Love vs Fear: The Battle Shaping Our Future

What if love isn’t something you feel… but something you generate even in a world that feels divided, chaotic, and overwhelmed?

In today’s powerful episode, Dr. Sandra Marie sits down with transformational teacher and former Landmark Worldwide senior leader David Cunningham, author of Your Love Does Matter, to explore what it really means to live as love not just talk about it.

David shares the extraordinary story of how a single childhood moment awakened his soul, how trauma and rejection nearly shut it down, and how a lifetime of transformational work eventually brought him back to his purpose:
👉 To help humanity remember how to BE love everywhere, with everyone, even in systems built on fear.

We explore:
✨ The moment he realized love had to become the center of his work
✨ Why being “right” is destroying relationships, families, and nations
✨ How childhood trauma, queerness, and spiritual awakening shaped his mission
✨ The Love Footprint a revolutionary model for daily living and leadership
✨ How love shows up in politics, policy, and collective healing
✨ What it really means to forgive (it’s not what you think)
✨ How to expand your love footprint TODAY even if you feel shut down
✨ Why fear is the real enemy…and how love dismantles it

And the big one ⬇️
🔥 The Love Goes to the Capitol Project a bold, unprecedented initiative to infuse American political culture with compassion, dignity, and humanity.

This episode is a bridge between:
spirituality and real-world leadership
trauma and sovereignty
individual awakening and systemic change
If you’ve been asking:
How do we bring love into a world that doesn’t feel loving?
How do we stop being controlled by fear?
How do I live as love when people are difficult, dismissive, or hurtful?
How can spirituality meet activism without losing integrity?
.....this conversation will land deeply.
Links
David Cunningham: https://www.yourlovedoesmatter.com

Chapters

• 1:38 The Journey to Centering Love
• 6:22 Bridging Transformation and Spiritual Awakening
• 7:14 Understanding the Love Footprint
• 9:59 Living as Love in Difficult Situations
• 13:20 Maintaining Authenticity in Transformation
• 14:57 Addressing Systemic Injustice with Love
• 20:03 Navigating Weaponized Love
• 20:51 Universal Language of Love
• 23:36 Defining New Consciousness
• 26:54 Concrete Practices for Living as Love
• 31:03 Love Goes to the Capitol Initiative
• 32:51 Active Love in Political Systems
• 35:38 Love in Organizations and Public Service
• 38:51 Personal Growth and Challenges
• 41:50 Legacy of Love Footprint
• 43:53 Future of the Love Movement

Transcript

Speaker 2 (00:03.054)
Enjoy this Wild Soul gathering production. I'm Dr. Sandra Marie. Pour yourself a really tall glass of spiritual curiosity and join me for the happy hour for the Spiritually Curious podcast. In the spirit of happy hour, cheers to some new insights, peace, revitalization, and perhaps an aha moment that may change your life. Hi, I'm Dr. Sandra Marie.

joined by David Cunningham, a transformational teacher, former senior leader with Landmark Worldwide, and lifelong advocate for humanity. His new book, Your Love Does Matter, A Journey to a New Consciousness in Expanding Your Love Footprint.

invites us to move beyond simply talking about love to actually living as love in our relationships, our leadership, and even how we show up in our communities. David's current project, Love Goes to the Capital, aims to bring that message to every member of Congress, opening a conversation about compassion, humanity, and service. David, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much and to everybody listening and watching, hello.

Well, let's start at the beginning here a little bit. You've done some amazing, amazing work, and I know you continue to do so. You began as a special education teacher and later moved into child advocacy, global transformational work, and now your book, Your Love Does Matter, A Journey to a New Consciousness, and Expanding Your Love Footprint. What was the pivotal moment when you realized that love needed to be the center of your work?

Speaker 1 (01:43.502)
Let's see, well, I can do two points. One, the very beginning when I was four years old, okay? And I have a vivid memory of being four years old and we lived in a very small town in Western New York State, went to a very small church. But one night my family took me to a candlelight service. So the whole sanctuary was lit just by candles and it was quite beautiful. And the whole service was an artist.

who was painting on a velvet background. So I don't know if you've ever seen paintings on velvet, but a lot of times you see them by the side of the road. It's a tiger or Elvis Presley painted on a velvet background. But this was, the artist was painting Jesus with some children and some lambs on this velvet background. And in my four-year-old eyes, this was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. But the important part is I think it was my first time.

