Check out Kute Blackson, creator of the Love Now, a music video honing more than 65,000 views that has created a stir among the global audience.

He asks his audience a lifetime question – What is your life about? He looks around himself and the people he sees, the experiences offered to us, and the opportunities to behold…yet somehow we may have missed the homeless man, the newborn baby at home, the rocking elderly man living alone, the co-worker an inch from us– “living burdens”, he says, “staring right at us”.

What does this mean for these numbered breaths in our day – the experiences that we hope for; the bucket list we continue to add “must see’s” and “to-do’s” on; the promotion we feel we deserve; the skill we so desperately hope to hone?

We search the world to meet people of power, influence – anything that etches hope in our heart and yet we have missed dinner, missed greeting of “good morning”, missed opportunities of personal influence in the days that allow us to cross paths with specific individuals each day.

Imagine if each moment counted for something- an opportunity to connect with someone during the day- trust again, sing aloud, dance by yourself, smile across the elevator. How could your life be different? How could your purpose shine in truth- by action and word?

Watch Kute Blackson’s video for a refreshing take on what matters in our day, how hope can be etched into the hearts of others, and how inevitably we will have created purpose with the opportunities before us…

A friend of mine chose this question from a box of “conversation cards” while at dinner the other night. Every card has a random question meant to provoke you into revealing something interesting about yourself.

I was about to joke that my friend should just stick that one back and get a new card, since the answer was so obvious, but then he said, “The whole world. Definitely.”

This is when the conversation took a long pause. I mean, does my friend know who he’s talking to here?

“Seriously?” I gulped. “You’d rather be as popular as an A-list actor than be totally happy with yourself?”

Really, this idea was unfathomable. But then, his wife piped up, “Me too. I’d pick everyone else liking me.”

This is right about when I wanted to dip them both in the fondue on the table until they begged to choose the other answer. Inside, I’m thinking, “Now how could I possibly have two good friends who’d choose that?!”

“But why!?” I urged. “Don’t you like yourself?”

“Nope,” they each said. “And I’m used to it. So if I already feel like that, then, you know, it’s comfortable. So might as well be popular.”

This question is at is the heart of Valentine’s Day (which we celebrate here in the U.S. on February 14), at least in my mind. It’s not about everyone else liking YOU. It’s about YOU liking you. The more you like YOU, the more everyone else will feel your inner joy and comfort, and respond to that. Or to the contrary, the more you put on that happy face for others while secretly despising and doubting yourself, the more people will fall for your veneer…and you’ll never really feel loved. Not the YOU inside, at least, though you might put on an awfully good show.

Here’s a fundamental concept about loving yourself: You can still acknowledge all kinds of crummy behavior, bad decisions, crappy insecurities, and more that are swirling around inside you. Those things are there–in ALL of us. But you love yourself anyway. You love yourself like you love your kids (or like you think you’d love them if you don’t have any).

So, for instance, you might mourn for an opportunity your child wasted, or ache over that detour into drugs, or feel constantly upset over the way their innate selfishness runs them into one problem in life after another. But you still LOVE them…even with all those negatives. When you think about them, your heart swells up and glitters and shines with a kind of happiness at who they are. There is and always will be something about them you want to nurture, and hug, and cheer for.

Now, this is how you love YOURSELF as well. And the more you feel this love, the more you’ll realize why other people love you too. You’ll “get it,” and know you deserve to be loved wholly, and fully, and well. You also won’t put up with unloving behavior and actions in others.

Instead, you’ll say, “Hey wait a sec. I don’t deserve that. I’m not going to allow that.” This is what people commonly call having healthy boundaries. These boundaries aren’t walls, they’re more like states of being inside you that accept or reject behaviors from yourself or others, based on your sense of internal sense of worth, love, and strength.

But, when you don’t really like yourself, or you’re constantly down on yourself as being “not as good as some else,” “not successful enough,” “not good with money,” “too fat to be loved by a good partner,” or “always getting with bad partners,” or anything else, then when someone else dares to like you–or LOVE you–you can’t really believe it, or trust it. You ask, “Why would you like ME?”

