Unconditional: Where Love Meets Life !

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TalkToMeGuy : Greetings everyone, this is a Sound Health Radio Show where we talk about the crossroads of the environment, our health, and longevity with Richard Talktomey guy and Sherry Edwards' off working on the Sound Health Portal. I would suggest going to the SoundHealthPortal.com, scrolling down just a bit and clicking on the Watch How button. You'll see a short demo video explaining how to record and submit your first recording. Then go back to SoundHealthPortal.com, scroll down to current active campaigns such as cellular inflammation, stem cells, or Parkinson's, and choose one that is of interest to you. Click on that campaign and click Free Voice Analysis and the system will walk you through submitting your recording. You'll receive an email with your report back usually in one to two hours.

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TalkToMeGuy : David Cunningham is a renowned transformational teacher and lifelong advocate for humanity. From rural Pennsylvania to the leading, the number one transformational program on six continents, David's 30 year effect with landmark worldwide has helped over 500,000 people unlock new levels of freedom, authenticity, and love. As a former special education teacher, LGBTQ plus rights advocate and a spiritual guide, David continues creating powerful platforms for change. He's founded the Love Matters collaboration, anchoring loves are preeminent way of being.

This fall brings the awakening, his flagship transformational weekend, helping people break through shame and separation to live from love. David is also spearheading Love Goes to the Capital, sending his book to every member of Congress, inviting deeper conversation on compassion and love in public service. David's book Your Love Does Matter, A Journey to New Consciousness and Expanding Your Love Footprint distills his life work into a profound path of healing, forgiveness, and spiritual growth. Today, we'll explore David's journey, his teachings, and how we can each expand our love footprint in the world. Welcome, David. Hello.

David Cunningham: Welcome. So nice to be with you and to everybody listening. Great.

TalkToMeGuy : Now I'm going to start in the middle and we're going to work around. What what would you say to someone who thinks love is too big a word?

David Cunningham: Well, I think love, I invite people to relate to love as a way of being. So a lot of people get lost in trying to relate to love as an emotion or a feeling or love as a thought process. Like I like I think I love you.

And it gets very confusing that way when you can actually relate to love as a way of being. You know, we have ways of being a student. Means we can be generous. We can be stingy. We can be cold. We can be caring. We can be respectful. We can be disrespectful. And one possible way of being is being loving.

Now the great thing about that, Richard, is this. See, you and I don't have much say about our emotions. They come and they go and we don't have much say about them. We don't even have much say about our thoughts. They come and they go and we don't have a say about those.

But the one thing we have total say about Richard is who we be as human beings. You know, whether I'm generous or stingy, that's up to me, isn't it? Whether I'm caring or cold, that's up to me. So loving as a way of being is something that we definitely can have our hands around. It's up to us. It's a choice we make about a way of being. So when you put love and relate to love as a way of being, it actually becomes something that is very much in our hands and something that we have to say about.

TalkToMeGuy : And do you feel that kindness can be a gateway to unconditional love?

David Cunningham: Kindness. Yeah, there's many different, you know, like the facets of a gem, right? There's many, many different shades or colors of love, right? Kindness would definitely be one expression of love, you know, going from kindness or even just politeness, right? Kindness all the way up the spectrum to grace, bestowing grace where, you know, like God's grace, you give love that you don't make anybody deserve your love. And it's love that will never be taken away. So there's a whole spectrum from grace to kindness and respect, everything in between.

TalkToMeGuy : Can I think of kindness as love with training wheels?

David Cunningham: That's a great way to say it. It is, see, because again, being kind is, you know, if you are someone who's practicing being kind, the thing that happens, Richard, is that people think that it's supposed to go from you have the feelings, then you take an action and then you'll be something. We relate to life like it goes from have to do to be like if I have the right job and do it the right way, I'll be successful. If I have the right money and invest it the right way, I'll be rich. So people try to work in that order from what they have to what they do to who they be. But when you start with who you're being, oh, being kind, then you step back into life and you do what a kind person would do. Then you find out you have the emotions and the thoughts that a kind person would have. So if I start by being kind, it gets me in that whole realm of love. And so you take on being kind, then you practice kind actions and then you'll have the experience of life a kind person has. It's the magic of life, how it works that way.

