what’s easy your life very quickly becomes hard. Every time you have a choice to make ask yourself, “What serves my greater vision?”

Have you ever heard the expression, ‘fake it until you make it’? Andrew warns that can be counterproductive. In your mind you know you’re faking it and that can undermine your confidence. There is a real method you can practice to increase your self-confidence. Andrew shared an idea he heard expressed by Dr. Laura! Yes, that one. I guess you never know where wisdom will be found. Dr. Laura had the usual caller whining and complaining about how rotten her life was. Dr. Laura told her she needed to build her self-confidence. The caller then asked the all-important question, how can I build my self-confidence? The answer from Dr. Laura consisted of two words. How do you build self-confidence? Impress yourself! If you can impress yourself, you will find more about you that instills confidence.

Success hint: Whenever you are faced with a decision, ask yourself, “How could I handle this in a way that would impress myself?” Here’s an affirmation to repeat each day: “I make a habit of doing what’s hard.”

6. Celebrate Progress: Celebrating your successes adds fuel to your fire. Each time you acknowledge your progress your momentum increases and over time you become unstoppable. Find the win in everything that happens.

Sometimes we can set a goal, not achieve it, and then beat ourselves up over our perceived failure. As an example, Andrew imagined a self-employed individual who earns $40,000 a year. They set an ambitious goal to double that in the coming year and earn $80,000. Their actual result sees them earn $68,000. They get down on themselves because they are measuring the shortfall from the goal and not the progress from where they started. Focus on the progress, not the shortfall, and you’ll boost your confidence. By celebrating the small successes, we feed the fire and build to larger successes.

Success hint: To feed the fire, identify the successes you experience each day. For me, I’m going to start noting three successes each day when journaling.

7. Become a Learner: Seek out new lessons and skills. The more knowledgeable and capable you are, the more successful you will become. All highly successful people are experts in their chose field.

There are two areas to focus on when building your own business or career. These are increasing your technology knowledge and working on your own mind. Achieving success in these areas can be accomplished in three areas of study:
• Become a master of your own profession. When you know what you’re talking about, you have greater confidence and your clients or those you work with will have greater confidence in you.
• Skills and Knowledge. Things you should focus on in business include sales skills, communications, public speaking, information technology and negotiating skills. Strong negotiation skills can be the fastest way to put more money in your pocket. My own plug: If you want to increase you skills in all of these areas, check out a local Toastmasters club. There are six in this area operating at different times of the day. Of course, I’m partial to the Eyeopener Club, which meets Wednesdays, 7 a.m. at Legacy Tae Kwon Do, 1236 3 Avenue South, Lethbridge. The coffee is always on and muffins are available.
• Success Principles. This involves focusing on who you are, not what you do.

Success hint: Hiring a life coach or business coach can help you stay focused on learning and growing. Consider it a smart investment in your business. Talk to people who have employed a coach and see what a difference it can make. You can also look for a mentor, someone with success who likes to help others win. Mentors supply advice for free, but you need to do your part. If you’re not committed to taking advice and implementing it, then following up with your mentor, don’t even bother the potential mentor. Another option is to create a mastermind group.

The idea of the mastermind has been around for a long time, but may have actually been formally described by Napoleon Hill in his great book, "Think And Grow Rich," In that book he described a mastermind group as:

"The coordination of knowledge and effort of two or more people, who work toward a definite purpose, in the spirit of harmony."

The result: "No two minds ever come together without thereby creating a third, invisible intangible force, which may be likened to a third mind [the master mind]."

It was a terrific seminar and I’m hoping Andrew will return to Lethbridge with more teachings in the future. But you don’t have to wait until then to benefit from his insights. Andrew will be in Calgary on Thursday, March 18, presenting a three-hour learning opportunity, Success Blueprint. It is designed to show you how to get from where you are to where you want to be. To learn about this special evening, check out Success Blueprint.