I was aware of my soul and I remember saying to myself, I love that much. I was watching this painting of Jesus and it just so moved me. Jesus' love for the children. And I just said to myself, I love that much. I love humanity that much. I love people that much. And it was my first awakening to my soul and my Dharma, you could say. So that was the beginning. And then over time,

things happen, life happened like it does for everybody. One of the things that happened is my dad became very violent when I was about eight years old and just very violent. our quote unquote loving family turned into a violent household, which was shocking for me. And then my immediate family moved away from my extended family. It was the first time anybody had moved. And I have this vivid memory of driving away and my grandmother, my mom's mom,

literally falling on the ground crying hysterical at us leaving. And I remember looking at my parents in the front seat, astonished that we were just gonna drive away and leave her there. So I started getting the message. I thought love was everything. And all of a sudden it wasn't. It was like my family, like my family was violent. We're moving away, letting my grandmother be upset. Then in my personal journey,

Speaker 1 (04:03.936)
I started coming out as a gay man in my late teens, early twenties and soon got the message that my love was forbidden, if not disgusting, right? And then as a professional, I was trained to keep my love kind of under wraps. There were boundaries about how much you should express your love professionally. By the time I was in my mid twenties, I was...

pretty ordinary. That memory of being four and the profound sense of love I had had been pretty suppressed. And I was just ordinary, an ordinary guy living an ordinary life. And then I did my own first transformational program in 1983. I did what was called the S-training, very transformational program. A few years later, I met my spiritual guru. Her name is Sai Ma. And between the transformational program, which

got my thinking opened up again and then Saima touched my heart so deeply. She reawakened that love and gave me permission. She's gave me permission to fully love again. From that point forward, that's what my life has been about. So here I am 74 years old. I've created that the next 30 years is the most important 30 years of my life and that what it's about is love prevailing.

as the preeminent way of being on the planet. And I'm serious about it. That's what I intend to accomplish, that love prevails as the preeminent way of being on the planet. So you can't talk me out of it.

There you go. Well, I appreciate your authenticity with that. And it's really interesting that you've dedicated your life and your work to the concept of love. And we'll talk a lot more about this, not just being a concept, but how you started out really early with the most difficult scenarios. You can imagine where love as we know it from a human perspective, an intimate perspective can give you. So I'm sure that that'll weave through the

Speaker 2 (06:10.608)
conversation as we start unpacking things, but I did want to ask you from what you just said. You spent three decades inside one of the world's largest transformational organizations. What did it take internally for you to step out and create something under your own name?

It took a lot actually. It took discovering that intersection, the work that I'd done for literally 30, as you said, 30 some years was powerfully transformational. But then, and then I had this other domain of work for my own personal life of the spiritual work. It was when I got very, very committed that what must happen, there's a way those two worlds intersect where transformation and spiritual awakening intersect.

where those two worlds come together, something new is possible, something profound is possible that I wanted to make sure was made available to people and that not only make available to people, but it was the thing that the world needed. So that's what had me step out and do my own program was bringing those two worlds together.

You talk about the concept of a love footprint. Can you unpack what you mean by that, especially in everyday life, relationships, work, creative fields?

Thanks, Sandra, I'm so excited about that. I think it gives people something they can really bite into and hold on to in terms of being consciously bringing love to the world is let's just take the case, we have a carbon footprint, we have a love footprint. And in other words, every time we leave an interaction, I don't care, maybe it's just a 60 second interaction with a clerk in a store, or maybe it's a two hour lunch with our brothers and sisters.

Speaker 1 (07:58.656)
Or maybe it's working for two years next to a colleague. Every time we leave an interaction, let's take the case that we leave behind something. And on one end of the spectrum, we would leave behind resentment or argument or judgment. In the middle somewhere, we might leave behind indifference. And at the far end of the spectrum, we would leave behind love, honor, respect, grace.

So I'm inviting people to really pay attention to that. for myself, as I get up and plan my day now, I think about the different situations I'm gonna be in, the different people I'm going to encounter, and I actually plan ahead what's the love footprint I wanna leave. And then when I leave the situation, I give myself a little grade, how would I do on my love footprint? So I think it's a really useful way to go, okay.

As I want to live consciously, I don't want to just go through the day unconsciously. I want to live consciously. And I'm committed to bring love to this world. What is my love footprint? And I think it's a great way to bite into that and take that on. So I'm hoping that concept actually catches in the world, actually. hope that people catch on to that concept and it spreads around the world.

I believe that it's going to with your work and the work of so many other people. think that it's a movement that's just starting to take place and get stronger as we speak.

Andrew, I've set up what's called the Love Matters Collaboration as a nonprofit organization. And I haven't started the membership aspect of the app, but starting in January of 2026, I'm going to open that up for members. And it will be a free membership because I'm committed that anybody in the world can be a member of the Love Matters Collaboration. So there's no fee for it. And I'm committed that we have people from every country in the world. So I'll be working until every country in the world has represented this.