TalkToMeGuy : And now I have to say this now. I was going to save this for later, but this so fits here. I am around people from time to time in conversation out in the world versus talking into a microphone. And I'm around some of them that it amazes me how they operate from a position of it's better to be right than happy. And I'm not saying they have to dumb down.

I don't mean that in any way. It's just like their point is always that they're right. Whatever they're saying is the right thing, right way, right attitude, right approach. And it tends to be, mostly is in an argumentative like form. And they'd rather be right about something than be at a place of peace or kindness or perhaps love. I can't make that into a question. I'm sorry.

David Cunningham: That's fine. I can pick it up and pretend it was a question. So, you know, so accurate an assessment of our society. And this is worldwide. It's very prevalent. You know, you and I live in the United States. It's very prevalent here now. It's you can feel it in the conversations, but it is society wide where as a civilization at this point in our evolution, we value being right. In fact, we relate to being right almost as a matter of survival. It's we're self identified with whether we're right or wrong. We're self identified with the importance of being right.

That we haven't. We'll have it be more important than love. So many times we'll have arguments with people that we really care about. Arguments about things that are not that important. We'll have arguments about, you know, you know, whether what time we should come home or how the bed should be made. And we'll argue with people we really care about because we so value being right.

And the only way out of that, Richard, there's there's two things that are really important for us in our development, as soon as being to begin to be aware of. One is that nobody's ever right. Nobody's ever right. That's a radical statement, isn't it?

And nobody's ever wrong. We all have views of life. We all have views of life. We see life the way we see it. And no two people ever see life the same way. If you and I are standing side by side, we still have a different view of life. So to argue which is the right view, that doesn't make sense. There's no right view. We each see life the way we see it.

So if we could, if we could literally come to the awareness, oh, wait a minute. No one's ever right. No one's ever wrong.

They see life the way they see it. Then we could actually get interested in each other's views versus arguing about which one is right and which one is wrong. Now, your statement, though, could take me down a whole different path. If you want to, we could talk about if we could become neuroscientists for the moment. If you want to.

Sure. Talk about the way the brain works and the brain works for survival. So our brain, the brain of human being is, has resolved that being right is a matter of the survival of our identity. See the brain of most species just has a physical body to have survived.

But the brain of a human being has the physical body to survive. And what we call our identity, who we consider ourselves to be. So since we so value being right, that our brain operates to have us survive as the right one. And that's why we generate the arguments we do. So it's a matter, it's become a matter of survival of our identity.

But again, if we could come to the awareness, wait a minute. I've never been right and I've never been wrong. I have a view of life. And so does everybody else. Oh, and there's no such thing as a right view. There's just views. That is a whole new possible way to relate to it.

TalkToMeGuy : So possibly everybody just is.

David Cunningham: You know, and we can get interested in each other. Because we have, when we're trying to convince, you know, when we're resorting to being right, it's, there's an argument there to have versus any real interest in the other person and the way they see life. So I, for one, you know, I just had a neighbor that I cared deeply about who had a totally different political opinion than me about something, right? And I saw a Facebook post that he did and it just concerned me, right?

Like, wow, you know, like, that's like, it just kind of was like hard to relate to. So I call him up. I said, can I come over?

And can I just, can you just talk to me about how you see things? And I went over to his house and sat in his kitchen for probably Richard about two hours and I just listened. I really just listened. And for about two hours to how he saw the situation. Now, I never saw it the way he saw it. But when I left two things, I had really a deep understanding of how we saw it.

And two, I left related with him, connected with him, not disconnected, because, you know, one of us was right and one of us was wrong. So it's really important in today's world that we can shift this over.

TalkToMeGuy : I talk about a lot of the drive of my show is talking mostly always leaning into the environment. And so I talk a lot about what I would consider to be facts.