And this makes you insecure in your relationship. In fact, you might even do a few really rotten things to your partner, just so they “get the point” that you’re not lovable (because you already know this about yourself and after all, you have to prove you’re right.) By the way, this is what people refer to as “self-sabotage” in a relationship.

So what happens when you have two people together, both of whom can’t believe the other can actually love them? I’m sure you can guess. You get one of those up and down, difficult relationships that other people just do not seem to understand.

Or maybe, your insecurity causes you to actively resist being liked by others, either by withdrawing and not socializing, or by taking a too-long break from the fun task of finding your life partner. And the result of that? Well, again, you’re proving to yourself that “I’m not likable” by simply having taken yourself out of the game altogether.

So this Valentines Day, be sure that your first Valentine goes to yourself. This isn’t selfish. This is acknowledging that the love you give to others is quite valuable, because you are made of real gold, not fool’s gold–so the gift of your love and admiration is something valuable and a treasure.

Go have a talk with yourself about this. Ask, do I fundamentally enjoy myself? And if not, why? Can I instead see those parts I don’t enjoy as just another aspect of myself (and not the whole “me”), which are balanced by lots of wonderful parts? And can I choose to change or modify the areas I don’t like, so they don’t cause me so many doubts?

My love goes to ALL of us on Valentine’s Day. You are all glorious, beautiful beings–every one of you is a little piece of God’s handiwork walking around, having an experience of “Life” to take back to heaven with you when it’s all over. Remember this: the next time you “trash-talk” yourself, you’re also trash-talking that bit of Source energy you’re made of.

Because truly, as a part of Source energy, you SPARKLE. You’ve been gifted with dozens of fine qualities. You have huge reserves of love to give. And anyone who looks at you will also see what a lovable being you are. You don’t have to “do” anything to be that way, either. You just are.

All the stuff on the “outside” (your weight, skin color, body shape, clothes, material surroundings or accomplishments) are just the frivolous veneer. Don’t forget this. And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

You’ve got to love yourself to truly know and value the gift of loving others.

Oh and just as an aside . . . what did I do with my friends at my dinner party? Well, first I read them the riot act, then I fed them marshmallow s’mores we made over a fire pit, then I made them do crazy dancing to some good tunes with our whole family out on the patio. I’m not kidding! A great way to start loving yourself is to acknowledge your inner kid, then do something embarrassing. If you can love and enjoy an embarrassing moment, you’re on your way to loving all the rest.

And one last idea…I help many people cultivate this kind of self-love, as well as improve all their other relationships, in my Flowdreaming work. Maybe you would like to check it out.

My love to you all.
Summer McStravick

Summer McStravick is the creator of Flowdreaming, a potent technique for manifesting that allows you to shape your future using universal Flow energy. Her Manifesting Store is full of guided Flowdreams to help you make positive changes in many areas of your life. Summer’s podcast, Flowdreaming, is heard by thousands of people every week. You can also enjoy tons of free resources and articles about Flowdreaming by visiting www.FlowDreaming.com.

But we think that sometimes you’re best to turn an innocent eye – or ear – to things when you’re being silly or feeling light-hearted. Life’s too short to take things way too seriously!

And, so, without further ado, we give you: The Galaxy Song.

What happens when you take an audio clip of a hilarious talk by the comedian Brian Regan and add fun visuals? We thought the results in this case were hilariously expotential! The next time you find that you’re beating yourself up because you weren’t able to do all the moves correctly in yoga class, watch this video – and remember to breathe!

Does humor play an important part in your spiritual life? If you have any tips or tricks to share on how to integrate humor with your personal growth then tell them below :)

“This phrase – knowing presence — it’s synonymous with aware presence.” explains Rupert Spira, and continuing, “I don’t mean knowing in the sense, in a conventional sense of knowing an object; it’s simply the presence that we are. The simple knowing of our own being.”

Spira, an English studio potter, teacher, and writer about spirituality, focuses his works primarily on nonduality (or Advaita). Nonduality/Advaita describes a state in which we are attentive to or conscious of only our own self – our true and essential being, ‘I am’, and not any other thing. When practicing nonduality, attention to anything other than oneself leads to duality or dvaita. This dualism focuses on a belief in two independent, already opposite, realities — such as mind and body, good and evil, or physical and spiritual. By their very nature, the two philosophies or belief systems cannot co-exist.

