374: How Can We Experience Heaven on Earth?

Hal Elrod: Welcome to the Achieve Your Goals Podcast. This is your host, Hal Elrod, and today was quite the episode. I just finished recording it and it was one of those where it was channeled, if you will, like I just hit record, I started talking, and stopped about 45 minutes or so later. I hope that what you get today is extremely valuable for you. Now, I, like most people I think, deal with self-doubt, insecurity, meaning that when I record a podcast specifically, often I'm like, "Ooh, did I say anything that might offend somebody?” And I feel like in our society today, people seemed like they're more easily offended than ever so you're coming from the heart, you're speaking your truth, and then somebody can take it out of context or take it the wrong way, or you just say something they disagree with and you never know. So, I hope today really resonates with you. Not all of it. You know, not all of it but I hope you get the message today and I decided to title the podcast today, What Is Heaven On Earth? And that in itself, I thought that could trigger some people. Some people that might say, "Oh, heaven only exists this way and it's not on earth.” I don't know, but I hope this is something that you can listen to with an open mind and an open heart and that you can really receive it and experience it. 

Before you listen to the episode, I just want to take a couple of minutes to thank my sponsors. And I also want to mention this, that I never took on sponsors for the first, what, eight years of the podcast. And then a good friend of mine, Brianna Greenspan, who you’ll actually hear probably next week on the podcast, if not the week after, Brianna said, “Hal, you use so many products. You believe in so many products and services that you tell everybody about anyway. Why not bring them on as sponsors and then your audience can benefit and you can benefit and it's a win-win?” And so, that was last year at some point, I'm like, "You're right. You're right.” So, she said, "What are the products you use everyday that you tell your friends about anyway?” And one of those products was Organifi. I've used Organifi every day for years. They make whole food, plant-based, or whole-food-based organic supplements such as protein powder and green juice and a red juice with beets in it and probiotics and so on and so forth. And I'm a big fan. I’ve used their products for years. And so, if you would like to  check out some of those products, if you want to see want to boost your health, your energy, your mental clarity, that sort of thing, check out Organifi.com/Hal and then use “Hal” at checkout and you'll get 15% off your entire order. I hope you find something there that you really, really love and adds value to your life. 

And then last but not least is Self-Publishing School. I've personally worked with Self-Publishing School in the past. My sister worked with Self-Publishing School. I've had my best friend. I've recommended so many people to Self-Publishing School and so Chandler Bolt, the founder is a good friend of mine. If you have a book inside you, if you want to write a book, I highly recommend checking out their free training that I did with Chandler recently and it's free. In the training, you'll get an opportunity to sign up for a free call to get specific coaching on your book. So, to access that training, you can go now to Self-PublishingSchool.com/Hal. That’s Self-PublishingSchool.com/Hal. And writing a book for me personally was one of the best decisions I've ever made. Self-publishing the Miracle Morning has allowed me to impact millions of people to generate millions of dollars, to support my family, and, yeah, just to make the impact in the world that I always wanted to make. And if I wouldn't have gotten over my fear and insecurity to write that frigging book, I would have missed out on so much. So, if you have a book in you and you've got excuses holding you back, I encourage you to take the free training. That's a good first step. Again, Self-PublishingSchool.com/Hal.

And without further ado, I'm encouraging you, I'm asking the question, what is heaven on earth? And I'm sharing my experience and I say this during the episode, but this is not gospel. I am not preaching to you. I'm not telling you what's real and not real, and what's truth. I'm just sharing with you an experience that I had actually this morning and I hope this experience opens you up to your own experience of what, in my words, heaven on earth might be like and be available to us at all times. So, love you. Enjoy the episode. 

[EPISODE]

Hal Elrod: Good morning, everybody. I don't know if it's morning when you're listening to this, but it is 11:15 a.m. on a Thursday right now. And I just had one of the best mornings of my life which inspired this impromptu podcast recording. So, what made this one of the best experiences of my life? Well, I started out I woke up at, what, 4:35 a.m.-ish and did my Miracle Morning and I did a super long and extended meditation this morning. I purposely scheduled this morning off. I've been working real hard all week. My family is actually out of town and I scheduled an entire morning to just I call it total time freedom. So, it was like Miracle Morning plus the first three hours of what would normally be a workday. I just scheduled it off today. I had that opportunity and I set the rest of my week up accordingly. So, I had this morning from when I woke up until right now, total time freedom just to do whatever I want. And that always starts with a Miracle Morning, of course, just because that's my opportunity to really get connected and grounded. And today, during my extra-long meditation and this is one of the benefits of, I think, being able to do an hour-long meditation, which we can't always do, but maybe on the weekends or every once in a while. I definitely don't do that daily. 