This isn't about being right or wrong. This is just about, I talk about things like, let's say glyphosate. Glyphosate is a product produced by Roundup. It's been researched for decades as being a toxin. It's bad for everything. It's bad for the planet. It's bad for animals. It's bad for school kids. It's in school lunches. It's just pervasive.

And it's bad. And when people ask me about it or try and challenging me on it, I've interviewed the people who've written the books on the research about glyphosate as a toxin. So I'm operating from a position not of being all knowing, but of like, I have this backup of facts. So sometimes people think that I am coming from a position of being right versus happy, which is not at all what I'm doing. I'm an educator.

Sometimes I just sound like a cranky educator because I'm pissed about the fact that we still even have glyphosate in the conversation and on the planet. And again, I can't really formulate that into a question, but I'm not, I'm not righteous about my information. I'm just fact filled about my information.

David Cunningham: Very good. So there's, there is, you know, there are facts and there's the interpretation of those facts. There's the, you know, the story about those facts, the judgment about those facts.

So to be able to relate to facts as fact. Now I do have, I have, I do have that suggestion for you. Okay.

Yep. Which is, um, I also don't try, I don't traffic in who's right and who's wrong or what's right and what's wrong. I also don't traffic in what's good or what's bad either. So, um, I, I, because the, if we really look at fact, there, nothing actually is bad. So if you just examine that for a minute, we could take music, you know, we could listen to music. One of us could say it's good. One of us could say it's bad.

We could go to a movie. Somebody says it's good. Somebody says it's bad. And, and if we examine that carefully, we'll find out, well, the music is neither good nor bad. The movies neither good nor bad.

The movies, the movie, the music's music. And there's what we say about it. We say it's good or we say it's bad. So where the good and the bad exist is not in the music, is not in the movie.

It's in our speaking about it. So I haven't found that to be very useful because Richard, as I look at the world, you know, telling people something's bad doesn't have much influence on them, telling people it's bad to, telling your kids it's bad to, you know, hit their brother or sister, doesn't have them stop telling, telling people. It's even, I hate to say this, but telling people it's bad to molest children, doesn't have them stop molesting children. So it's not very effective and it does engender argument.

So here's an alternative is what works and what doesn't work. Here are the facts. Now, here's what happens. You know, here's the, here's what works and doesn't work about that.

So, you know, if my older son hits my younger son, I could say that's bad, you shouldn't hit your brother. I found out that's not very effective at all. But a different conversation, hey, did that work? You just hit your brother.

Did that work? What happened when you hit your brother? Oh, we had to stop the game. Your brother cried. I had to come downstairs.

You have to go to time out. So does it work? Do you get the result you want from hitting your brother? Yes or no?

Does it work or not? Which is a different conversation than is it good or bad? And I found that it's a, people can listen to it. It has more impact and I'm all preying people's behavior and it doesn't engender arguments. How about that?

TalkToMeGuy : I'll be reworking that in my brain. Yes.

David Cunningham: Your conversation about glyphosate, right? You've got all the facts about it and you might shift the conversation from glyphosate are bad to they don't work. And here's the evidence you got. They don't work. Here's what happens when glyphosate are in the environment.

TalkToMeGuy : Hmm. I like it. Good. I hope that's useful. That's a good challenge for me. I like it.

David Cunningham: You know, Richard, a challenge for all people, right? For all of us is, oh my gosh, it's so hard not to. My mom, my mom is 99 years old in a couple of weeks.

Okay. And she read my book. So, and again, the title of the book is your love doesn't matter. And she was reading the book and there was the whole chapter talking about just what we're talking about right now is where to good and bad exist.

Do they exist in life or do they exist in what we say about it? And my mom was raised a Christian woman and, you know, had much of life based in morality and what's right and what's wrong, what's good and what's bad. And it was a difficult chapter. She kept reading it over and over again and struggling with it, right?

But, but at some point when she could get, oh, wait, the good and the bad isn't out there. It's in what we say. And we can say it.

We can. We can say the music's bad. We can say the movie's bad. We can say the service of the restaurant's bad.