Speaker 1 (09:55.624)
And the one thing I'm going to have members do is when they join is sign a pledge to expand their love footprint so that this becomes a real grassroots movement around.

Beautiful. That's awesome. I can't wait for that to get started. Make sure you put me on the list. You shared some pretty powerful stuff of your early years and I'm sure still some current events that go on. How do you apply living as love when you feel misunderstood or you're dismissed in your daily life?

I

Speaker 1 (10:27.096)
Well, it's very important. I learned a big lesson that I'll be glad to share. I, like everybody else, used to think that love came to me. In other words, that I would experience love if you loved me, or I would experience love if my husband loved me. And I discovered it's exactly the opposite. It doesn't work that way. We don't ever experience love because somebody's loving us. If you're loving me,

and I'm cranky, I don't experience love at all. I experience crankiness. If you adore me and I'm judgmental, I don't experience being adored. I experience being judgmental. What I discovered is, wait a minute, the love, the experience of love never comes from the other person. It's all who I'm being. That was such good news because this whole domain of being, like we can be generous, we can be stingy.

We can be caring, we can be cold. We can be forgiving, we can be resenting. That domain of who we're being is the one domain of life we have total say about, total control. You and I don't have much say about what we have in life. You and I don't have total say even about what we do in life. We could show up at the airport and find out our flight's canceled. But we have total say about who we be as human beings. My experience of love comes from my being loving.

was good news because, that's the one thing I have to say about. And then I noticed with us human beings, as I observe us, we're happy when we love who we're being. And there's nothing we love being more than being loving. We are the most joyous, peaceful, happy people when we're being loving. So that's what there is to give ourselves access to and to get, wow, that's up to me. I can be loving, I can be hate.

I can be loving, I can be cold. I can be loving, I can be singy. It's up to me at all times under all circumstances. Bingo, we're free. So then to answer your question then, I don't worry about what I'm getting from the other person. The more difficult another person is, is the bigger opportunity for me to be loving. In other words, if you're polite to me, I get to be polite back. But what if you're rude to me? Then I get to be really generous.

Speaker 1 (12:51.458)
So the more difficult another person is, the bigger I get to be. So I don't worry about how the other person is. I just worry about who I get to be in this situation.

Wow, thank you. That's a really beautiful answer that is just chock full of a ton of wisdom. Before we get a little deeper into your work, you have mentioned a little bit about your programming. David, I found like the larger transformational brand like a landmark worldwide for me, the greater the challenge for them to maintain that authenticity personalization. Are your programs scalable without losing that level of potency?

I don't know, I haven't scaled it yet. But for sure, I won't scale it if it's not, because I'm not willing to lose the potency, okay?

I you left on the other side that it's probably something that you're very sensitive to. That's just my guess.

It is a very

Speaker 1 (13:48.866)
Listen, if really if I'm serious about love prevailing as a preeminent way of being on the planet, if really I'm serious about that, then whatever program I offer people has got to truly, truly connect with their Dharma, their soul. And if it doesn't, it's worthless. It's just a nice idea. So far, so good. I'm loving the work that we're doing. And again, it's in that place where

we can have really thoughtful transformational conversations like, for instance, what's the difference between reality and truth? That's like a necessary conversations for us as human beings to separate reality from truth. So we can have conversations like that, but then at the same time, bring in the experience of light and divine energy and combine those two worlds in a most potent way.

Okay, so let's talk a little bit about how your model engages systemic injustice, trauma, economic inequality, environmental crisis, all those things that are just really looming really heavily these days, not just the individual transformation. Is it able to cross all of those?

Yes, there's a couple key topics. One is acceptance, another one's forgiveness, and another one is righteousness. So let me just do each of those, touch on each of those real quickly. First off, as human beings, for us to discover acceptance, most people have a notion of acceptance that makes it difficult. Most people think that when they accept something, they're saying it's okay. Like, if I accept that you come late, I'm saying it's okay you came late.

If I accept that you didn't pay me back the money you owe me, I'm saying it's okay you didn't pay me back. That's not acceptance. Acceptance isn't saying something is okay. Acceptance is having something be what it is. So if I accept that it's raining, I'm not saying it's okay that it's raining. I'm just acknowledging it's raining. And so I can live smart. I can take an umbrella with me. So acceptance isn't approving of something or making something okay.