Daily I meditate for 10 or 20 minutes but when I go for an hour or longer like I get into these states and going into the meditation, what I'm looking for is it's getting so quiet that I can hear, I feel like I get communication from higher consciousness from, I don't know, and to get a little woo-woo I guess whether you want to call that God or collective intelligence, infinite intelligence, whatever it is. I've heard my friend, Preston Smiles. He often refers to anything that he shares as a transmission. And think about that, by the way. Where do thoughts come from? Where do ideas come from? I guess one way to look at it is it could be a degree of our life experiences all culminated together in our knowledge and education and then all of that forms to create various ideas. That's one way to think about it. But what's interesting is so many of us have the same ideas. So many of us have the same ideas meaning that one person has an idea. There's been many times where I have an idea and I'm like, "Oh, my gosh, that's brilliant. I just thought of that and it's revolutionary for me. I've never thought of this before.” And then I go online and I'm like, "Oh, there have been countless other people that had the same transmission. They got the same download, the same idea that exists in the ethos.” So, anyway, I don't want to go too far down that rabbit hole but the point is doing my meditation this morning, it was really opening myself up to whatever message I felt I needed to receive. And the message I got today was one that I've gotten before, but never so direct and so specific and then so experiential, which I'll explain to you and I'll invite you to consider this. 

By the way, what I'm about to share with you, this is not gospel, right? Meaning I'm not telling you this is how it is. I'm just inviting you into an experience that I had and to consider this for yourself. Consider whether or not this is true. I forgot. I heard a speaker once, I think it was Kevin Bracy, one of my former mentors. I think it was Kevin. It might have actually been Les Brown, which Kevin was mentored by Les Brown, so that makes sense either way, but talked about that he would always start his speech by saying, "What I'm going to share with you today,” I think this was Les, “But what I'm going to share with you today, think of this as a buffet, a buffet of ideas and concepts and principles and practices.” And he said, "When you go to eat at a buffet, you don't eat everything, right? There's a whole variety of options and then you see what feels good for you at that time. Ooh, I’m going to get a little bit of that. I'm going to try some of that. Ooh, definitely don't want that but that other person likes that.” So, the point is, what I'm going to share with you it's like a buffet and you decide what you're going to what makes sense, what you want to taste, what you want to try, what you want to invite into your life. And so, that's it. I just want to make sure that I'm not preaching to you. I'm just inviting you to consider this possibility. 

So, here's what I got this morning during my meditation. It was the essence of life in a lot of ways and the essence of what really matters and what's fundamental. And I received this, this morning through the context, okay, ready for this? Again, not preaching. Just inviting you to consider into my experience here. Heaven on earth, right? What is heaven on earth if there's such a thing? Think about that for a second. If there is such a thing as heaven on earth, what is that? What might that look like? And here's what I got this morning. I got that we were gifted, if you believe God gifted us with the following or just life, the universe, however you want to put it, but we were gifted first with a body. We have this body that we were gifted with. You were gifted with your body. And if you think about when you receive a gift from somebody, usually, the essence of receiving a gift is not to point out what's wrong with the gift and go, "Oh, thank you, but I really wish it would have been smaller. I really would have liked it in a different color. I really want…” No, like to truly receive a gift is, “Wow. Thank you. Thank you. I don't care what color it is. I don't care if I would have picked it out differently. Like I don't care how big or small. Thank you. Thank you for this gift.” And so, if you really think about it, our body first and foremost is one of the greatest gifts we've been given. And yet how present are we to that miracle? 