We can say it. But we got to remember it's not in life itself. And when she got that discovered for herself and it was a struggle.

So because we're so steeped in the other view of life. But when she got that, oh, it allowed her to, the great thing about it was it allowed her to have much fewer judgments about people in life and much like free herself up from judgment and free yourself up from resentment of people. And so she's really enjoyed that discovery for herself as it after she struggled through it.

TalkToMeGuy : Well, it reduces the stress level, I think, of being in the world.

David Cunningham: It does. That's for sure. It does.

TalkToMeGuy : And you see, that's when I'll relate to that to our health in that I think some of the conditions we have in the world. I'll say ADHD, but I don't mean directly that, but that kind of action. I think I use a term total toxic load, which has to do with all the exposures that we're exposed to on a daily basis.

And mostly I'm talking about toxins like glyphosate or things in our water table that shouldn't be there. But I also think that stress loads of like even for your mom, having that reduced sense of just being and accepting and being able to go, oh, okay, that helps. You know, that's one little tiny thing that's beneficial to our immune system. So if we can remove what you're doing in your love work and love life style, for lack of a better phrase, is helping benefit our immune systems. We're going to be stronger and healthy because we're less stressed.

David Cunningham: For sure, for sure, Richard. And if you just observe carefully, like when do you love being you? Like when do you love being alive and being you is when you love who you're being. So you'll notice if you're being, I notice when I'm being stingy, I am not enjoying my life and I'm not enjoying being me.

When I'm being cranky, I'm not enjoying my life and I'm not enjoying being me. When I'm being compassionate, I love my life. I love being me. When I'm being generous, I love my life. I love being me.

And ultimately, when I'm being loving is when I love being me and I love my life the most. And I'm at peace. And like you say, my health, my body feels healthy.

I can feel the impact literally emotionally, physically, spiritually, mentally. When I love who I'm being, I love my life. And the good news again is who we're being is the one thing we have total say about. We don't have a say about what we have. I could have a car one minute, it's gone the next.

If I think my happiness is determined by what I have, I'm always going to be anxious. I don't have a say about what I do. I could show up at the airport on time and have my flight canceled. If I think my happiness is determined by what I get to do and don't do, I'll always be anxious. But when I get, I have total say about who I'd be, whether I'm generous or sygmy, that's up to me. And if my happiness comes from who I be, then the anxiety of life disappears because I'm clear, my happiness is always in my own hands. So yes, to a drastic reduction in anxiety.

TalkToMeGuy : Yes, that's the answer to reducing anxiety. And how do we develop our love footprint?

David Cunningham: Well, first off, isn't it? I am so happy to have come up with that concept of a love footprint. You know, because I'm one of those guys who's been very conscious of my carbon footprint and want society to wake up and be even more conscious of their carbon footprint. And then as I was really thinking love and writing my book about that love, your love does matter, it was like, well, how could we, what's a way we could, you know, think about this? And I also thought, well, yeah, we have a carbon footprint.

We also have a love footprint. In other words, I spend 60 seconds interacting with a clerk in the store. And then I walk away. What I leave behind, that I leave behind an argument, that I leave behind righteousness, that I leave behind respect, that I leave behind indifference. What did I leave behind?

And if I actually pay attention to that, I can make sure that I left love behind. I'm a boy that's like satisfying. Or I spend, I have lunch with my brothers and sisters. All right, we spend an hour and a half together. And then I leave. What did I leave behind? Did I leave behind righteousness? Did I leave behind judgment? Did I leave behind indifference?

Or did I leave love behind? It's a great way, Richard, I think for us to be able to keep ourselves awake to the who we're being in life and where the real satisfaction in our life comes from and where. And again, like you said, where our experience of being healthy comes from.

TalkToMeGuy : I make it a goal of all the transactions I have out in the world, whatever the story is, whether it's, I was going to say, pick up a video, but we don't do that anymore. You know, something.

You're dating yourself, Richard. Yeah, thank you. Wow. Yeah. Remember VHS? Anyway, that anytime I have an interaction with a clerk in a store or a food server, I try and have there be a laugh or a smile.