In nondualism, because the knowing presence – or I AM – is transparent and doesn’t have objective qualities (like color or size or shape), we usually overlook the knowing self. Instead, we mistake ourselves for our thoughts, memories, sensations, stories, or ideas – most usually some combination of them all. Doing so, we then lose sight of the very qualities that make up or are the knowing self/presence – peace, love, and happiness. This loss of sight of who we really are leads to suffering in all its guises. The moment, says Spira, that we start to question “who is the one that is seeking, who is the one that is unhappy” is the beginning of the end of the separate self.

This audio clip above is an extract of a dialogue between Nic Higham and Spira.

Check it out and let us know – have you ever focused your attention on your inner knowing self?

When Edgar Mitchell, a former Apollo 14 astronaut, was traveling back to Earth after having just walked on the moon, he experienced something curiously cosmic in nature. As his ship approached the planet Earth, Edgar was filled with an inner sense and conviction that he was returning to an amazing world that was part of a living, harmonious, and whole system – one in which we are all participants. On the planet Earth, Edgar described it as being “in a universe of consciousness.” In fact, the experience so changed his way of viewing the world, that the engineer and scientist went on to found the Institute of Noetic Sciences in 1973. The purpose of the organization has since been to explore the uncharted territories of the human mind.

We think that the following video by Zack Covell, “The Known Universe, Primordial Sound, Vibration, and the Cosmos Visually,” offers you a unique opportunity to experience similar inspiration and spiritual edification.

In credits at the beginning of the video, we are informed, that it depicts the known universe as mapped through astronomical observations. “Every satellite, moon, planet, star, and galaxy is represented to scale and its correct, measured location according to the best scientific research to-date.”

After watching this video, we felt spiritually charged… and changed. And we hope you will be, too!

In his lifetime, Alan Watts was a speaker and writer who interpreted Eastern thought for the West – primarily Hinduism, Taoism, Vedanta, and Zen Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoisim. Buddhism, Taoism, and Vedanta.

In the text that accompanies the video above, we learn that the poster was sitting in a waiting room listening to an Alan Watts lecture on his iPod. Suddenly, he looked up at the television that was playing an old Pink Panther episode, “The Pink Phink.”

Watching the video while hearing Alan Watt’s talk, he was surprised to see that the words being spoken by Watts seemed to perfectly juxtapose with visuals of the cartoon – its storyline was flawlessly in sync with Watt’s wisdom.

If we didn’t know better, of course, we’d try to attribute this occurrence to “serendipity” or “coincidence.” Fortunately, we do know better!

So, here for your viewing pleasure and spiritual pastime, we offer you the Pink Panther and his friend teaching non-duality!

More information about Alan Watts is available at www.alanwatts.org, a site maintained by his son, Mark Watts. The Alan Watts extracts in the video are from ‘You’re It!: On Hiding, Seeking, and Being Found’ ©2009 Sounds True; and The Pink Panther episode is ©2006 MGM.)

What ways have you learned to create the life that you desire?

Ben Breedlove was born August 8, 1993. When he was very young, Ben was diagnosed with a severe heart condition known as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. The disease involves a thickening of heart muscle, which makes it difficult for the heart to pump blood.

As a result of this condition, Ben had various problems and close encounters with death throughout his childhood. In 2009 he had a pacemaker installed to help regulate his heart’s pumping and hopefully give him more energy.

For more than a year, Ben had developed a following on YouTube at BreedloveTV, — his description on the site saying, “Any questions you have about dating, relationships or anything related, or just any questions or help you need in general, I will answer them.”

In the following video, “speaking” only with hand-written notes, Ben described the disease and talked about three near-death experiences he’d experienced through the years. Each experience seemed more powerful – and beautiful — than the one before. During the third one, Ben’s heart had stopped pumping for three minutes. Describing it in this video (taped December 18, 2011), Ben holds up cards that read:

Right then, I
woke up and the
EMS were doing
CPR.