That was one thing I thought of this morning, the holy trinity of miracles if you will. And again, this isn't meant to be religious at all, but take it, filter it through your belief system as you see fit. But the holy trinity of miracles, body, planet, and spirit or source or God. Again, I don't want to use my language. I want you to use what resonates with you. But we were gifted with a body that is this incredible, miraculous organism. Look at your fingers right now, like, how often do you thank your hand for all the work that it does for you? Like, think about that. This might be weird, but this morning I got really present to how blessed I am to have two hands and we don't all have two hands. Some of them, you know my friend, Nick, he has one arm, one hand, and no legs, and only part of another arm. Nick Santonastasso is a friend of mine but he has a body different from other people's bodies, not the body that most people would wish for, if we're being totally honest. No offense to Nick, of course, just being honest, but he is grateful. He is grateful for the body that he has and he makes the most of it. He goes snowboarding. Again, he has no legs, he has only one arm and one finger on that one arm on that hand, and the other arm is it's just a little, I don't know, he calls it a nub. It's just a very short part of his shoulder. But he's grateful for his body and he makes the most of it. He doesn't look in the mirror and go, “Oh, I wish I had this or that or I wish it were different. I do wish I didn't carry so much fat in my love handles.” We're so, what's the word? I don’t know if there's a word for it. What am I trying to say? 

Just consider that. Consider the body you've been blessed with and how present are you to the miracle that is your body? Do you look at those hands that pick up things for you every day that put food in your mouth, that do so much, that type on the keyboard, that pick things up, that pick your nose, those hands that washed your body, those hands. How often are we grateful for those hands? And so, today I was so present. I was looking at my hands and actually, I was feeling them and I was thanking them. So, anyway, we were blessed with this body. We were also blessed with the planet. So, if God gifted us this body or the universe again, you choose your beliefs, but we’ll use God. I think it makes it easier in terms of the language to explain it. Let's say God gifted us with this body. God gifted us with this planet. Think about that. Think about for a second the planet. Think about the planet. I think we take it for granted. So, I went into my backyard when I had this realization. I wanted to experience all of this. So, first, the realization was intellectual as I'm expressing to you now that we were gifted with this body that is miraculous. It sustains us for our entire life. It provides us with pleasure and sensory experiences. It's a body that we can exercise and make stronger and shape and craft. It's incredible. 

We were also gifted with this planet with, I don't know the number, trillions of different living organisms and animals and insects and plants, trees, all of it. Like that's enough to keep us entertained for the rest of our lives, enough to keep us fascinated for the rest of our lives. And then we messed it up. I don't usually curse on the podcast, but I would drop an F-bomb there, and then we effed it up. Rather than being present to the perfection of life on this planet and the body we were gifted and intended as it was by the universe and creation, we let our minds and egos run wild. And when I say we, I just mean humanity. I'm not pointing the finger at you. This isn't to feel guilt. No, not at all. In fact, I wouldn't want you to feel any kind of guilt. But humanity, we let our minds and egos run wild. You know, people, we humanity wanted more and more and more and in our pursuit of more like our minds are so brilliant and in pursuit of better. And there are so many miracles, man-made human miracles, co-created miracles that have come from innovation. But I think somewhere along the way, we lost sight of what really matters. Our bodies, the planet, and our connection to source, to God. Now, this is the fundamental level I would say like we could have another conversation or extend this conversation into relationships with each other, which was another part of one of my realizations I had this morning is really wanting to improve my relationship with others, but that's another podcast for another time. 

So, again, have we lost sight? I've lost sight. I've been conditioned by society. Now, I talked a long time ago about doing a podcast on societal conditioning, and I just never felt like I articulated my notes well and like I just couldn't get the concept rounded out to where I felt like it was ready to deliver. But I think it's important to talk about and right now since we're just off-the-cuff having a transmission, we can talk about it. But think about we've been conditioned by society. Think about what we have been conditioned to think is important. Like success, what is success? How do you define success? Oh, that person’s successful because they made a bunch of money, they became famous. How is that success? How is the person who made millions of dollars and has all this fame and now lives every day in fear and anxiety for people not liking them, losing their popularity, fear of losing their money? And I'm guilty of all of these fears, by the way. I'm guilty of all of this. I'm speaking from experience. If I'm pointing the finger anywhere, it's right back at me. But you think about what we've been conditioned, society's been conditioned, and there's no one to blame. It's this collective consequence of human beings and struggles for power and control and different things and to be important and to be significant, some of these psychological drivers that we all have within us that can be used like anything. All power could be used for good or for evil. 