Yes. Something that makes them, well, we talked a little bit backstage. I was a working chef for 20 years. So I spent a lot of time in that environment. Even though I was running kitchens, I was sometimes wandering the dining room, talking to guests, because people like to talk to the chef for why, I guess.

I don't know, but they do. But I always tried to have a laugh somewhere in the conversation. I don't mean cracking a joke. I just mean something that makes people laugh or smile or enhance their experience.

David Cunningham: And feel better about themselves and better about life and, and glad. Just a little bit more glad to be alive. Yeah.

TalkToMeGuy : Yeah. I think that was one of the things about, I'm jumping here, but it comes to mind, is receiving darsham from Amici when you're blessed with a peacock feather. Yes. There's that moment you've been standing in line. People are shuffling. People are, you know, like anxious. They might not get there or, you know, rather than just being there.

They're like, I'm not there yet. You'll be close. You're really close. You can see her. You're really close.

And I think that's a higher version. You'll have better words for this. A higher version of that same experience is that moment when she taps you with a peacock feather and looks into your eyes and you think, wow.

Wow. Of clarity, of openness to a possibility or a space, or I don't know what those words are, but it's, I'm not saying I'm out in the dining room giving darsham. I'm just saying it's something to me that's slightly kindred. A moment of the light clears and we're all like having a laugh.

David Cunningham: I put that in the domain of divine love. There's, you know, that darshan, the experience in darshan, when the guru, whoever the guru might be, blesses you, right? Yeah. It's with divine love. So it has, it is, you know, you could say, if you wanted to, you could say God's love, it's, you know, and being loved, the experience of receiving love from source is its own unique experience that, that heals, that calms, that, that opens the heart, that illuminates the brain. That experience of divine love that one receives in darshan can't be overstated.

It's hard to find the words even to express how powerful that is. Yes. And as human beings, you know, there you are out in the dining room, the chef out in the dining room, right? But when you're present to your own divinity, is your, there's Richard, the chef out in the dining room, but the degree to which you're present, Richard, to your own, yourself as source, as light, as love, then even the love you're expressing out in the dining room has a unique quality to it. It, it, it is, somehow goes beyond what they expect to receive from just a guy coming out in the dining room, you know? Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

TalkToMeGuy : Well, it's, and it's, it's quite a downshift because you've come from, by the time you're walking into the dining room, let's say you're talking about dinner service, you've probably already worked six hours or maybe nine. If you have to bake bread and do a bunch of baking before you have to get, depends upon how much your load is to prep for each meal. So by the time you get to the dining room, you're not exhausted, but you're tired, but it's a moment of quiet, even though the dining room is a cacophony compared to what you've been in most of the day.

So it is a place of calm for me being in the dining room, even though I'm not a particularly public person, I know I'm talking into a microphone, but I'm not like, unlike yourself, I'm not getting on the stage and talking to a group of people. Kind of period. And, and so this is as close as I get. And it is, it's a very calm place. So I'm coming from a position of calm and smooth when I'm in the dining room because I'm not yelling 93 things a second.

David Cunningham: Right. And I bet, I bet that also you said that, you know, you've been working six hours or whatever. So you walk out there somewhat tired and I bet that you walk back in refreshed that it refreshes you as well.

TalkToMeGuy : Yeah. Yeah. That was always the thing about going in the dining room that surprised me is I'd come back fresher with slightly different eyes. Revitalized. Yeah. Revitalized.

David Cunningham: It gives so much. It does. Oh my gosh. If we could get that loving gives life to us, the lover and, and creates an environment for whoever we're loving that they can then also see if I love you and you're cranky, you'll notice you, you don't experience love, you experience crankiness. If you love me and I'm cranky, I don't experience love.

I experience crankiness. So you can't give me love, but if you love me, it creates an environment where it's easier for me to be loving. That's what your love for me does and your love for the people in the dining room does. It gives them, it creates an environment which is easier for them. Maybe they were being cranky a minute ago. Maybe they were being, you know, argumentative a minute ago, but it creates an environment in which it's easier for people to step forward and express their own love, be loving themselves. So it has a tremendous impact on the people around us, but we're the ones that walk away, Revitalized, refreshed for sure. Right.