Speaker 1 (16:04.564)
acknowledging it for what it is. To give ourselves the power of acceptance of life is very important because if we can't accept life the way it is, we don't live it powerfully. So I'm not saying make life okay the way it is. If somebody doesn't have food, we're not going to make that okay. If somebody's in the face of domestic violence, we're not going to say that's okay. But to be able to deal with it for what it is and

live powerfully in the face of it. So acceptance. Forgiveness is its own thing. And again, people have a notion of forgiveness that if you do something and I forgive you, then I'm somehow condoning what you did or giving you permission to do it again. So people have a difficult time forgiving. Now it's important that we discover forgiveness is very, very, very straightforward. It's I was loving you, then you did something, I-

closed my heart, I stopped loving, and I started resenting you. So when I forgive, it's for give. I give my love back, like I gave it to you before anything happened. It's not for the other person even, it's for me, because I can either lead a resenting life or a loving life. When I lead a resenting life, I suffer. When I lead a loving life, I'm at peace. So the gift is to us is to give ourselves the freedom to forgive.

Without worrying, does that mean I'm condoning or approving? No, I'm just unwilling to not live a life where I love, period. I'm unwilling not to love. It's my life. I'm gonna live a loving life. So acceptance and forgiveness are two key principles in that. And then, righteousness. Most arguments these days, there's a lot of arguments going on, certainly in political world.

even, but when I say the billboard, mean over kitchen tables, like people in their own homes fighting with their own families about politics. It's starting actually. But it's not just those conversations. It's whatever we are, every argument we ever have with anybody is about who's right and who's wrong. So there's an assertion that somebody's right and somebody's wrong. And the argument begins about anything they arguing over who's turned this to empty the dishwasher.

Speaker 1 (18:29.46)
or arguing over politics or anything in between. Radical, radical statement I'm about to make. Nobody's ever been right and nobody's ever been wrong, because there's no such thing. There's just views of life. We each have a view.

to being right.

right now globally to being right.

Yeah, people have had it become so being right much more important than loving. It's just taken over. And if we try to tell them they're not right, like they're wrong, it won't work. What we've got to do is we got to take all the wind out of the sails of the whole thing of right and wrong and get and have people discover there's no such thing in the first place. It's all made up. We're never right and we're never wrong. We just have views of life.

If you're standing in front of my house and I'm standing in behind my house, we have different views. To argue which one's right or wrong is silly. We have views. We're never right. We're never wrong. And when people can get that, it can take all of the conflict out. You know, especially with the holidays coming up, I wish people peaceful, loving holidays. And sometimes even with our closest family, there are conversations that seem difficult.

Speaker 1 (19:47.554)
but only because right becomes more important than being loving. We can keep the priorities straight here, we're in good shape. And we've never been right and we've never been wrong. We just have views.

bring up the holidays, they can be really tense times for many, many people. How do you apply living as life when you encounter someone who weaponizes love as a form of control?

Can you say just a little bit more about what you mean by weaponized love as a form of control? Just give me a little bit more on that.

Well, I think that you'll see it with domestic violence. You'll see it with other partnership control. You'll see it in the workplace. We see it in our political environment right now. The rhetoric, the language, the conversation is all built around love, but it's being more weaponized to create fear, which usually is based in wanting to control.

Yes. Well, fear, you know, fear and love, if you look at the world, there's fear and there's love. That's what there is in the plant, two energies, right? It's either fear or love. It's important for us to be able to distinguish between love and loving and the relationship itself. So people somehow think, well, if I love, then I've got to be related. I've got to have some form to the relationship. No, you can love.

Speaker 1 (21:13.28)
and not have a structured relationship. In other words, I could love you fully and divorce you. I could love you and have a restraining order. I could love you and never talk to you again. I could love you and leave the job. Loving and the form of the relationship have nothing to do with each other. And we've got to give people the freedom to maintain their love.

and at the same time keep that separate from like, that love dictates some form of relationship so that we're not caught in relationships that don't work and aren't healthy for us.

How do you hold space for people who may not resonate with spiritual language but want to change? Is your model universal?

I think so. I don't need people to adapt to certain language or something. Here's what it is. And let me be clear about it. I assert that when people are free, they love. I would never talk to somebody about becoming more loving. That would be, I think, insulting. No. When we're free, we love. Free from what? Free from fear, as you mentioned.

free from resentment, free from judgment of ourselves and others. So when we're judging, we're not free. When we're resenting, we're not free. When we're fearful, we're not free. It suppresses our love. We close our hearts. But when we're free, we naturally love. So resenting and judging and being fearful have become normal, but there's a big difference between normal and natural.