But you think about our society, what we've been conditioned to value as important. I was in my closet this morning after I did the meditation and as I was going to put on some clothes. I wasn't naked. I was changing clothes. I was going from my pajama shorts to my clothes to go outside in my backyard because I want to go experience the planet. I wanted to be fascinated. I went and I knelt down and I just looked at like a one-foot area of my backyard and just thought about the, I don't even know, millions, billions, trillions of organisms and that little one-foot square of my backyard, there was blades of grass and dirt and twigs and insects and all of this. And this may be weird right now. I don't know. I'm transmitting right now. So, I don't know how you're receiving this, but I hope you're open. I hope you're considering that, well, this isn't the narrative that we're typically fed, it's not the narrative that we're fed by the media or anything. You turn on the TV and it's like, "Hey, here's what success looks like. Go buy this car. We're having a 0% financing this weekend. You could have your new car. You need a brand new car.” I bought new cars, right? “Oh, and buy these clothes.” That's what I was thinking this morning when I was in my closet after I had this like realization of what is the essence of life. I was gifted this body. We were gifted this planet, which is like our playground. But no, we traded it in for Netflix. We traded it in for Netflix. 

You know, I had this epiphany this morning that television may have been one of the most in terms of us losing touch with what really matters, television might have been the worst invention of all time. This isn't gospel. Don't quote me on that. I'm not telling you that's a fact. In fact, I love television. One of my favorite things to do every single day is to eat lunch. In fact, when I'm doing this podcast, it's what I'm doing. I can't wait. I love to eat lunch and watch television. I'll watch a documentary usually so I can feel like I'm educating myself at least on something that is important in the world. Or I'll just watch sports. I’ll watch entertainment. I'll just numb out. Really, for me, it's a decompression. I love television. But in terms of the context of this conversation of what really matters, and of societal conditioning and how that's impacted us, consider the images that were shown. We’re shown, “Oh, do you ever wake up feeling tired in the morning? There's a pill for that.” You go, "Oh, I want the pill. That's easy. So, if I take that pill, I get to feel better. If I take that pill, I get to feel better. I get to be happy. I get to have energy, all the things that I want. I'll take it, right? I'll take it.” We've been conditioned that that's normal. Everything that we are shown that's normal isn't normal. What's normal is waking up and living in alignment with our planet and I'm not trying to be, you know, this isn't a save the whales, save the Earth message, not at all. But just to realize that we've been gifted with our body, gifted with the planet, the ultimate playground if you will. We've been gifted with unlimited connection to source. We can connect with source at any given time. 

Everything that we needed to live the most beautiful life in harmony with Earth was given to us at birth. It is our birthright to wake up every day healthy, happy, alive, and not worrying about other people think of us. How much time do we put into what other…? Imagine how free you'd be if you didn't worry what other people thought of you. And by the way, I said worry meaning how free you would be if you didn't worry or fear what other people thought of you, how freeing would that be? I'm not saying that you don't consider what other people think of you. In fact, you absolutely should, I think. See, what other people think of us is feedback, nothing more. It is their opinion, nothing more. It may be a valid observation. It may be valuable feedback for us to consider as to how we are showing up in our lives for ourselves, for others to get that feedback. But here's the thing, it's not meant to be worried about or feared. It's meant to be received and evaluated and then either acted on or disregarded but not to be the source of pain, not to be a source of anxiety, “Oh, I hope people like me. I hope they like me.” Do you like you? That's what matters. Do you like you? “I just want to be loved.” Great. Do you love you? That's where love begins and ends and no love from another person is going to fill that void for you if you don't love yourself. I know I'm bouncing around a little bit right now, but I hope this is landing for you. I hope this is valuable for you. 