Photo: Andrew Barber-Starkey

2010: Begin Again - Music in the air

Some mornings you just know there is a Divine presence in your life. Like this morning. I noted earlier today in Facebook how fantastic it was heading off to work today. Watching the pheasant running across a yard, seeing the deer and observing the sundogs. Thought I’d share some of the images. Also, check up on 2010:Begin Again and pondering some song lyrics.

2010: Begin Again - On the right path

It’s just over a month into the New Year and I’m quite happy with how it’s going. If you’ve been following along, you know ‘2010: Begin Again’ is my theme for this year. And it’s rolling out in positive fashion.

Three big steps spiritually for me:

1. A Year to Live: Taking a study with my friend, Kathy, under the guidance of Pat. We had our first session and I know I’m going to love this coming year. It’s once a month for year. It includes some reading, some meditation and lots of thinking. I would have to say it’s already impacting my perceptions.

2. You Were Born Rich mastermind group: Led by my friend and fellow Toastmaster, Herv Nadeau, this is a once-a-week study into the book by Bob Proctor. Great insights that get you thinking about how you prioritize your life.

3. The Quest: Based on a wonderful book, and accompanying study guide, this really gets into the spiritual side of life. I’m working through the study with a new good friend, Darren Hutchison. Bouncing ideas off each other and sharing experiences along the path of life is good for the soul. We’re meeting every other Saturday at local coffee shops.

My spiritual quest has also led to my meeting online and by phone with a wonderful woman, Rev. Pat Ball, with Unity Church. She’s a strong New Thought minister based in Ontario and I’m speaking with her about starting a Unity study group in Lethbridge. There aren’t any New Thought centres here, and it’s an approach to spirituality that is so right for the times . . . even it was started in the later 1800s! The rest of the world is finally catching up thanks to the teachings of people like Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer and Eckart Tolle.

As to health . . . mentally I’m feeling great. Physically, I discovered the nurse was right when she said the pounds I lost in prep for the colonoscopy would come back almost immediately. They did. That’s why I say not to refer to it as losing weight. When you lose something, what do you do? You look for it to get it back. So don’t lose weight, shed pounds instead. After the return of the lost weight, I turned around and removed four pounds, so I’m ahead and looking forward to more change.

Oh, What a Glorious Morning!

Nope. Those aren’t the song lyrics I’ll be contemplating later. But Rogers and Hammerstein sure had it right with that song from Oklahoma! Heading off to work on Monday isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. And I must be honest and say it’s not the greatest for me, either. But this morning was pretty spectacular.

Brisk. No doubt about it. But not biting cold. Scrapped off the windshield, jumped in and away we go. Three houses down, we see a female pheasant dashing across a yard. Turn the corner and there’s a small herd of deer grazing on a lawn. Drive around the curve and there are two magnificent sun dogs. It was truly a glorious morning that simply led into a beautiful day. Sun shining, little breeze and the forecast snow flurries failed to materialize.
It doesn’t get much better than that in southern Alberta in early February.

I Never Felt More Like Singing’ the Blues

Earlier I posted a message about the incredible Shawna Romolliwa.

Shawna and I worked together at the college for a while. In addition to her alluring physical presence (OK, she’s REALLY hot, but it’s not PC to say that), and her incredible intelligence (she’s pursuing her Masters degree right now), Shawna is blessed with a wonderful talent for singing. I remember being entranced at a house concert she did for some friends a few years ago. The lady has style and personality to burn. You see her, you remember her.

She and her gorgeous sister Karen, (excellent gene pool in that family; their brother is a model. They have like Jordache genes or something.), are also backup singers for popular Lethbridge-based band Hippodrome.

So, on Friday, Feb. 5, Shawna debuted with her new blues band at The Slice in Lethbridge. And it was quite simply amazing. Sorry if you missed it, but you’ll have a chance to her them again. Oh, the name of the band is Romolliwa.

One of the songs that really rocked the place was Hound Dog. Not the wimpy Elvis Presley version. Not the earlier raunchy Big Mama Thorton version. Nope. This was Shawna doing a Rita Chiarelli version. But with Shawna personality. Simply amazing and unforgettable.

