Are you contributing or detracting? 5 easy ways to increase your contribution
Have you ever thought about how the 5 major initiatives resulting from the Earth Day movement have a correlation in your personal life and your interactions with others? As a result of the first Earth Day celebration on 4-22-1970, the Environmental Protection Agency was founded and the first three major Acts were passed: The Clean Air, Clean Water and Endangered Species Acts. A few decades later, towards the end of the 1990s, two additional major initiatives began: The Global Warming and the Clean Energy Initiatives.
It occurred to me that there is a very strong connection between our own personal interactions and the 5 acts and initiatives that have emerged over the 44 years of Earth Day celebrations. I’ll share these below and invite you to explore how they reflect on your personal contributions and interactions with people and the earth itself. The exciting thing is that this is not about soft, woo-woo concepts. The correlations I suggest below are based on scientific research and practical applications in our daily lives that can make a difference on a very large scale!
The Interconnected Earth-Heart is the title of chapter 6 of my film, Sacred Journey of the Heart, and in many ways, the information shared by Gregg Braden in this segment of the film is the most informative and awe-inspiring in the entire documentary. In this part of the film, Gregg presents the scientific evidence that suggests how intimately we are connected to the earth as individuals and as a collective. He shares how a massive outpouring of human emotion on a critical day in history actually impacted the electro-magnetic fields of the earth. He goes on to share the conclusion drawn by scientists from the data collected by satellites orbiting earth: human emotion has the power to impact the entire electro-magnetic field of the earth! And by the way, as Dr. Rollin McCraty, senior researcher at the Institute of HeartMath mentions, the human heart’s electro-magnetic signal is an exact overlap of the earth’s EMF signal. 
Having watched audience reactions to this evidence hundreds of times now, I know unequivocally that when we become aware of our personal power to impact the earth itself, it gives us a deeper sense of responsibility to harness the power in our hearts to create different outcomes on earth.
Here are the 5 major Acts and Initiatives that have emerged from Earth Day since 1970 and how these correlate to our personal terrain and environment. I’ve also included my suggestions of what you can do to contribute to an improved Earth/Heart environment:
Clean Air Act – Correlates to our Words/Speech. We have so much more awareness now of how our words impact other people today than we did 44 years ago. We are now more tolerant of people’s differences and more aware of the damage that can done by unkind words in any form, spoken, text, and social media. Our own Clean Air Act can thus relate to speaking more consciously from respect, tolerance and awareness about the impact our words have on other people’s hearts.
Suggestion 1: commit to reflecting a moment before you speak to others, especially if it’s in relation to sharing an opinion or judgment. Ask yourself, “Are my words clean, or free from criticism and judgment? Am I speaking from my heart? Are my words caring and compassionate?”
Clean Water Act – Correlates to our Emotions/Feelings – Emotions and feelings are often related to the element of water, based on the flow of emotions as we express and share them in our day-to-day interactions. In my own life, I have had to learn about emotional intelligence in the process of healing my past heart-hurts from childhood. I literally had to “grow myself up again” and in doing so, I became much more fluent with the language of the heart, which is emotion. When emotions get dammed up, we become stagnant and stuck. Our own Clean Water Act can thus correlate to healing stuck or repressed emotions and learning how to express them in healthy ways.
Suggestion 2: Commit to clearing out your emotional baggage of resentment and blame from all past situations so you continue to move forward in your life with a sense in inner clarity. The fastest way I have found to do this is Radical Forgiveness (featured in the film’s Chapter Two segment entitled, “How We Heal”).
Endangered Species Act – Correlates to our family relationship connections. In today’s world, nuclear families are an endangered species. Many things contribute to this such as a mobile society, but I believe that the primary cause of the endangered aspect of family relationships is emotional cut-off. This concept was pioneered Murray Bowen in his research on family systems. It is one of the easiest things to study in psychology because you either are or are not in relationship with your family members.
It’s rare that I meet people who are not in a cut-off emotional situation with at least one family member. In my own life, I have found that it is surprisingly easy to reconnect with family members, even after the passage of many years. All it takes is one person to come from an open heart and a willingness to pick up the phone or send an email saying, “I miss you, let’s talk.” And if necessary, “I’m sorry that I haven’t contacted you sooner.” I have found that people are yearning to reconnect and the main thing keeps them from reaching out is fear. As I said in one of my previous blogs, one of the 5 top deathbed wishes people express as they are dying is “I wish I’d stayed in contact with family and friends”.