You know, for me, self-love has been a huge area that I've worked on over the last probably two years ever since I read the book, Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It by Kamal Ravikant. I had Kamal on the podcast a while back. You can go find that if you go to HalElrod.com/Podcast and just search for Kamal. I think it's K-A-M-A-L or just search love. But even his book, Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It, was a game-changer for me and really opened my eyes to what this conversation that I'm having with you right now in terms of loving yourself like your life depends on it. I know I'm off on a bit of a tangent but that's so important. So, I've really learned to love my body exactly as it is. My body is a mess, you guys, but like, relatively speaking, from my car accident I broke 11 bones like I've got scars all over the left side of my body that I used to be all insecure about. I would be afraid to take my shirt off. Who cares? I don't care anymore. If you don't like my scars, cool. There's nothing to do with me. It doesn't matter. And consider that for you. If somebody doesn't like your _____, who cares? Take your shirt off. Like who cares? Just be you. Live fully. Live freely. That's your birthright. You were born into freedom. 

All right. Anywhere else to go with this? Yeah. Let's talk about some solutions. Now, I don't have solutions to heal the planet. Like I said, I think that humans effed up at various points and we created this monetary system and it's a beautiful thing in many ways. Anyway, the point is I'm not trying to offer global solutions right now. I want to offer individual solutions for you. How do we make the most of this one life that we've been blessed to live? How do we reconnect with our body, with the planet, with source, with God, with our spirit? How do we connect with what matters most while still operating in the midst of the society that we're a part of? Because there are a few options, right? One is you plug into the matrix and you just follow everything that the government tells you to do because they're just looking out for us and they always have been, people of power always looking out for the little guy. Sure. Okay. So, we can just plug into the matrix and go, “I'm going to do what I'm told, I'm going to watch the news, and I'm going to follow the plan of what you're telling me to do.” That's one option, plug in the matrix, and there are pros and cons to that. Or we can totally unplug and just be like a hermit, just go live on land, there's a piece of land, and just be like a monk and meditate all day. 

And I think that's at the other end of the spectrum where you're so unplugged from the society and you're so connected to body and to planet and to spirit that you're just immersed on the land all day, meditating all day, just completely introverted, which is where I've gone a little too far toward. That was my breakthrough this morning around realizing that I've atrophied a lot of my social skills. You may or may not know this, but a lot of my social skills have atrophied like ever since I had cancer and I spent so much time alone. And I think my psyche developed some protective measures around like, yeah, I don't know. This morning during the meditation, I was having just some realizations around the trauma that I've endured. You think about the trauma you've endured. Most of us all endured trauma in different forms, whether it's been as a child with our parents or being bullied or relationships or physical trauma, emotional trauma, losing a loved one, whatever it's been at different stages in our life. Where was I going with that? So, I lost my train of thought. So, what are the solutions? Again, I don't have the solutions for like the global solutions. I'm talking about how you make the most of this life and how you make the most of where you are right now with the circumstances in your life exactly the way they are, meaning most of us have different problems. We have our own unique problems in different ways. Some of us, they’re financial, some are relational, some are personal, some are physical. 

There are all different types of challenges that life presents us with but we don't have to label those as bad. I've got a physical ailment. Okay. It just is what it is, right? And I'm speaking from someone who's endured extraordinary physical pain that I never allowed the physical pain to be my ultimate reality if that makes sense. That, yes, I have pain and, yes, I have challenges in my relationship and, the “and” being, and I'm living the miracle of life, like wow, wow, wow. Yeah. Life sucks and it's frickin amazing. Both are true simultaneously. But if you live in the context of, well, it's always amazing. It's always perfect. All the challenges, all the pain, it's all part of the beautiful kaleidoscope of the experience that is life, that is always evolving and transitioning and moving. So, here's what I think the secret to experiencing what I mentioned earlier, like heaven on earth, if you will. And I don't know if that triggers anybody in terms of like, yeah, I don't know if that triggers anybody. But if it does, look, that's on you. That's on you. I'm not going to take ownership of what triggers you because what triggers one person might light someone else up. So, we've got to really take ownership for how we respond, which by the way, another tangent I could go on, which I guess let me dive into the tangent real quick is if you're offended by what someone else does or says, I'm sorry, but if we're offended, that's on us, right? You say something on social media and I don't like it, that's me. That's my issue. Like, we got to take ownership for our opinions and how we feel and stop trying to censor everybody. I'm trying to say you don't agree with me so you can't say what you want because I don't think it's right. Like what? When did we get there? Yeah. When did we get there? Anyway, again, another topic I think for another time. 