But it did get me thinking about lyrics and different versions of songs. Some people take a tune and just give it their own spin. That’s cool. Sometimes lyrics are changed for other not-so-cool reasons. Hound Dog is a classic example.

A long time ago, right here in this very galaxy, things were very black and white when it came to music. Fantastic African-American artists would produce incredible music that was rarely heard by a white audience. What a loss! Instead, white-bread versions would be recorded and pawned off to adoring teenybopper fans. Pat Boone recorded a number of these. Elvis did Hound Dog, originally recorded by Big Mama Thorton four years earlier. It was determined to be too suggestive for a white audience, I guess, because the tune remained while the lyrics and intent were butchered.

Here are the lyrics sung by Elvis:

Hound Dog

You ain't nothin' but a hound dog
Cryin' all the time
You ain't nothin' but a hound dog
Cryin' all the time
Well, you ain't never caught a rabbit
And you ain't no friend of mine

Well they said you was high-classed
Well, that was just a lie
Yeah they said you was high-classed
Well, that was just a lie
Well, you ain't never caught a rabbit
And you ain't no friend of mine
Repeat several times

That’s it. What does it mean? Elvis singing to a buddy? Surely not a girl. You got me. But it passed the grade as being suitable for white teens. Now, here are the lyrics as sung four years earlier by Big Mama Thorton.

Hound Dog
(Chorus) You ain't nothing but a hound dog
Been snoopin' round my door
You ain't nothing but a hound dog
Been snoopin' round my door
You can wag your tail
But I ain't gonna feed you no more

You told me you was high class
I could see through that
You told me you was high class
I could see through that
And baby I know
You ain't no real cool cat

(Chorus)

You made me feel so blue
You made me weep and moan
You made me feel so blue
You made me weep and moan
'Cause I'm looking for a woman
All your lookin' for is a home

(Chorus)

It doesn’t take much to figure out what Big Mama is talking about. I guess it was considered a little too raunchy at the time. But that’s a life experience and that’s the blues.

And trust me, Shawna Romolliwa delivers. Never really listened to the blues? Shawna will get you excited about it. Hear and you’ll agree, “I never felt more like singing the blues.” (Thanks Marty Robbins.)

Photos: Two views of this morning's sun dogs. A bit of a cheat on the deer. This was right next to our driveway on Saturday. But it was part of the same herd down the street this morning. And, of course, Shawna Romolliwa, right, along with Jann Willetts, who also sings with the band. They are awesome.

2010: Begin Again – Careful, Big Brother may be watching

Are you OK with your employer using technology to monitor you at work? According to an interview I heard on CBC Radio earlier today, 75 per cent of Canadian companies and organizations may be keeping track of workers and their productivity via their computers. This can take the form of keystroke counting to ensure data-entry efficiency to monitoring Internet access to see what you may be checking out. Big Brother may, indeed, be watching. How do you feel about that?

The CBC Radio show was Spark and I think it was Nora Young conducting the interview, but I didn’t catch the name of the fellow being interviewed. I believe he was from a university’s school of business. Discussion centred on the use of technology to keep an eye on employees to see if productivity is being maintained. Aside from the keystroke counting and monitoring Internet activity, other current and developing trends really start to seem a little creepy.

Security ID cards can track when employees enter or leave the building, or sections in the building. Some companies are introducing cards that will allow them to track employees constantly, knowing exactly where they are at any given time while on the job. Better not spend too much time on a bathroom break!

Part of my 2010: Begin Again project is to work at developing a good side income. My job at the college is a 10-month term position, meaning I’m off work from mid-June to mid-August. Having extra money flowing in will be most beneficial. Having an extra income that could actually replace that from a job could be a blessing if one was to work for an organization that snooped into your life a bit too much!

Thankfully, I’m not in such a position myself. How about you? Who’s watching over your shoulder?

A Year to Live – Experiencing Life By Preparing for Death
Today marked the first session in the ‘A Year to Live’ program I am taking with a friend. This is based on the book A Year to Live: How to Live This Year as If It Were Your Last, by Stephen Levine. We’re meeting once a month with a wonderful woman, Pat, who is guiding us through the program.

