Stories - Staying In Love

Mark Victor Hansen is renowned as co-creator of the phenomenally successful, Chicken Soup for the Soul® series. To us, he is our dear friend and great mentor. The following is one of Mark's inspiring weekly messages from his "Rich Results" series. Click here to get these wonderful messages from Mark every week, and keep your life on track.

Creating great success does not always lead to having phenomenal relationships. But creating great relationships always leads to having phenomenal success. It is the nurturing, or plussing, of our personal, professional and Universal relationships that allows us to receive complete and total abundance.

When I speak of personal relationships I'm referring to those people that we love - our parents, spouses, partners, children, life-long friends, etc. These are the people that know us better than anyone on the planet.

These are the people we would lay down our lives for, and they would do the same for us. These are the people for which we live and breathe.

We plus these relationships by becoming more lovingly involved in their lives, and by allowing them to become more involved in ours. We don't stick our noses in where they don't belong or give advice that is not wanted. If our spouses or children have something to say, we stop what we're doing and we listen. If our friends have problems and want to talk, we show up and support them. We don't judge and we don't nag. We nurture these relationships by being present in their lives and loving them.

We have professional relationships with the people we work with. These are individuals we need, and who need us, to accomplish professional goals. We plus these relationships by creating win-win situations in the workplace. Find out what your co-workers, employees and bosses need. Once you figure out what everyone wants and needs you can easily help them achieve their goals. They, in turn, will help you achieve your goals. It's the law of give and take. When you help others, you, in turn, are rewarded for your efforts.

Universal relationships are those we have with every living thing on earth, and with God, or whatever Infinite Intelligence you believe exists. Let's say you decided to help build houses for the homeless. This selfless decision plusses your relationships with other human beings, and sets a karmic chain of prosperous events into motion. Those homeless people become homeowners. They remember the kindness and generosity others have shown them and help build homes for the homeless. Those people do the same - and so on, and so on - until one day there are no homeless people, only homeowners helping one another.

While you're doing that, others are working to save the rainforests and clean up the oceans - helping other living creatures on this planet. Plussing our Universal relationships lead to prosperity for everyone and everything.

I'd like to offer an exercise to complete in the week ahead:

The Beatles once sang, "All you need is love." It seems so simple, but nothing could be truer. Look at the most loving people in the world: Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama, Gandhi, etc. They have, and are, accomplishing more with love than all the money in the world could accomplish. Our first goal, in everything that we do, should be to practice love.

So, how do you learn to do this? It's just like anything else you want to be successful at - study those who know how to love, learn how they successfully do the things you want to do and practice, practice, practice.

Take out a journal or notebook and go to a quiet place. Now answer these questions:

1. Who are the ten most loving people you know?

2. Why did you choose these ten people? (What loving attributes do they possess? What have they done to make you choose them? What have they said that made you choose them?)

3. What can you learn from them? (Remember: actions, words, attitudes)

4. Which of their behaviors can you duplicate in your own life to make you more loving?

Once you answer these questions, begin implementing these loving attitudes, actions and words into your own life, and keep a journal every day to chart your journey towards a life of love and prosperity.

Mark Victor Hansen

I'm sure you remember that old story about the monkey who came across some ripe berries in a glass jar. Not surprisingly, the monkey was elated about his find, and immediately plunged his hand inside the jar to grasp a fistful of berries. But when he tried to withdraw his hand, he found he was stuck: the neck of the jar was too small an opening for the monkey's clenched fist to negotiate. He had two choices: hold onto the treasure in his fist and remain imprisoned, or release the treasure and regain his hand.

The monkey was in agony, because he did not want to let go of the food.

The moral of that story, of course, is that letting go can be vital to your health. That concept is easy enough to read on paper; in real life, though, it is tougher to grasp. We've all been in the monkey's shoes, after all -- who hasn't tried to hold fast to something at some point, even when it was obviously a poor choice? Come on: we've all done it. Several times.

I once met someone who was holding on for dear life to a job he detested. He had been working hard at it for years, typically he would spend 10 to 14 hours a day slaving over his desk. If you asked him why he didn't look for something else, he would give a totally reasonable answer: "It's all I know."

Then one day, out of the blue, he discovered he had terminal cancer. He was shocked: he was still young, his body was in good shape, and it didn't seem remotely fair to him to be felled by cancer before he had gotten any fun out of life. The doctors told him he had a year left to live.

Stunned into unreasonableness, this fellow quit his job and decided to spend the year enjoying himself -- something he had never done before in his whole life. He had, you remember, held passionately tight to his profession, even though he hated it. But in the face of death, he lost all fear of leaving his job. He packed up a few clothes, cleaned out his bank account and took off for a trip around the world.

We didn't hear from him for several months; as the days slipped by, many of us became increasingly concerned about his wellbeing. Was he all alone in some obscure hotel in South America, getting weak and frail? There was no way to track him down; and we kept worrying about him at a distance.

Ten months later, one of our team got a phone call from the fellow. He was back in the U.S, hale and hearty, and bursting with ideas about starting a new business. The cancer? It had disappeared off the map -- the doctors could no longer see any remnant of it in the X-rays. The man was healed.

We couldn't believe our ears.

He stopped by to visit us a few days later, and indeed he looked happy, tanned, vigorous and full of excitement about his new career, which was in a vastly different direction from his previous one. We gathered around him in awe. "But how on earth did you get healed?" we all wanted to know. He said, "Well, my doctor thinks it was because I let go of the job I hated -- and then just dashed out and did all of the things I never let myself do before."

He's still healthy today, many years later. And he loves his work. We say he healed himself of cancer. He says cancer saved his life.

That same story about the monkey was told in a different way by the beloved American comedian Jack Benny. One of Benny's most famous comedy bits is the one in which a robber comes up to him on the street and demands, "Your money -- or your life!"

Benny stares at the robber and then falls into one of his relentlessly long, silent pauses.

Exasperated, the robber repeats his ultimatum: "Your money -- or your life!"

And Benny says, "Don't rush me.......I'm thinking."

Elsa Bailey is a free lance writer who has created www.elsajoy.com as "a labor of love." If you are ready for inspiration, wisdom and spiritual connection, then visit Elsa's site.