But the secret to experiencing heaven on earth. And again, this isn't gospel. This is just my experience. This is the transmission I received during my meditation this morning, and then I went out and lived it. I went out and lived it. I loved my body for a little bit. Anyway, I looked in the mirror. I was like, wow, I'm so grateful for every part of my body like my nipples. When I was a kid, I had really big nipples and it's whatever and I was super insecure about it. I was always afraid to take my shirt off because my nipples were really big and I was thin like the rest of my body was small. It was disproportionate. And then that stuck with me like that stuck in my whole life. And now I feel like this morning I was looking in the mirror and I was like just looking with unconditional love at myself and I was like, "My nipples are fine. Why did I spend 30 some, 40 years being insecure about my nipples because of what I thought other people thought of them? Like it's crazy.” So, anyway, sorry, I'm taking a long time to get to the point, which I tend to do, I guess. So, in order to experience heaven on earth, which to me is our birthright like we were born into life on earth and we get to choose, well, if we're conscious, we can choose how we experience it and it can be hell on earth, right? It could be miserable or it could be heaven on earth, and it has far less to do with what's going on in our lives. And again, this comes speaking from experience. Even in the midst of pain and difficulty and challenges, we can choose to be at peace with all that we can't change and deeply, deeply grateful for all that we have. 

I said this recently that what if in order to be happy, instead of you having all these rules, where if this goes the way I want it to, then I'll be happy. And if I achieve this thing and if these people like me and if he or she loves me, then I'm happy. Those are the rules of my game. What if in order to be happy, all you had to do was wake up? Open your eyes and go, "Wow. I get to do it again. I got another day. I got another day. Wow. I've got some big problems today to work on, and that’s been stressing me out, but you know what, I'm not going to do it from a place of stress anymore.” Stress is a good poke just to go, "Oh, why am I feeling stress around that? Oh, okay. I need to do something differently so that I'm not experiencing that outcome anymore that's causing me stress or I need to change my paradigm around the outcome.” But I woke up and what if every breath you took was a reminder that you are alive, that you are blessed, you are gifted to be alive. What if every breath, what if that's all it took? What if you change the rules that you're playing by of what you need to give yourself permission to be happy and it wasn't required on circumstances? It was just required on breath, your ability to take a breath. I got another one. Try that. Take a deep breath and just smile. Touch your heart if you need to. Find that place inside and just grateful to be alive. And look, we're still living in this matrix that is society. I'm not telling you don't achieve goals. This is the Achieve Your Goals Podcast, although the name has bugged me for a long time because I feel like it's become so much more than that. It's the True Freedom Podcast. It's The Miracle of Life Podcast. It's the Elevating Consciousness Podcast. There's not one of them. Maybe I'll just call it the Hal Elrod Show and then that way I can talk about whatever I want and it's just me talking. I don't know. 

But here's the point, bringing it full circle, the secret to experiencing heaven on earth is to simply realize that it's the experience you were born with. So, the only thing that we need to do in order to reconnect with our God-given birthright, which is simply to fully be present to and experiencing the miracles of body, of planet, of spirit, we don't need to do anything as much as just remove anything that stands in the way. We don't need to add anything. We don't need to learn anything. We need to just unlearn everything. We need to just unplug from the matrix, this falsely constructed reality that was co-created by people with all these rules and regulations to, "This is what it means to be successful and this is what you have to do to be happy, and this is what it means to fit in society and you're supposed to buy this and own this.” No. Just to get back to the essence of life by removing all the false beliefs, all of our addictions that we've developed over time, starting to step those backwards, all of the paradigms and the otherwise societal conditioning that has disconnected us from reality. So, that's it. Just realize everything you could ever want to be, the happiest you could ever be is always available to you. It's called life. It's happening right now. You're experiencing it right now. This is the essence of life. It's this moment. Life is the present moment. And the more you can connect with that and I've found that one of the best vehicles to connect with that is it's our body. Love your body. Love yourself exactly as you are. Find the perfection in your imperfection because that's what life is. Life is perfectly imperfect. 