Suggestion 3: Choose to reconnect with family and friends. I know from personal experience, there is a world of difference in “forgiving from a distance” and “forgiving and reconnecting up close and personal.” Yes, this entails risking heart-ache again, but ask yourself, “How will I feel at the end of my life if I never reach out again?” If the answer is regret, don’t wait!
Clean Energy Initiative – Correlates to our heart’s broadcasted energy signature. Scientists have proven that our heart’s magnetic field acts as a carrier wave of emotion, just like a cell phone. Heart-beat to heart-beat we are sending out emotion-based signals from our hearts to all those around us. In my training at the Institute of HeartMath, I learned that scientists can predict our specific emotional states with about 75% accuracy, just by reading the ECG frequencies emitted by our hearts. Each emotion has a specific frequency signature. The Clean Energy Initiative thus correlates with the heart-based energy signal we are emitting.
Suggestion 4: Choose to emit clean and clear energy by harnessing the power in your heart as it transmits your emotional states into the field around you. The easiest way to do this is with HeartMath’s award-winning technology, emWave2 or the Inner Balance device for iPhones. These devices connect to your earlobe and then, depending on the device, to your computer or cellphone and give you direct feedback about your heart’s emotion-based signal. It is an amazing and simple way to learn to learn to clean-up your energy signal and de-stress while doing it!
Global Warming Initiative – Correlates to our personal contributions. Here’s the analogy: if we don’t pay attention to the pot of water we put on the stove, it will boil over. It’s the same for planet earth and our attention or inattention to our collective emotional contributions.
From Wikipedia: “Global warming refers to an unequivocal and continuing rise in the average temperature of Earth’s climate system. Since 1971, 90% of the warming has occurred in the oceans.” I know this is a controversial topic for many people who believe that global warming is a made-up issue. But it’s difficult to argue with the facts about the increased temperature of our oceans which comprise 70% of the earth’s surface. 
With our global economy, internet and news networks, we have a much deeper understanding of our interconnectedness now than ever before. The correlation of global warming to our own lives can be seen as the contribution we make to the interconnected fields of energy between people and the earth itself. Again, this is a scientifically based concept, not just a metaphysical idea. As I learned at HeartMath, whether we know it not, we are either contributing to the energy on earth by expressing and emitting gratitude, caring and appreciation heartbeat to heartbeat, or we are detracting from it by emitting resentment, frustration and other negative emotions.
Suggestion 5: The question to ask in relation to this initiative is: “Did I tend my pot of water today or did I let it boil over?” OR another way putting this is, “Am I a net-contributor to the shift in global consciousness or am I a net-detractor?” If you review your emotional experience at the end of each day, did you spend more time in caring, connection and compassion (a net contribution) or more time “boiling over” in criticizing, withdrawal and resentment (a net detraction)? I believe this is an important personal energy equation to be aware of each day. If you find that you were more of a detractor, commit to shifting this the next day. As you practice this, it becomes easier to be in moment-to-moment awareness of your contribution.
Bonus Suggestion: I also suggest that you consider participating in the monthly Global Coherence Initiative (GCI). This is free of charge for all those who are willing to contribute their heart-based energy to help bring care and focus to areas of global conflict and need. This is the GCI mission statement: “The Global Coherence Initiative is a science-based, co-creative project to unite people in heart-focused care and intention, to facilitate the shift in global consciousness from instability and discord to balance, cooperation and enduring peace.” http://www.glcoherence.org/
The final question I will close with was posed by Grandmother Margarita Nunez Garcia as part of the filming for Sacred Journey of the Heart. “If we don’t love Mother Earth, how can we love ourselves?” As we celebrate Earth Day today and contribute to any of the initiatives underway, it is also a good time to reflect on how we can become more loving and compassionate towards ourselves.
As the organizers of Earthday.org put it, “Earth Day Network is pushing the Earth Day movement from single-day actions—such as park cleanups and tree-planting parties—to long-term commitments.” I agree with this whole-heartedly. Making long-term commitments to be personally and globally responsible is key to creating heart-based solutions that contribute to a better day-to-day life and to the long term prospects for a better earth.
Happy Earth Day!