Speaker 1 (22:59.234)
Just because we've gotten used to judging and being judged, just because we've gotten used to resenting and being resented, just because we've gotten used to being afraid, doesn't mean it's natural for us as human beings. So the job isn't to get people to be more loving, the job is to set people free from resentments, from judgments, from fear. And when we do, they naturally love, I assert.

That makes sense. I appreciate that. Your book is subtitled A Journey to a New Consciousness. How do you define new consciousness in your work? Like what distinguishes this work from maybe a traditional self-help or hear the term spiritual work? You just spoke to that.

Yeah, the Consciousness I'm speaking about is literally a new relationship to self, who we consider ourselves to be. We can be things and not relate to ourselves to those things. So somebody could be a father, for instance. They could actually be a birth father, they fathered children, and not at all relate to themselves as a father. If you don't relate to yourself as a father, even if you are one,

then you don't have the thoughts, the emotions, you don't make the plans, you don't take the actions of a father because you don't relate to yourself as one. We as human beings, we make the plans, take the actions, have the thoughts and emotions of not necessarily who we are, but who we consider ourselves to be. So who we relate to ourselves is the most important thing for our living. If I relate to myself as a friend,

then I will make the plans of a friend. I'll take the actions of a friend. I will have the emotions of a friend and have the thoughts of a friend. I'm a grandfather. If you watch me live, I make plans of a grandfather. When I'm looking at my month, I look to see which weekends can I go see my grandchildren? If you watch me, since I relate to myself as a grandfather, you watch me take actions of a grandfather. I send a text every morning to my grandchildren telling them I love them.

Speaker 1 (25:15.214)
You watch me have the thoughts of a grandfather. I walked through the airport the other day and I was thinking, I saw something in the store. my grandchildren would like that. I should buy that for my grandchildren. I have the emotions of a grandfather. You just mention them to me and I well up with tears. The point is, is that it's who we consider ourselves to be, relate to ourselves as, as the most important thing that shapes our living. I could be a grandfather and not relate to myself as well.

That would be possible. And I wouldn't make those plans. I wouldn't take those actions. I wouldn't have those thoughts and those emotions. Who we relate to ourselves as is the most important thing that shapes our living. So a new consciousness is relating to our, we've been educated to relate to ourselves as these bodies. We've been educated to relate to ourselves as our thoughts and our emotions. None of that's working for us. It limits our living.

So a new consciousness is actually relating to ourselves. Who I consider myself to be is light, is divine consciousness, is love. So it goes beyond, I just experience light. It goes beyond, just experience divine consciousness. It goes beyond, just experience love. It's when my relationship with myself shifts, so it's who I consider myself to be is light.

is divine consciousness, bingo, I've got a new life that comes with that new consciousness.

I appreciate the context with that and the importance of awareness. How do you translate the idea of living as love into a concrete practice for someone who's coming to you fresh for your work? What's the first steps you invite them to take?

Speaker 1 (27:04.984)
Well, again, look to see where love is missing in their life. That would be the first thing to become aware. Because again, we get used to living with no love. It's an interesting thing, isn't it? We can get used to going through the day and not experiencing much love. We can get used to going through the day and experiencing a lot of resentment actually. So the first thing is to wake up to, hey, wait a minute, I've gotten used to living without the presence of love.

And there's a difference between the concept of love and the presence of it. Like I can say, like, yeah, it's my mom. I know I love her. Of course it's my mom. Of course I love her. Okay. But is the love present? Is it palpable? Do you experience it? Does it move you? Those are two different things. it's my sister. Of course I love her. I know I love my sister. Yeah, but is the love present? Is it palpable? Does it move you? Do you experience it? The first step is to wake up to

where love isn't present. And then you get interested in, what would it take then to bring love to that area of my life? So then the next thing is to find out what stopped you. Because again, the premise is that if you were free, you would naturally love. And to look to see what happened, where did some opinions, some resentment, some fear come into play. And then to be able to set yourself free from those and then naturally love.

And then the expression of love follows that. And then all of a sudden you've got love present in an area of life where you didn't have it before. So the first step is waking up to where it's missing, because we get very numb to that. The second step is to identify what stopped is what closed our, when did we close our hearts? Third step is to set ourselves free from that and let ourselves start expressing love again. And then we will enjoy and be moved by the presence of.

It's almost separating out and recognizing all those learned behaviors that were really never ours, actually getting to meet for many of us ourselves for the first time.