Not in the world. Today's world, if I could, Richard, that's why I'm so, why am I sending my book to Congress? So I'm committed. Actually, this week, Richard, you'll be sent. Wow.

It's at the, it's at the printers right now being printed in the address to every member of Congress. Right. Why?

Why is that so important? I got very committed to this because I think that most people would have the experience that the political environment now is hard, is harsh, is, you know, is, well, you wouldn't describe it as a love-based environment. Wouldn't I?

No. And now I could get on a soapbox and go, oh, those guys that are being so harsh, they're like the wrong ones. And guess what? Then I would just be part of the fray, wouldn't I? So can't do that. It won't work. It just won't, it'll just add to it.

There's only one, one place to say it's like, okay, my love will make a difference in Washington. Yeah, it will. I'm just going to go put so much love in the system that it has to make a difference. So I'm doing it at another level in, I'm going to start in Pennsylvania, which I haven't started this yet, but I'm going to start probably in the next couple of weeks. I've got the project that's called Love Goes to the Capitol. And we're going to start in Pennsylvania and then I hope people in other states, I just hope people just pick it up and do it in their states. But we're going to go to the state Capitol and I do volunteer work with some gentlemen that are just right out of prison, right?

Formerly incarcerated men. So one week we're going to take that group of gentlemen up and we're going to deliver an orchid to every legislator. And the next week we're going to go up with a group of trans teenagers and we're just going to open the doors for legislators. And the next week we're going to go up with a group of moms on food assistant program and we're going to deliver a letter of acknowledge to every single legislator.

No political talk whatsoever. We're just going to go infuse love into the environment. And I'm committed that if we do that, if we do a different project like that every week for a year, it has to, it has to somehow at some point alter the environment in our current political situation. So that's what I'm committed to. It's called Love Goes to the Capitol.

TalkToMeGuy : David Cunningham.

David Cunningham: David Cunningham. David Cunningham. David Cunningham. David Cunningham. and again, generate a paradigm of being knowing oneself as love, as light, as source, and then living from there. So that's available for anybody who'd like it, those free recordings, okay? Wonderful.

TalkToMeGuy : Wonderful. I will be clicking on those. And we jumped, I jumped right in because I couldn't help myself, but now I want to step slightly back and ask, how did you get or land in the love channel? Well let's see.

David Cunningham: My own personal journey, right, in short, is I remember one of my earliest memories, Richard, is being a little four-year-old taken to church. We lived in this little small town called Olean, New York, and we went to this little church. Well, one night there was a candlelight service, and it was, I was taken to church for a candlelight service.

The sanctuary was lit just by candles, so it's very beautiful. And the service was, believe it or not, Richard, you ever drive down the highway and see those paintings on velvet? Like there's a painting of Elvis Presley on velvet.

Yes, yes, yes. So the whole service was this guy, I have no idea, it was painting a picture of Jesus on this velvet background, right? And Jesus, it was a painting of Jesus touching children and, you know, healing children, right? And in my four-year-old eyes, Richard, that was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my whole life.

Like it was just the most dismal thing. And, but what happened to me is it, like, it awoke me to how much I loved, like, the picture, like, it portrayed Christ's love for those children. And I actually had the experience, and I remember saying, I love that much. I love like that. I love that much.

And that was when I awoke to my love. Then, as I went through life, I kind of got talked out of it, quite frankly. Do you know, everything from my own family turned violent. My dad turned violent, much to my shock when I was about eight years old.

And so I all of a sudden was living in a very violent household. And I thought, wait, I thought our love mattered here. All of a sudden our love for each other didn't matter anymore, right? And then I came out as a gay man and I got told that my love was unacceptable.