And you and I, we are manifestations of that. Love the planet. Live in harmony with the planet. Go outside every day. For the love of all things holy, go outside every day barefoot. This is coming from the biggest clean freak germaphobe or recovering, I should say, the biggest recovering germaphobe. You can ask anyone that knows me. I would never step on the dirt. If I touched dirt, I would wash my hands right away like I was OCD about germs. And then, I don't know, a couple of years ago when I was with one of my chemo sessions I was doing, I was in bed all day feeling terrible and I just went outside and went in the backyard and knelt down and I had this epiphany where my foot was on the ground. I was kneeling down. I can remember this. It kind of happening in today. It was a reminder. But I had my foot on the ground. My dog, Peanut, our little white labradoodle I think he is, was there. I had my hand on him. I was kind of petting him. My foot was on the grass and I was kneeling down and I'm looking at my foot. I'm looking at the grass and I'm looking at my dog, Peanut. And because I was kneeling down, my field of vision was it was very small. It was just the ground, my foot, and Peanut. And I was like, "Oh, this is life. This is what matters, people, planet, and animal or living thing, just life, and it was profound. It was this really weird like frozen-in-time moment. But anyway, I was such a germaphobe so the point of me saying all that is now every day I do grounding, every single day. 

So, I take a bike ride throughout the neighborhood. That's my first exposure out into nature for the day but then every day it's usually right after lunch and I invite you to try this, every day after lunch, I go and I take my shirt off and I have some shorts or even like my boxers. I want as little clothing as possible. In fact, if we didn't have neighbors that could see into our yard, I would be naked when I did this every day. And if they're out of town, I'm naked like I'm in the backyard naked but I go out every day and I sit. I oscillate between sitting in a chair and, by the way, to be in total transparency, this is a small part, but since I'm out there, I go, "Well, I might as well get a tan.” So, there is the small element of vanity because I like being tanned. It feels good but mainly I go out there for the sun and the grounding. So, I go up there to get my vitamin D. And so, I sit in a chair usually for 15 minutes, and I'll bring a book often out there and I'll read a book, a spiritual book like The Untethered Soul or Awareness or Interior Freedom. I'll just reread the same books over and over, and those books bring me into that place of pure connection in spirit, all of that. So, funny, I just realized that anyone that like is finding this podcast for the first time and they found it by the title, “Oh, Achieve Your Goals. Oh yeah. I want to listen to a podcast on how to achieve your goals,” and if this is their first episode, they're like, “What the hell is this? This guy's not teaching me how to achieve my goals.” 

Actually, I am. I'm teaching how to achieve the most important goal, the most important goal to be present to this miracle that is the life that you're living. This is the most important goal, guys. And the beauty of it is you don't got to achieve it. You just got to experience it. Think about that for a second. The ultimate goal to be fully present to the miracle that is this life, you don't have to achieve it. You don't got to do anything. You don't got to take steps. It's not weeks out or months out or years out and you got to work and grind and hustle to finally get there. No. The most important thing in life is free. It's abundant. It's available to you at all times. It's all you need to be the happiest you can ever be and it is simply life. That's the irony, right? Like we're searching for something. We're searching for something to make us happy and it's right here. You're living it. You're living the thing you're searching for. It's crazy. It's crazy to think about. So, here's what I'd encourage you to do so that this doesn't just become an epiphany for you that fades into a distant memory. Write down something. Write down some notes I think or maybe even go back. This is one you might want to listen to twice. Actually, this is transcribed. If you go to HalElrod.com/ I think it’s 374 or 375. I'm not sure because I have another one I'm going to record tomorrow and I don't know which one's going to come out first. But anyway, if you go to HalElrod.com/Podcast, you can find this episode and you might want to re-listen to it. 