Speaker 1 (29:11.542)
If I could Sandra, it's those learned behaviors, right? And again, we got educated, we got educated in something else. We got educated in everything is right and wrong. Everything is good or bad. We just like listen to people where we're grown up and whatever they talked about, nobody ever just said weather. They said good weather or bad weather. They said good cheeseburger or bad cheeseburger. They said.

that how fast we walked through the room was the right way or the wrong way. Our handwriting was good or bad. Everything, music, everything, movies, what the Pope said, what the president said, the color of the ladies hair next door. No matter what they talked about, they said it was either good or bad, right or wrong the way it was. We got educated that things are good or bad, right or wrong. Nobody told us they were making the whole thing up, that nothing's good or bad, nothing.

Everything is what it is. We call things good or bad. Like I can hear music. I can say the music is good or bad, but that's me saying it. It's not the music itself. So we got educated that things are good or bad. Things are right wrong versus no, that's something we say about things. so given that it was only a matter time before we turned that on other people and on ourselves like

other people are good or bad, I'm good or bad. And it made it difficult to love. So that's one of the things we got educated in that is time for us to re-educate ourselves and set ourselves free from that education, because it's not working.

totally agree and thank you for that. That is definitely some life changing observations you've just made. So David, you have a really bold initiative out there and that's to deliver your book to every member of the US Congress and Cabinet and invite the political and public service leaders into a conversation about love. What responses have you seen so far and what effect do you hope?

Speaker 2 (31:17.004)
to catalyze in the civic policy sphere with this campaign.

Yes, so the project is called, thanks for asking about it, very excited about it, it's called Love Goes to the Capitol and it's got two aspects to it. One is, as you said, I just did send my book, Your Love Does Matter, to every member of Congress, every representative, every U.S. Senator and the President and the Vice President. Now, as we know, the date this is being recorded is Congress is just coming back today, so they're just getting it.

And I have a group of people set up. We're going to be making phone calls in the next week to the Senate offices and the congressional offices to begin that dialogue. I sent a QR code with it that links to a video I made where I can talk right to the congressmen and sent Congress people and senators and let them know this. They got this book not because it's not a statement they should love more. That would be more realistic. Be insulting. It's not a Pollyanna sport called. isn't love wonderful? Now that would be.

a waste of time. It's a book about effective leadership. We're effective when we love. Our effectiveness, look at Gandhi's effectiveness, look at Martin Luther King's effectiveness. Our effectiveness as leaders is when we love and we're not effective when we don't love. So it's about effectiveness as a leader. It's about legacy as a leader. It's about your joy as a leader. So that's what it's about. So I'm getting that book in the hands of every

US representative and senator and the president vice president and I'm following up with focus, but that's just starting because they're just getting back today

Speaker 2 (32:54.466)
Well, I'm excited to hear a little bit more about how that how that plays out for you and what kind of responses you get from that. Well, I bet when love made systems that are built in dominance or inequality, how do we keep love from becoming passive?

Me too.

Speaker 1 (33:15.278)
Well, let's see. So it's again, if we are very cognizant of that love as a way of being, so that it's a way of being just like generous is a way of being or stingy is a way of being, loving is a way of being and it's something I can generate at any time. So the other aspect of that Love Goes to Capital project is we're gonna start in Pennsylvania where I live and I'm gonna...

I have a group of people getting ready to go to the state capitol once a week, every week for a year. And every week for a year, we're to go to the state capitol and do an act of love. So the first week, I do volunteer work with some guys right out of prison. So the very first week, we're going to take the guys up and they're going to deliver an orchid to every legislator. The next week, we're going to take a group of trans teenagers up and they're just going to open the doors for legislators. No political talk whatsoever, just acts of love.

Third week, we're going to take a group of moms on food assistance programs up and they're going to deliver a letter of acknowledgement to every legislator. Not any concern for voting record, party, nothing. No political agenda whatsoever. Pure, infusing love into the political system. Sandra, I'm hoping other people in other states, I'll post that all on my social media, hoping people in other states pick that up and have that idea become theirs and their state, all right? But...

So it's active. like take it's it's it's when we get love is a way of being. I don't know if I'll always feel love. That's an emotion. I have emotions. I don't have a say about what emotions I have. But I know that no matter what emotion I have, I can still be loving. Can I be loving when I'm tired? Yeah. Can I be cranky when I'm tired? Yeah, but I can also be loving. Can I be loving when I'm angry?

Yeah, I can be argumentative when I'm angry, but I can also be loving when I'm angry. Who's it up to? Up to me. So when I get that love is a way of being, and I can generate it, and I put it in action, and then the love is there as a presence. That's how it all works.