So, OK, well, I love, but it's unacceptable. And then different things happened throughout the course of life where, again, it was like, I thought love was supposed to carry the day here and just, you know, my family moved. And it's kind of like we just left everybody else. And it was like, wait, I thought our love mattered, right? So by the time I was a young adult, I had resolved, I guess it doesn't matter, that I love doesn't matter that much. Then on my own path, I did my transformational work, studying a lot of the work of Warner Earhart, who founded the S-Training later, the forum. I did that work extensively. And then I met my guru. Her name is Saima. And it was, again, in Darchon, like he's wiggled up before, where, holy smokes, whatever Saima did with me, whatever she said to me, my heart opened back up. So all those years of having been guarded and closed down disappeared and it opened back up.

That was about 20 years ago now. And I got permission again. I had taken away my own permission to express my love and show my love fully. And I'm telling you, from that day forward, I was unleashed. I gave myself full permission to express my love, show my love, talk about love. So that's where I am today is on that now journey. I'm 73 years old and I've committed that the next 30 years of my life is dedicated to love prevailing on the planet. Love prevailing is the permanent way of being. And I'm serious about it and I'm intending to accomplish it. And that's what the next 30 years of life is about. Sorry, that was a long answer to your question.

TalkToMeGuy : No, no, that was good. No, that was exactly what I needed to know and was looking for. So that's perfect. What is your vision for the Love Matters collaboration global effect?

David Cunningham: Well, one of the things I want to do with the collaboration is I want to have people join, right? And it'll be free. There will be no membership for you. I'm kidding that anybody can join. But when people join the collaboration, that they actually sign a pledge to the love footprint, like they sign a pledge to expanding their love footprint. And so my goal with that, if you ask, is that within the next two years that we have members from every country in the world and many members. But what's really important to me is that we have people from every country in the world who sign on to expand their love footprint. And I'm committed that that would make a difference in that because, you know, a culture is created by the conversation people have. So if we generate a conversation, we get people talking about their love footprint. That is a new culture. So that's why I'm introducing it. And the love collaboration is a way for people to actually say, yes, I'm walking this earth and I'm committed to expand my love footprint. And we get that conversation going like a grassroots movement and we get it in every country in the world. We've got a new culture coming.

TalkToMeGuy : That's exciting. All of this change is exciting. I love myths. People don't know. But, you know, it's a lean I have is the idea of I think love is a powerful tool in the best of best of ways. I mean, express it and show it differently. But I believe it is.

David Cunningham: Yeah, I encourage people to bet everything in love, bet everything on it. You know, if you look at, you know, I work with parents who are having difficulty with their kids. Let's take that case, for instance, right? And, you know, or if I talk to, if I work with somebody who's having difficulty with a colleague at work, either case, any situation like that, if you watch what people rely on to try to resolve their situation, like you and I already spoke about, first they'll try to rely on being right. If they're just right, somehow that should handle the situation and it doesn't. Then they'll rely on logic or they'll rely on being convincing or they'll rely. And if that doesn't work, they might rely on being attractive. If that doesn't work, then they might start relying on being dominant or forceful even. So people rely on a whole bunch of things to try to resolve life.

There's nothing that works like relying on love. You know, a simple demonstration, Richard, is if I have a dance partner and they're across the dance floor, I have no say about their movements. They're just moving how they're moving. But if I have a dance partner in my arms, I can move them with me. Can I if they're in my arms?

OK, well, that's the same with any human being. If I want to move, I want a human being to move with me, whether it's my teenage child or whether it's my colleague at work. If I don't love them, if I don't have them in my arms, and I don't mean literally, but I mean figuratively like they're in my arms, then how do I expect to get anything done with them?

Right? Like I can't accomplish anything. No matter how smart we are, Richard, no matter how smart we are, people won't listen to us if they don't have the experience of being loved by us.

You've probably seen that. You've probably had people around you that tried to give you advice, but you could tell they didn't really love or respect you. And you didn't want to listen to a word they said.