Death is not something people are comfortable discussing or considering. I suppose taking time for such a program may seem morbid to some, but when you realize the actual intent is to ensure participants are really living the life they want, it actually becomes quite exciting.

We spent time simply talking about the concept and why we were there. Pat used a guided meditation to begin the process of imagining a doctor had just told us we only have a year to live. What that felt like and what our reactions would be provided fodder for conversation. We also did some solo brainstorming looking at what we would like to accomplish if we truly only had a year left.

What’s interesting is that none of us really know how much time is left for us in this physical realm. The individual with a known terminal illness could outlive us should we have an unfortunate run-in with a bus. And not of the kind I referenced yesterday!

As Levine states in the book; “It can be hard to die when we have forgotten so often that we are alive . . . How often has our life passed unnoticed? How soon will we accept this opportunity to be fully alive before we die?”

Interestingly enough, to me anyway, you may care less; I’m also currently reading You Were Born Rich by Bob Proctor. He addresses the same issue about living before we die; “Remember, you do not have a contract to live forever, nor is this a practice run – this is your life and you should be enjoying it to the fullest extent humanly possible.”

My deepest wish is that you are, in fact, living life exactly how you want to. If you aren’t, bless yourself by taking some time to reflect on what’s really important to you, then start to take the steps to make that happen.

Namaste.

Hop on the bus, Gus; 2010: Begin Again

The problem with public transportation is that it is accessible to the general public. Like the middle-age woman sitting behind me on Friday while I was riding the bus home. While her constant muttering was distracting, it paled in comparison to her sudden bursts of violent coughing. Coughing that spewed noxious fumes of gut-fermented garlic into the air shared by fellow passengers.

Concerns over possible viral infection wilted in the onslaught of an herbal assault guaranteed to knock out any germ with greater efficiency than anything offered by modern medicine. I may never eat escargot in garlic butter again.

This past week I had the pleasure of riding the bus home after work. Lynda was using the car due to her late shift at work. While the week ended with the attack of Stinky Rose, it began with the misguided transit worker. He forgot his route!

Right after entering the on ramp to Whoop-Up Drive heading west, he realized he was supposed to go downtown first. And then what do you do? You can’t back up to Scenic Drive and traffic is building up. So, it’s down the hill, across the river, up the other side, around the loop, back down the hill, across the river, back up the other side and finally downtown, to pick up four people, then proceed back down the hill, across the river, up the other side, and running 15 minutes behind schedule!

OK, so maybe there is more wrong with public transit than the public accessibility!


2010: Begin Again - Adventures in The Quest

It’s rolling through the first month of the new year and while things aren’t 100 per cent on track, I’m pretty happy with the way it’s all shaping up. Met up with Darren for a review of the first chapter of The Quest; the spiritual exploration based on Unity teachings. We evolve with time. I’d begun The Quest some years ago with a small group, but when the group broke up, I put it aside. 2010: Begin Again; so I’ve picked it up and Darren and I are going through it.

This timing is right now. I knew that as soon as I checked out the first chapter; “You can begin again . . . and again . . . and again.” It fit perfectly with my current life theme of ‘2010: Begin Again.’

Towards the end of the chapter is a sentence that gets to the heart of Unity teaching. It’s a philosophy that addresses spiritual reality for me . . . maybe not for you; after all you are on your own path.

I do think, though, that if you strip away all of the dogma and baggage of organized religion, the majority of faith practices share a common thread. It’s a thread that has become lost in the tapestry of rituals and traditions that we’ve woven into a myriad of different religious practices.

The sentence gets to the heart of 2010: Begin Again by addressing change . . . and that’s what it’s all about.

“Where does change begin? It begins first of all with the realization that you are worthwhile, that you are not separated from God, that you are a part of God, not apart from God.”

If we could just get to the point where we acknowledged and honoured the spark of the Divine within each of us, I think the world could be a better place.

Where have all the protest songs gone?