Speaker 2 (35:23.758)
Nice, thanks for sharing those specific examples. They really do give a visual. And like you said, it really does come down to choice points. Many transformational or spiritual models focus on the individual. Your work is a little different in that you're bridging the individual leadership, the systemic fields like policy and communities. In your view, how does love show up in systems, organizations, or public service, not just in the one?

one-on-one that both those arenas look different to me.

Yeah. And ultimately, even in the biggest institution, it either shows up in personal interactions or it doesn't. It's an ethos, but it shows up in personal interaction. it becomes the way we interact with each other. That's why it's got to be a grassroot. If this isn't a grassroots movement syndrome, it's not going to make a difference.

It's got to be people all over the world that literally make this shift from having being right be the most important thing, to having being loving be the most important thing, and actually get, the love doesn't come from you, it comes from me. And then third thing, get love is a way of being, and it's my choice at all times under all circumstances. So it's a matter of that being in the consciousness.

And we can do that. We can actually get this in the consciousness. And that's why expanding your love footprint, I think, is a useful notion to promote here.

Speaker 2 (37:09.634)
Okay, well, you know, I know it shows up in different companies, how they treat their employees, those kinds of things, their own internal policies that aren't just, you know, dressing that they're putting out there that they actually walk the talk. So I'm definitely looking forward to that part of the journey.

And Sandra, let's talk frankly, is that some people try to manage by fear. If you don't do this, there's a consequence. So it's fear-based management versus love-based management. And that's a fundamental thing to sort out for any organization or group of people. Are we trying to organize and use fear to organize people, or are we using love and trusting love?

We've learned not to trust it. I'm encouraging people to bet everything on love. Bet all your chips on love. You're having trouble with your teenage kid? Okay, we're having trouble with our teenager. We think we need to rely on discipline. We think we need to rely on logic. How about bet everything on loving them? How about bet everything, the whole game? Love them. That's the whole game. What if that was the whole game?

and then everything else would work out.

Well, it's interesting because the research shows that productivity

Speaker 2 (38:38.158)
and other very positive aspects of the company are abound when you have that type of a setting to work in, but that is not what you see reflected in those communities at this time. So again, more to come with that. So for you, what parts of your own journey are you still working on finding challenging now and what's the next frontier of your own personal growth?

My own personal growth is keep expanding the minute to minute consciousness of living, right? So I wake up, I have a meditation practice in the morning, I visualize my day, and as I said earlier, I visualize the situation I'm gonna face and visualize what it will look like to go into those consciously expressing love. I make sure I put reminders around me. Like I wrote a prayer of grace, I have it on the dashboard of my car, right?

have different, like even sometimes what I wear, like I'll wear, you know, I'll wear something that like reminds me to live consciously. So building reminders in, embedding in different actions, like just starting my car, okay, like have that action remind me, okay, you're about to go be with people, you know, bring the love. So putting reminders in, so the biggest challenge still is,

Because all of a sudden I can go, wow, I just went for four hours. I didn't think of anything. I just got through the four hours, right? Versus no, was living consciously, intentionally bringing love to the planet. So that's still the biggest challenge is having to be conscious, living minute by minute during the day. And those are the things I've done to take me down the path on that. And there's still more East to go, as I said.

Okay, so living this love when you face burnout or disappointment in your mission, because there has to be some days that you sort of that you're feeling that, you just set up your environment with different reminders to help you get back to your conscious approach to it.

Speaker 1 (40:52.886)
Yeah, there's like reminders in my environment, but there's also then, you know, I make sure that I have conversations with the people in my life that, you know, I make sure I have the right conversations with it, keep it inspiring. One thing about, I don't get too disappointed though, because the thing about a possibility, so if I'm standing for the possibility that love prevails as the supreme way of being on the planet, the thing about a possibility to understand is that if it's not fulfilled,

it's still a possibility. So, if I'm standing for love prevailing and love isn't prevailing, it's still possible. So I don't get too discouraged when I relate to love prevailing as a possibility versus relating to love prevailing as an ideal or a standard that should be the way it is. No, it's a possibility I'm standing for. And no matter how much I fail or what happens, it's still a possibility. So I never have to...

I never have to get discouraged. I can keep standing.

Very important message. You've guided so many others to transformation. What do you hope people will carry forward when you're no longer waiting from the front?

I don't want to oversimplify it, but if they carry forward that we have a love footprint, think that I really do think if people just carried that forward, that we have a love footprint and that they kept developing themselves. You we fail, I fail. You know, I had an argument with my dry cleaner about a month ago, right? My dry cleaner.

Speaker 1 (42:38.22)
was so wrong as far as I was concerned. You know, there was the shirts, my view didn't come out right and he was blaming it on me and he was just so wrong as far as I was concerned. And I found myself arguing, literally arguing with my dry cleaner, how ridiculous, right? Over shirts, like an argument.