I didn’t want
to leave that
place.

I wish I
NEVER
woke up.

One week later, on December 25, 2011 – Christmas Day – Ben Breedlove died from a cardiac arrest at the age of 18. This time, paramedics were unable stop him from going to the comforting place he’d twice described in his videos.

The harsh and sad edge of this semi-sweet story is softened when you read the last two cards in Ben Breedlove’s video. Gary Jules’s “Mad World” is the perfect accompanyment to Ben’s story.

In gratitude to the internet community who had responded to Ben’s video, Ben’s father requested that the funeral — held December 29 at the Gateway Church, in Austin, Texas — be streamed live on the website of KXAN-TV. 1,400 people attended the service in person and another 11,000 watched online.

If you have loved ones who have passed away, keep comfort in the knowledge of the place that Ben describes.

Putting out a question to the community – do you believe in Angels or God?

Oh yes, vacation. That thing that most of the world works 48 to 50 grueling weeks or 2000+ hours per year for, right? Why do we does this?? Why do so many humans bust their ass ALL year long for these couple weeks of exhale just to do it all over again? Is that not the definition of insanity?

I’ve been an entrepreneur since 2005, and in 2007 after an awakening moment I committed to living my life and ONLY building businesses or working on projects that are fun, fulfilling, for a greater purpose and help me check things off my bucket list along the way. Well, we’re now in 2012 and I have lived that commitment everyday since and because of it, I’ve built my meditation and Spiritual Adventure company Cowabunga Life, I’ve traveled all over the world, taught thousands of people how to build a fun meditation practice and now I’m creating comedy videos online to help people “laugh themselves to enlightenment!” I fricken LOVE my life so much!

How have I created this for my life and how can you do it for yours’? To show you, I broke it down as easily as I possibly could with the seven simple tips below … I recommend that if your life IS NOT all that you wished it was you follow these steps to a tee and start making the necessary small changes today and everyday until you too love your life more than you could imagine. You deserve that type of happiness…

SEVEN THINGS you do when on a vacation:

–> You relax, let go and chill,

–> You go on adventures, play and have fun,

–> You give your body the rest you need,

–> You go places you wouldn’t normally go,

–> You stop talking about all the things you want or need to do & you actually do them,

–> You don’t worry about your job or stress about money,

–> You check things off your bucket list,

SEVEN TIPS to Live like you’re on Vacation:

1) Take a daily peace pause … step away, unplug, relax and connect back to you … meditation helps with this (listen to the meditation below)!

2) Play everyday in the best way you can … hang out with kids (like really hang with them & get into their world), go to some laughter yoga classes, take play therapy if you were suppressed as a kid, hang out with me or be courageous enough to be goofy and make an ass of yourself!!

3) Listen to your body, rest when it needs to & stop burning yourself out!

4) Venture off the beaten path, check out a new place every week, eat at new restaurants, take a new street home & say yes to new adventures!

5) Quit procrastinating and build the life you truly want, one day at a time … talking about what you want wastes time and energy … Dive in and do it, the only way you can screw up is by doing nothing at all!

6) Ask yourself this, “Does my worrying actually solve any of my problems? If you aren’t inspired about your life, you dis-like your job, you talk behind co-workers backs or you’re constantly stressed about money then try this one simple step … STOP IT (hahaha) & TRY THIS: Do what you love, love what you do and start healing your relationship with money and ‘work’ today! It will save you a whole lot of stress in the long run!

7) Do at least 5 things per week that make you come alive (watch video below)!

DO ANY OR ALL of those 7 steps and your life will keep getting better and more fun!

WANNA FEEL MORE ALIVE & IN LOVE WITH LIFE?

Then watch this video below!!!

Take your Daily Peace Pause … Meditate Below!!

This is an incredible meditation practice that will really shift your mood, state of mind and feelings. In this 15 Minute Meditation you simply focus on breathing a ball of golden white light up and down your spine. Eventually you bring the light up in to Source Light and down into the Heart of the Earth. Be prepared for a deep sense of peace as you practice this meditation…repeat as needed!