“Tin soldiers and Nixon coming, we’re finally on our own. This summer I hear the drumming, four dead in Ohio.” – Neil Young. Not sure why, but the lyrics have been running through my mind today. It leaves me wondering where have all the great protest songs gone? Maybe there are powerful songs today, and I’ve just missed them.

I suspect there may be people in my group of Facebook friends who don’t even know about the incident to which the lyrics from “Ohio” refer. Very quickly, the 1960s and early 1970s were a time of change in North America, particularly in the U.S. The war in Vietnam was raging and, in 1969, the U.S. invaded Cambodia. People were divided on the issue. Some backed the U.S. government, no matter what. Others questioned why young Americans were dying in a war half a world away, and then why the invasion of Cambodia was launched.

Sound familiar? When the U.S. started a war with Iraq after the 9/11 attacks, the nation was divided, though I suspect more were for the government action than against it. Don’t forget, UN weapons inspectors had already proven there were no weapons of mass destruction, but then-President Bush used that scare tactic to justify a war. If you disagreed with invading another country and starting a war, you were often considered un-American.

But it was different on May 4, 1970. Students at Kent State University in Ohio had been protesting the Vietnam War and invasion of Cambodia. They marched in protest in November 1969. And they were protesting on campus in the spring of 1970 and in the town of Kent, Ohio. Protests got out of hand when bars closed at night and bonfires were lit in the streets while some businesses had windows shattered. On the ground of KSU, the ROTC building, which was scheduled for demolition, was torched. Enter the National Guard.

Today we can look at countries like China and deride their stance on human rights. We can express shock when Buddhist monks are gunned down by Chinese military. The few pictures we see are horrifying. Yet, the U.S. is not innocent of such actions. On May 4, 1970, the National Guard, faced with student protest action, opened fire on young American citizens killing four and injuring nine in about 13 seconds of shooting. Two of those killed were among the protesters. Two others were simply students walking from one building to the next between classes. Guardmen claimed they felt threatened. The average distance between those killed and the armed National Guard was 345 feet (105 metres).

Neil Young wrote the song "Ohio", recorded it with friends David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash, and release one of the most haunting protest songs of all time. For me, it ranks right up there with “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” Powerful songs about key moments in our history.

So, what are you’re favourite protest songs? Songs with a message. Songs that matter.

Photos: The photos were taken by two Kent State students. John Filo was taking a break from work in the campus photo lab when he captured the top news photo of 1970: a girl screaming over the dead body of Jeffrey Miller who was killed by the national guard. The girl was Mary Vecchio, a 15-year-old runaway from Florida. The photo won a Pulitzer prize. Howard Ruffner, a KSU student photographer, captured some of the best photos of the tragedy.

The He in We

I don’t believe there is a God. I believe that God is all there is. Confused? Don’t be. It’s simply a matter of expanding our concept of God to get beyond the idea that we are separated from a spirit being who oversees every aspect of the universe.

God, no matter what name you choose to use, is far more than the being described in the revered books of man’s many different religions. I’m going to use the term ‘God,’ with the understanding that it’s not a name, but rather a concept. It seems to me that humanity has been trying to understand the universe and our place in it pretty much since the beginning of time . . . dare I say since we first stood upright in an African savannah millions of years ago?

In our efforts we’ve been limited by our understanding of the physical world and our place in it. Ego results in the idea that God is really a fantastic version of us; an individual being prone to the same emotions that control our behaviours . . . but backed up by having omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence. In effect, we’ve created God in our image. We’ve taken the Divine and stuffed it into a human skin in order to make it more understandable. Disagree with that idea? Pick up a copy of the Old Testament and have a read. There you’ll find the jealous God. The needy God. The demanding God. The loving God. The lonely God. In other words, all of the things that make us human.

But what if we could get beyond that concept? New Thought teachings, originating in the mid- to late-1800s do just that. There are different ideas even within this particular spiritual practice. My path has brought me to the point where I believe we, and the universe itself, are physical manifestations of the Divine.

