A Father's Advice on Love

Today, as I celebrate Father's Day, I am reminded of one of my first teachers who taught me not to be afraid of making mistakes, and that a part of parental love was learning when to let go.

It's not easy being the head of a family. Time passes quickly. Too quickly. You assume a life where you go from having dependants that need you, to independents that fly the roost. On the day they leave, you sit alone in your empty nest wondering what they're doing so far away.

But that's life. People grow. You can't hold on forever. This makes perfect sense when you consider us as creatures of evolution. When our children are helpless, our instinct is to nurture and protect them. As they grow older, they acquire habits that promote independence and their own identity. This is as it should be.

A mentally healthy parent learns to accept and eventually desire his children's independence. A child is going to leave the nest whether you're a good parent or bad; the love of a parent is like a river - no matter how deep or strong its current its always flowing towards a sea of separation. Because parental love, at its best, is the only love there is that inevitably leads to parting.

It may hurt us, but everyone needs their own space, and giving our loved ones space to spread their wings is what true love is really all about. Love doesn't imprison you, it sets you free to find your way to move forward, and grow through personal trial and error.

And trial and error sounds the perfect description for gift-buying for my father. I find that dads are always difficult to buy gifts for. Mine always tells me he doesn't want anything, and is happy with whatever I get him - whether it's for his birthday, Christmas, or Father's Day. Buying gifts shouldn't be about what you think someone would like, it should be something they really like. But even though it seems harder as there are no obvious gifts to get dads, like there are for mums, it won't stop me trying to get him the perfect gift every year.

Because as my father taught me, we are inevitably going to make mistakes, but mistakes don't mean we are failures. In fact, mistakes can be our most helpful lessons to grow in life.

Once in a while when I was a child, on a weekend, my father would take me to help out at our local community's soup kitchens, set up by a national charity for homeless people. It continues to this day, and also runs a food package service, sending food out to people in need during these times of austerity.

In making me help others less fortunate than ourselves, my father believed that that there was real learning to be done outside of the classroom. His fatherly advice to me was, "These people have made mistakes, but they are not failures. They have simply failed to learn from their mistakes. Our duty as human beings is not to shun them, but help them, because we are only a kindness away from being in their position."

We can all "fail" to learn from our mistakes, because we feel ashamed at not having lived up to expectations put upon us by others. But I can't thank my father enough for a mindset that embraces mistakes, kindness and independence. These are very important human qualities, and to see them exist in me because of the times I spent with my dad helping him out, makes the memories all the more special. Growing up with him was a wonderful experience.

My father will forever be my hero because he made me curious about life, eager to learn more and more, to discover through reading about everything and the world - and most importantly that I was "worth it".

So with this article today, in time for Father's Day, I want to ask you: At the end of your life, when your game of business is done, your family and reputation will really be all that you have left. Not the money, but your legacy. What will it be?

The best advice any parent can give

Psychologist David Seabury says that the best piece of advice his father ever gave him was to practice positive mental imagery - immediately and "on cue", so to speak, whenever he became aware of negative feelings. Negative feelings literally defeated themselves by becoming a sort of "bell" which set off a conditioned reflex to arouse positive states of mind.

It's not always easy to be calm, cool, and collected in a crisis. Take a look at the funny cartoon pictured left. Click on it for an enlarged image after the jump, to see that some days you feel just like that rabbit!

We will all get our faces rubbed in it now and then. Life is full of challenges, but a major secret is not to allow yourself to fall down the trapdoor to your thoughts of resistance. Don't be concerned about what others might think, or getting people to like you. Simply be the best you are.

Very few people can do this, because we're always trying to figure out how to get others to approve of us or like us. Not good. Because the more you NEED others to like you the less they will like you.

Same goes with money. The more you NEED it, the more it will stay away from you. Money and friends go where they are wanted - not where they are needed. There is a world of difference between want and need. One attracts. The other repels.

Want comes from a vibration of "I'm happy already and I'd like to have this, too." Need comes from a vibration of "I'm miserable and frustrated and I need this thing to make me happy."

Become aware of negative NEED feelings when they arise. And when they do, learn, through practice, to have those feelings immediately trigger the thought to change your vibration into a "feel good" one.

Most people have never been taught to do this by their fathers - or by anyone else. They've not been taught to set goals, to have a burning desire, to be optimistic and have a positive attitude.

So, what do you do when you look at the state of your finances and you feel bad? What do you do when the reality of your situation begins to ruin your day? What do you do when you're feeling frustrated, fearful, and worried? You can try what Dr. Seabury's father told him to do.

1. First, you "recognise" that you are feeling bad.
2. Second, you understand that this "feel bad" vibration REPELS what you say you want. Your want is not a want. It's a need that comes with the expectation that something outside of yourself will make you happy.
3. Third, you recognise that this "feel bad" imagery sends a signal to the universe that you cannot be happy "for no particular reason." And that's not good.

There is a balancing act between having a burning desire and having a desire that burns you.

Having a burning desire creates the necessary mindset that will attract the thing you want. On the other hand, if the desire is connected to "I'm miserable unless I have this thing" - then you are chasing success and that success will always run faster than you do.

Your objective is to attract success, not chase it. Chasing success is repelling success. You never get what you are chasing.

The forces of attraction and repulsion are always at play. Experts say that whether you attract more than you repel or repel more than you attract is simply a matter of how strong those forces are. If your repelling energy is stronger, you go deeper into debt. If your attraction energy is stronger, you get wealthier. If both are equally strong, you feel "stuck".

Now the question is - what do you do if you are repelling more than you're attracting?

The answer:

1. You change the way you feel by changing the mental picture you have of your situation. Every time you feel a negative emotion, you sound the alarm in your head. "Uh, oh. Not good. Change the mental picture to a positive one." You do this over and over, and before long the feel-bad vibe lasts less than a second and you're back to feeling good.
2. You begin each day with exercises that help you go through the whole day without resistance. You don't just read inspirational messages and books. You stand in front of the mirror and tell yourself what you want. You picture what you want when you speak. You recall previous successes and link them to your future. My 90 day mind healing programme gives you all the information you need to achieve this.
3. You have a burning desire in mind, a goal. You don't expect the goal to give you happiness. You don't let the desire for it burn you by feeling bad that you don't yet have it. In fact, even though you WANT the goal, you are able to "walk away" from it emotionally. If, for example, you want more money - you don't expect more money to give you happiness. You simply want more money - and you put yourself into happiness mode NOW.

If you're happy even though you don't yet have in your possession the thing you want - then you are attracting it to you.

If you're unhappy because you don't yet have in your possession the thing you NEED - then you are repelling it.

So get happy NOW. If you're a father, you need that happiness, you need it to nurture and guide your family of dependants. The same applies to mothers, they share equal responsibility of being the head of the household, too, because two heads are always better than one!

Recognise that fear, frustration, and angst are only there to help you change course. They're there to help you see that your mental picture is off-target. Put the right mental image back onto the screen of your mind and watch how the universe lines things up in your favour to help you leave a legacy of love.

It's a bright torch that will shine with your loved ones long after you've gone; that's what my father taught me, and why I'm proud to celebrate him, not only today, but every day of the year.

Yours in love,