Earlier this summer,  I met two passionate social justice activists who hit me up on a  busy corner close to where I live in St Paul. Around my neighborhood, there are a few places these canvassers seek potential donors and I usually stop and listen to what they have to say. I do this because I did door-to-door canvassing for an environmental group in 2001, during the summer I was 20, and I know what it is to get turned down and feel disheartened by it. I lasted one night; the guy who said, “Drill more, refine more” and slammed the door in my face really helped me clarify my feelings about continuing as a canvasser. Oh, do I wish I had known the technique I teach now — requesting and receiving love from other people’s guardian angels — back then. I didn’t, and I know there are a lot of passionate Millennials out there, taking action to effect social justice and shine a light (and raise money), and I also know firsthand how easy it is to become disillusioned, especially at this particular intersection on Grand Ave, what with the brush-offs and the automated no-thank-you’s. So that’s why I stop and say hello, and then share my own experience and wish them good luck even if I don’t end up donating.

So the woman who approached me, Casey, very quickly and skillfully established rapport, and soon we got to talking about a few other issues and current events, and that’s when I told her about my experience with The Door Slamming Man. After an awed “you did DOOR??” (to which I quickly confessed, “for all of four hours before I quit”), she taught me about the four kinds of people canvassers are likely to meet, whether going door-to-door or on the phone or at a busy populated mall: the Owl, the Lion, the Bear and the Lamb. The lamb is nonconfrontational — you’ll only get a donation from this person if they already agree with you, but, unlike the Bear, doesn’t want a fight. The bear — like The Door Slamming Man — wants to fight, wants to win, and ultimately wants to insult and belittle you on some level before walking away or hanging up or closing the door in your face. And the Owl is very well educated — if they agree with you, it’s an easy sell and they’ll get their checkbook right out (immediately both Rachel Maddow and Ron Paul came to my mind). But if they don’t agree with you, you’re in for a long protracted debate you can’t win and will wish you’d never initiated. And then, Casey explained, there’s the Lion — really passionate and very opinionated. So I said, which one am I? And she said, “I’m thinking … the Lion.” I really chuckle at this because I LOVE the big cats, especially tigers, and also lions. One organization I’m fond of is called the Valley of the Kings. They rescue big cats and have even had a couple tigons/ligers in the past. Some day I would love to go visit them in person. If you click on their logo, you’ll be taken to their site — FYI, they take in cats that don’t look “perfect,” lions and tigers that aren’t profitable for showcasing at zoos, so some of them do look different from what we are used to when we think of a lion or tiger.

So then Casey and I began to talk about why people seem to “not care” but, with the exception of people who simply disagree on ideological grounds, the truth is they do care; they simply have grown tired of caring all day, during the overwhelming majority of their waking hours, for example because children or parents or friends or a romantic partner or an employer (or all of the above!) are constantly demanding acknowledgment of their concerns and a display of sympathy for their emotions. Then compassion fatigue sets in and people can become — literally — too tired to care. Casey and I  chatted a little longer and I got to meet her coworker, Nicole, an equally impassioned canvasser. She too struck me with her desire to truly make the world a better place, and it was so inspiring to me to meet two people who care the way I do — for the planet and all the people on it — right down the road from me.

Now, there’s a rumor going around that giving even $5 to charity, and voting, and calling your representative, your senator, and the President, aren’t actions that actually matter. The truth is that every dollar matters and, in fact, not voting has an even greater effect than voting. Why? Because not voting is weighted: casting no vote is the same as casting a vote for everything to stay exactly the same. But we do what we are motivated to do. For example, if your house were on fire, you’d feel very motivated — very quickly — to get out as soon as possible. So how do we get motivated, so that we go from feeling compassion fatigue to impassioned? In addition to forgiving which fills the forgiver with both inspiration and drive, I recommend requesting love from other people’s guardian angels as a success strategy. It works like this. Everyone on Earth has a guardian angel who loves them for no other reason than because they exist — these angels love us not because we are trying to make a difference in the world but despite the fact that we may not be. Our guardian angels love us because they can’t not love us — the same way that God loves us: for no reason. And it is because God loves us this intensely that we’ve all been assigned a guardian angel for the duration of our lifetime on Earth, regardless of our religious beliefs (remember, at its core, religion is always an attempt to govern and is a human creation whereas angels are a divine creation by God who has given us total free will with no attempt to systematically govern us at all) and, regardless of whether or not we believe in God at all. Faith is often described as belief in God, but in truth, when we have faith, we are filled with God’s belief in us. When our heart is that filled with that much inspiration and drive, we know the date of World Joy is already on the calendar, just like the day the slaves were emancipated, the day women got the right to vote, and the day the first black President was elected, etc. Thirty years before those dates, most people thought those events would “never” come to pass either! In truth, they were all already on the calendar.