We are spiritual beings experiencing a human existence. We are not separate from God. That which is Divine is found within each of us.

Now take that concept and think about it for a moment. There are those who ask where is God when people commit atrocities? How could He allow such things to happen? I have to agree. How could He? Except, of course, He is We. Next time you’re tempted to ask if there is a God, how come He lets horrible things happen, take a look in the mirror. Then ask, how could We let this happen?

We have yet to awaken to our spiritual magnificence. I’m not sure when we actually will. Hey, and I’m not exempt from this. Sure, I have my spiritual beliefs. But I don’t act like it all the time. That bit about spirit experiencing a human existence tends to get in the way. Yeah, I believe the Divine lives through each of us. So why do I struggle with forgiving some people for their actions or even for my perception of their actions?

Because I am human, that’s why. I don’t have all the answers. I struggle as much as anyone with the reality of day-to-day life. I’m not necessarily proud of it. But I am trying. I’m working on developing and understanding my spiritual side. That’s one of the goals for my 2010: Begin Again project.

When I sign off a message with ‘namaste,’ I want to mean it. There are different interpretations, but it is understood to express the idea that “I honour the Light within you,” or “That which is Divine within me, acknowledges and honours that which is Divine within you.”

That Divine that dwells within each of us, that surrounds us, that supports us, that is us, that is the universe . . . that is God.

Namaste.

Spiritual link: Here's a great talk from Unity Center of Walnut Creek, Calif. It's entitled "Entering the God Field."

Photos: JC and I enjoy a tussle. JC with my son, his dad, Devon. And JC by himself. They joined Lynda and me for dinner today. The Divine expresses itself through each of us.

It's About Time

For me, it's 2010: Begin Again. But even though committing to revolution more than resolution, sometimes the past continues to live on in the mind.

The brain is a weird and wonderful thing. It amazes me that it can store the strangest memories for years, then suddenly spring them lose on you when you least expect it. This morning was a classic example for me.

Jingles for TV shows and commercials seem to have the power to embed themselves deep in the mind. For me, they can work their way to the surface at unexpected times. I’m sure something triggers it – something too subtle to register – and suddenly it’s like I’m back in time and music and lyrics are playing in my head. OK, OK, so I’m actually singing along to the soundtrack of my mind.

This morning it was a flashback to a horrible TV show from the 1960s. From out of nowhere I found myself singing:

“It’s about time, it’s about space,
About two men in the strangest place.
Wait ‘til they see what is in sight,
Is it good luck, or is it good night.
It’s about two astronauts
It’s about they’re fate.
It’s about a woman
And her prehistoric mate.”

The lyrics aren't complete, but that's the section I remember. And, weah, the show was called It’s About Time. It came out a time of very silly shows on TV. Things like the Beverly Hillbillies, the Munsters, Gilligan’s Island and more. The premise was sillier than any of the aforementioned, with the possible exception of The Munsters. It’s About Time was a comedy about two astronauts who travel back in time and hook up with a tribe of cavemen. Whacky adventures ensue. Dumb. Really dumb.

But the power of the theme song makes it live on in my mind.

Radio jingles do the same thing. When I was in Grades 1-3, I lived at the air force base near Summerside, P.E.I. Every school day Mom would have breakfast prepared and I’d eat at about the same each morning. Mom also had the radio playing at the same time. And I swear I heard the same radio ads morning after morning.

Now I’m 52 years old and I still remember:

J-E-N-K-I-N-S
Jenkins is the very best.
Beef and lobster, chicken, too.
Jenkins is the best for you.
Shop Jenkins, Jenkins
Jenkins of P.E.I.

Jenkins doesn’t exist anymore. I know. A couple of years ago, when the jingle was going through my mind, I contacted the editor of the newspaper in Summerside to see if it was still around. Nope. It’s long gone. But it lives on in my mind – along with the memory of the first time I had cinnamon toast. That was also one morning in P.E.I. while having breakfast before school.

Cinnamon toast and Jenkins. Two memories intertwined and linked by a simple radio jingle.

The mind really is a weird and wonderful thing.