And luckily I had a five minute drive home after and on the five minute drive home, I was like, my gosh, what did I do? So as soon as I got home, I called him and said, I'm so sorry and made peace with him again. But, but I, it's like, caught my, like, there I was in an argument at, at a moment I didn't even out of the blue, like there I am arguing with somebody again over righteousness, who's right and who's wrong. So.

We have to also be willing to make a mistake to just blow it sometimes and know that even if we blow it, in the next minute we can recover it. Like literally, it's a moment by moment thing. I argued with them, I argued with them, I argued with them, stopped arguing and made peace with them. It's that, a moment by moment thing. So if we know that, and I'd like people to carry that forward, that really...

It's up to us and it's a moment by moment thing if we are actively expanding our love footprint. Okay, as a society, we're evolving.

I agree. Where do you see the movement in five to 10 years and what do you think success looks like?

Speaker 1 (44:13.486)
I think the movement in five to 10 years is first of all global grassroots. So that it is, and that's why if I have people, I can get, suppose I get a few million people and make sure that there's people from every country in the world who have signed a pledge to their love footprint and then start sharing about that. Okay. If that happens in five, no, there's some other things and we've infused the

Began to infuse the political system with love. Good. What else? we need to do this re-education. That's why the program I'm fine tuning here is how do we take people and what we've been educated in and re-educate ourselves? Okay, we got the re-education going on. And then I think it's important too, Sandra, that we get into universities, because that's where the leaders come from. Like the business leaders of 20 years from now are going to college now.

educational leaders of 20 years from now are going to college now. So we've got to get into the universities to make sure that our leaders are being trained in leading from with love as love. So if we can impact our universities, if we can get a grassroots movement going, we can infuse the political system, if we can get a new education going, I think we've seen a good chance. So five years from now, that's all happening.

worldwide.

Totally agree. They bid for the listeners wanting to work with you. How would they connect? What does that look like?

Speaker 1 (45:50.828)
Easy, just there's one website is called yourlovedosmatter.com. Yourlovedosmatter.com. Go there, they can find everything. They can find out about Love Goes to the Capital. They can find about my book. They can find about the program I'm offering. They can, I lead meditations. They can get free recordings of meditations that I lead. I'm doing some free calls coming up next month for the holidays. How to, you know,

how to have loving holidays. So I'm going to do some free calls on Zoom. Those will be advertised on the website so they can find everything there on yourlovedustmatter.com. And I welcome, I just really welcome meeting people and engaging in this dialogue with anybody, everybody.

Beautiful. Make sure that we include all of that. And I love that you keep it simple. End the show today with some rapid fire questions. Are you ready for these? Question one. What is your daily practice if you have one that keeps you grounded as love?

Thank you.

Speaker 1 (46:49.998)
Sure.

Speaker 1 (46:58.698)
Morning meditation every morning sit in stillness and visualize divine light and relate to myself then as that divine light so stillness and meditation every morning

Next, what book besides your own has most influenced your thinking about love or consciousness?

Let's see, it's called Being. What's this, hold on, On Being, think it's called, B-E-I-N-G. And it's a book about the work of Warner Erhart. And it's a book that really goes to the heart of matter, Being Human, On Being.

Okay, we'll include that information also. Lastly, one actionable step you suggest for someone listening today who wants to expand their love footprint starting now.

is look to see where love is missing and wake up to get that, I've tolerated that, or I've gotten used to love being missing and have the courage to say, love is missing there. And then just look to see what had you closed your heart and get the, it's me that closed my heart. If I close it, I can open it and practice opening your heart again. But first notice where you close it.

Speaker 2 (48:21.016)
Good, that's important to start at the beginning. Thank you, David, for reminding us that living as love isn't a concept, it's a daily practice. For everyone listening, maybe the question to carry forward is, what kind of love footprint are we leaving behind each day? David, thanks again for joining me and for the light you're bringing to the world. Until next time, remember, keep showing up as love in action. Thanks, David.

So wonderful. Thank you Sandra.

Thank you for joining us for this episode of Wild Soul Gathering's Happy Hour for the Spiritually Curious. To learn more about our guests, please go to our website, WildSoulsGathering.com. We're very eager to hear from our listeners what you thought of the episode, topics you might like us to cover in the future, your thoughts on spirituality, questions you may have. Please feel free to send us an email at WildSoulsGathering.com.

This is your host, Dr. Sandra Marie, sending each of you peace and love. Until we meet again, embrace your wild soul.