So what I wish I’d known how to do, ten years ago, was request love from The Door Slamming Man’s guardian angel. That angel loves him, loves me, and loves everyone on Earth for no reason — not because he or I or we all have earned it with behavior that deserves it, but simply because we exist. That’s the true nature of forgiveness — loving people anyway — and angels personify that love. When we love other people, we desire their happiness, that is to say, their ability to feel God’s Love which is also known as the emotion Joy. And when people can feel God’s Love (Joy) they don’t hurt others because they have no desire to. And what we desire to do is what we are motivated to do. When our heart is open, because it is filled with God’s Love, we feel very motivated. We also get more done in less time because of the clarity of mind that an open heart causes. It can be difficult to stay motivated when we’re around people who are not motivated (or people who are extremely motivated — just by something other than Love), especially if we’re empathic and soak up other people’s emotions as if they were our own. Next time you’re in a group — or even with just one other person — imagine your guardian angel standing behind you and the other people’s (or person’s) guardian angel(s) standing behind them, and that all the angels present are sending you love. This is one technique you can use in any situation in order to neutralize the energy of any conflicting desires around you and refuel with all the inspiration and drive to keep going. To take this strategy a step further, you could join in prayer with the guardian angels of everyone present for divine love to fill the hearts of everyone present (you’d simply ask, “God, I join in prayer with the guardian angels of everyone here for all of our hearts to be filled with Love”) and in giving that intense desire for the happiness of everyone present, in that moment of loving anyway, you would be forgiving. The best part? People who can feel Joy do not hurt others — or the Earth. Why? Because they have no desire to. This is why forgiving is the fastest way to World Joy: forgiving heals people and fills their hearts with love. Then, once their hearts are filled with Love, they no longer want to hurt others. Then when they no longer desire to hurt others, they no longer engage in those same exploitative activities (because we do what we are motivated to do).

Another great way to start your day filled with inspiration and drive is to “pre-forgive.” This entails joining in prayer with the guardian angels of everyone on Earth to be filled with Joy right away when you get up in the morning. When we do this, we strengthen New Mercy/Forgiveness Paradigm because when we ask for everyone to be happy and filled with Love even though they might have made mistakes in the past or be plotting something terrible in the future, we love them the way God does, not because they have earned it with behavior that deserves it, but simply because they exist! And when people are filled with love, they are no longer motivated by greed or fear or hate. They become motivated by Love and when they are motivated by love, their actions will reflect that desire for other people’s happiness. You could put in a request along the lines of …

“Dear God, I join in prayer with the seven billion guardian angels of everyone on Earth: Please let everyone on Earth be healed of all pain and sadness and filled with Joy!”

Additionally, you could join in prayer with the guardian angels of a specific smaller group of people — remember, when we ask God to flood people’s hearts with love, the miracle of forgiveness heals them so they no longer have the desire to hurt others. In this way, we prevent world pain without ever knowing what specifically we have prevented. For example …

“Dear God, I join in prayer with the guardian angels of all 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, the guardian angels of all 100 U.S. Senators, the guardian angels of all 9 Supreme Court Justices, and the guardian angels of the President and everyone else in the executive branch. Please, God, heal them of all pain and sadness and flood their hearts with Love and Joy!”

Anytime we see any of these people on a television or on the internet or come across any other visual images of those who have power over the quantity and quality of life of others on Earth, we can imagine their guardian angels standing behind them and request and receive love from those angels. This will flood us with love, causing us to remain inspired and driven to take action even though we may feel disheartened by the actions those influential people are taking, actions that may be causing pain and suffering for others. And, if you are a canvasser, you could start your shift joining in prayer with the guardian angels of everyone you may come into contact over the next several hours. While I worked in collections, I used this technique before work almost everyday, and I did very well for myself and helped a lot of people settle their debts at the same time. In fact, I would not have been able to survive working for more than one big corporation without requesting and receiving love from other people’s guardian angels as a success strategy.