But the point is I would encourage you to put something in writing to remind you and I think I'm going to call the podcast something about Heaven On Earth, I think. I don't know. I usually title the podcast after I record it, especially I don't know when like today I didn't know exactly where I was going to go. But create something in your affirmations because, remember, an affirmation in its simplest form is simply a reminder. It's simply a reminder of something you want to be conscious of. Think about that. I talked last week about elevating your consciousness. What does that look like? It's elevating your consciousness to understand that you look at being unconscious, as being unaware. When you're unconscious, you are unaware. When you become conscious, you become aware. Elevating your consciousness is elevating your awareness. When you're not aware of something like last week, I use the example of a trigger, if something triggers you but you're not conscious of it, you're unconscious to it, then you react with anger or fear or sad or whatever that you react because you're not conscious. So, elevating your consciousness is being aware of yourself, how you interact with the world, how you respond, what triggers you, what doesn't, so that you can choose to not react, but to respond proactively. So, create awareness around the concepts that we've talked about today, realizing that we talked about the holy trinity of miracles, which I wrote that in my notes today. There's not an official name to that, but that's what I wrote down, the holy trinity of miracles. I'm looking at my notes right now. It’s actually my journal entry, by the way. These weren't notes for the podcast. I wrote a long journal entry and then that's what inspired today. 

But the holy trinity of miracles: body, planet, spirit. And again, this isn't gospel, folks. I'm not preaching at you. This is just what came up for me during my meditation and my Miracle Morning, my morning exploration today. It's what I wrote down and I'm just sharing it with you in the hopes, the intention that this may enrich your life in some way, add value in some way. But I want to close out with everyone. I have gone in a lot of different directions so I really want to try to bring this, tie a bow on this, and kind of give you this gift, if you will. And so, it's this. We were gifted. You were gifted with a body to sustain you. You were gifted with a planet that gives you all the food, all the nourishment, all the natural plant medicines to heal, aloe vera, whatever you want it, whatever it is, the ginger, garlic, all these amazing plants that can heal our body from within. We were given all these gifts, the gift of the planet, which would provide endless entertainment and fascination. Think about it. There are trillions of species that we could study and explore and touch and feel and look at. And then the connection to something greater than us, spirit, God, mother earth, call it what you want. I don't know if it needs a name or if it has a name. It's the energy that all things were created from. Personally, I call it God. That's what I identify with but words are just words, meaning find the words that resonate with you, and I'm sure you already got those. 

But this is the miracle of life and I hope every day you wake up, you look in the mirror, you love yourself exactly as you are with all your imperfections that make you perfectly imperfect or imperfectly perfect, however you want to put it. Spend time in nature every day reconnecting to the planet. That has so much healing energy. Take your shoes off, walk on the grass, kneel down, and every day spend time connecting to God, to source, to spirit. And from that place of peace and love and appreciation for life, you can play this game that society has created for us, that whatever level you want. You want to set some goals and achieve your goals? Awesome. I set and achieve goals, but I'm coming to realize that that's not where my happiness is found. That's just a game, setting goals, achieving goals, making money. All of these things, externally, it's a game but it's not to be the source of any pain. You were born whole. Joy is your birthright. Love is your birthright. Connection is your birthright. And life's tough sometimes. I'll be the first to admit that, but it's a lot easier to deal with the tough times in life when you're grounded in this way, when you realize that the tough times in life are there to teach you a lesson, that they are temporary but that life itself transcends circumstances. It transcends the rest. 

[CLOSING]

Hal Elrod: All right. I can keep talking on and on and on but I think I'm talking in circles. So, if you're still listening to this point, thank you for this. I love you. I really do. I love you. I believe that we are a family. I love every human being on the planet including the ones that have done awful things because I believe that we're all family. We're part of this big human family that have so much more in common than we have relatively insignificant differences. Where you live, the color of your skin, what religion one person practices versus another like these are all just these man-made constructs that we've created that divide us. You're my brother, you're my sister, and vice versa. So, I love you. Thank you for being a part of my family and allowing me to be a part of your life and thank you so much for listening. If there's anything that I can do, anything you want me to talk about on the podcast, please leave a comment below. So, let's just roll this out as the next episode. In fact, let me confirm. I believe it'll be 374. Yeah, it's 374. So, if you go to HalElrod.com/374, I would love to hear from you. 

If this podcast added value to your life, I'm going to really start, and this is the second time in a row I remembered to ask for you to share what you got from this, what your takeaways were, or ask me a question or let me know what you want to hear about on future podcasts. So, you go to HalElrod.com/374. You can leave a comment underneath this podcast. And I would really appreciate if you would take just a few minutes, just two or three minutes, or if you are long-winded like me, maybe you'll take five or ten to write to me, and I'd love to read your comments and to respond back. So, love you, appreciate you, and I will talk to you all next week.  

[END]