What are the TOP 10 THINGS that Make you Come Alive!?!?!? Write’m down below …. and thanks for playing Life with us!!!

World adventurer, social entrepreneur, meditation guide and lover of Life. Brad Morris is on a mission to raise the love vibe globally through his Inner-vative approach to making meditation fun and helping people laugh to enlightenment with his Conscious Comedy videos and unique way of outlook on life. He has impacted many lives world-wide by simply living his Cowabunga Life and passionately inviting others to do the same. You can check out his Cowabunga Life at www.CowabungaLife.com

Monsters and Blood-Suckers

Have you ever gone through a nasty break-up or divorce? Have you ever watched a friend go through it? It can get real ugly, real fast, right? Now why is that? Why do 2 peeps who once loved and adored each other all of a sudden become Doc Frankenstein’s crushing monster, or Bram Stoker’s blood sucker? Simple: they want the other person to change. And when the other person doesn’t change? They decide to become nasty, withholding, threatening and sadly, sometimes even murderous.

How many stories have we all heard – or seen, or LIVED first-hand – of fathers dropping the ball on their kids because they’re pissed at the mom (jee, now that’s smart … NOT!), of mothers bitching to their own children about what an SOB their father is (dumb, dumb, dumb); or heard woa-is-me stories from people who are miserable because their boss is an a**, their friends don’t give them enough attention, their kids won’t conform to their expectations, their colleagues or spouse or agro highway drivers don’t show them enough respect?

Arguing with the Mirror

In all of these examples, one person is depending on somebody else’s behavior, opinions or feelings in order to feel good themselves, or behave like an adult. This is tant-amount to looking in the mirror and saying “I’ll smile as soon as you do.” In other words, as long as you wait for someone else to change in any way in order for you to feel, act or think differently, you’re, umm … screwed. Honestly, you might as well, as my dad used to say, argue with a hole in the ground.

Think of how disempowering that is! Seriously. What a way to go through life – needing all kinds of people and circumstances to behave ‘just so,’ so that you can have a happy day. That means you’re dependent on everybody and everything but yourself – yikes!

If this still doesn’t make sense, try this: Think about the last time someone demanded (or even requested) that YOU change in order for them to cooperate, be nice, feel good, stop threatening suicide or whatever … how’d it feel? Pissed you off, right? Right.

Get Response-ABLE

Getting response-able means owning every single aspect of your life. It means acknowledging that you, through the power of your thoughts, feelings and vibrations, have attracted it all. When your life is full of experiences you don’t want, well, that’s the bad news. But the GOOD news is – if you’ve got the power to attract what you don’t want, you’ve also got the power to change what you attract – yay!

But the first step is owning it. Once you do, what you find is that other people’s behavior suddenly doesn’t twist your knickers quite as badly. Why? Because when you take responsibility for your own happiness, you stop feeling disempowered by dependence on everyone else!

Sudden Bliss?

Does taking responsibility mean sudden bliss? Well no. S**t happens, as they say, and life lessons will challenge you from time to time. But when you really get your groove on about being in total charge of your own happiness, life starts to flow more easily, and you’ll be able to handle challenging people and challenging times with greater happiness and emotional balance.

Your Thoughts?

I’d love for you to share your thoughts with me on this subject. You see, many of us have been raised to believe that it’s okay to gripe, complain and criticize others in hopes that somehow, this will make us feel better. We’re encouraged by everything from government to doctors to give over our own personal authority and responsibility for our lives. These things tend to feed a sense of frustration with the external world, and a sense of personal ineffectualness within. So, where in your life does this ‘ring true’, and where have you reclaimed your own ABILITY to respond through owning your own happiness? Leave a comment and let me know!

Many blessings,
Dawn

Dawn DelVecchio is a writer, speaker and self-empowerment coach. She’s the author & host of DawnDelVecchio.com, where she shares insights, tips and practical tools for living a life of joy and abundance. Her eBook, The 7 Keys to Unlock your Soul’s Purpose is a simple guide to connect with your truest calling in this life. Dawn’s intent is to “Help you unlock the door to your soul’s calling so you can live in the joy and abundance you were meant for.”