So do you  have an inner Lion, a part of you that is impassioned and protests injustice? Or perhaps you’re more of an Owl, and enjoy educating people? Or maybe you can be very protective and aggressive when it comes to your beliefs and walk more the path of the Bear (bears aren’t all bad — without openhearted bears, we wouldn’t have the 8 hour workday, seatbelts in cars, or the right to vote)? Or are you a lamb and prefer to shine your light more privately? No matter where you fall on the spectrum, joining in prayer with other people’s guardian angels and forgiving and pre-forgiving daily will help you shine your light more brightly. Not all lightworkers are social justice activists but almost all social justice activists are lightworkers. What’s a lightworker? Lightworkers are people who take action daily to help everyone on Earth make the transition from Old Justice/Vengeance Paradigm to New Mercy/Forgiveness Paradigm, people who know they’re here to make the world a better place. Some lightworkers are called to do healing work, hold peace vigils, run for elected office as public servants or simply parent children in the light of mercy and forgiveness, but there’s a special group of lightworkers who are on the front lines of solving social problems, societal ills that affect the entire world population, and this group of social justice activists is prone to suffering from compassion fatigue only slightly less than everyone else! My hope and prayer is that these couple of tricks of the trade will help all my lightworker and social justice activist cousins refuel with inspiration and drive and feel even more consistently motivated than you already are. And if you’re a lightworker but you’re new to social justice activism, a great place to start is signing one petition a month and work up to one a week. If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll see which ones I am signing and if my action resonates with your own belief-system, I hope you’ll click on the link and add your voice to mine.

For the record, I apparently just missed the cut off for being a Millennial. This is funny to me because I was due February 4, 1981, which would have made me a Millennial, but my mom went into labor on December 15, 1980 and I was born the next day, 12/16/80, which was 7 weeks early, thereby missing the cutoff by 15 days. Yes, I fit the general characteristics of members of Gen Y — plus I was on the internet in the mid 90′s before there even were parental controls or pop-up blockers. You’d search (in the URL bar because there was no google yet) the Pythagorian Theorem and Pythagoras’ Penis Theory would — literally — pop up. Yes, the Wild Wild West Internet was very educational . . . in essence, pornography is filmed prostitution and I’d never wish prostitution on anyone as an occupation (which is the reason I don’t recommend spending time, minutes as currency, or money, dollars as currency, on it), however I do think it ought to be legal so all expressions of the sex-for-money trade can be regulated by the government. That way film-prostitutes (porn actors), street-prostitutes (hookers/hustlers) and hotel-prostitutes (escorts/call-girls) can form unions and get good health insurance and be contributing to social security, so they can some day retire and get a social security check. After all, prostitution is work. Then we can make pimping a federal crime and increase safety for sex-workers.

Ultimately, we have war to thank for the Internet’s existence because the original prototype began as a military command and control systems research project. The internet started out as ARPAnet (Advanced Research Projects Agency-net ) and evolved into DARPAnet when the Pentagon took over R&D in the ’70′s (and added a D for Defense), and eventually transformed into our current Internet. In what we will look back on as the coolest irony ever in about 60 years, the same tool used to share information to make winning war more systematic and thus easier will be the very tool that leads to making establishing world joy more systematic and thus easier. How? By allowing the masses to communicate with each other — share information — only from a place of desire to make friends, learn about each other, and socialize. Friendship and socializing on a global scale, along with a cup or two of forgiveness, is the recipe for World Joy: the internet will be the prototype for peaceful happy networking and the real tangible world — and real tangible world-governments — will follow suit. The other great way the internet will serve humanity is by connecting soulmates online based on the compatibility of their personalities rather than via the facade magnetism of our fertility/virility traits that seem so compelling in person when couples meet in places like bars, clubs, school, and work. These primal attributes continue to mislead during the throes of infatuation, and then their appeal often fades quickly after the biological imperative to mate has been fulfilled. Everyone on Earth has a soulmate and the Internet will help future generations find that person earlier in life and more easily, and the demand part of the supply & demand that perpetuates the sex-trade will decrease drastically. Also in the future, it is likely that everyone on Earth will learn 2 of 3 languages. If everyone knows 2 of 3 agreed upon world-languages, then anyone on Earth will be able to communicate with everyone else on Earth, anywhere on Earth! (Hint: those three languages are very likely to be English, Spanish, and Mandarin Chinese.) Democracy will spread, peacefully, and we will all view each other as the cousins we truly are, not only at the soul level, but genetically. If you go back far enough, we are all descendants of the same grandmother who lived in Africa 200,000 years ago — so thanks, cousin, for reading my blog. Maybe Thanksgiving will become an International Holiday and we can all celebrate how blessed we are to share this beautiful Earth and have such a big family!

Angel blessings to all lightworkers and social justice activists on Earth! Remember, the date of World Joy is already on the calendar.

Sources:

http://www.inetdaemon.com/tutorials/internet/history.shtml

“In the event of a nuclear war, the United States would need a Command and Control (C&C) system that could survive one or more nuclear ‘hits’. Work began [in 1962] on researching a decentralized system that would be robust enough to survive and function even if most of the network were destroyed.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve

“In the field of human genetics, Mitochondrial Eve refers to the matrilineal “MRCA” (most recent common ancestor). In other words, she was the woman from whom all living humans today descend, on their mother’s side, and through the mothers of those mothers and so on, back until all lines converge on one person.”