I don't. But if I know somebody loves me, I can listen. Gandhi, if you think about Gandhi, Gandhi loved people. So people would listen to him. Well, where did his power come from? He got listened to. Where did Martin Luther King's power come from? He got listened to. What was the fabric of everything both those people said love? They loved. So I encourage us to bet everything I love, everything. It's the it is what will have us be able to work anything out with anybody.

TalkToMeGuy : Yes. Yes. Is a long, deep breath air. But yes, damn it. I have heard or read you say, because by now it's a blur, because I've listened and read so much, that insightful vulnerability is a place to communicate from. Is it is a PowerPoint or a I don't know what the word would be, a thing, a tool for beneficial communication. Can you talk about the insightful vulnerability?

David Cunningham: Well, insightful vulnerability is we have to be self aware. We're not self aware. You know, aware of, you know, aware of what we aware of what we're really up to, you know, I can be in a conversation with somebody and, you know, it can I can be pretending that what I'm up to is, you know, and I'm working on a project with them.

But what I'm really up to is having them not get upset with me, for instance. OK, if we're not going to aware of that, then it runs the show. We don't.

I always want people to be running the show of their own life. So to be self aware of what is it that really we're dealing with and really what is it that's important to us and what are we committed to and what are what are inauthenticities? Like where where do we pretend that we're pretending to something where we're not really to be aware of all that for oneself is really critical and to be then willing to share about that and be open about that. It's what leaves us related. See, people want to relate to us as human beings. They don't want to relate to us as like, you know, no, at all. They don't they don't want to relate to it at us as like, you know, better than them or they don't want to relate to us as these like perfect things that, you know, don't make mistakes.

No, people want people. They're human. They can relate to our humanity. So for us to be self aware about our own humanity is what allows people to relate to us and want to be connected to us. That's what I'd say about that, I think.

TalkToMeGuy : And can we develop that or is that just part of leaning into the being part of our lives?

David Cunningham: Definitely evolve it. It takes courage to now courage, because, you know, mostly you and I got trained that we should hide anything that we think people will not like or we should if there's anything people would disapprove of, we should hide that, right? It was kind of the the the way the game was laid out for us. And I got it. That protects you from other people's opinions or judgments, but it doesn't leave people related. We have to be related, Richard, to work things out together. We can't just be like, you know, bumper cars.

We got to be related. So our it takes courage to not hide. Our vulnerability, it takes courage and it's essential, but you can practice it. Just practice it like you practice anything. I like it.

TalkToMeGuy : Yeah, it makes so much sense. Makes too much sense. Maybe that's why people avoid it. Not sure. Again, I'm jumping slightly because there's something in here I want to talk further with you. In the afterward of your book, you talk about having a mild stroke. And from that stroke, you had three vivid lessons that you learned during that time. Would you talk about those?

David Cunningham: Yeah, three lessons I really learned about that. One was one lesson, particularly, was that how much it mattered, how much I mattered to people. You know, again, one of the main lessons came from that my my guru, Saima, when she found out I had a stroke, this was last year. By the way, I'm perfectly cool now. You wouldn't you wouldn't know I had a stroke.

Nobody nobody that sees me would ever imagine I had a stroke. So I was very blessed that way. But during that, you know, a few weeks of time where I was going to it, Saima would virtually call me or my husband every day, maybe a couple of times. They she had different doctors that she worked with call me and the attention I got.

And at first it was like, wow, like somebody of her stature is paying that much attention to me, right? And it was not a lesson that fed the ego like, wow, I must be something. It was a lesson of, oh, let me wake up to how much I do matter to people and that my relatedness with people does matter to them and to me. So it was one of the lessons was, hey, I'm not just this individual over here. And I and I'm not and I'm not just a small and significant thing. I am a part of people's lives and the outpouring of affection and attention I got during that time at first startled me, but then woke me up to that important lesson like, OK, all right, I got it.

I do matter to people and not in an egotistical way. Just in a in a interconnected way was the lesson. Another lesson I got during that time was loving myself like, OK, I had to deal with something you kind of pointed to before in our conversation. I had to deal with like, wow, if I spend a minute of time, you know, disparaging myself or, you know, being critical of myself, I can just feel it right now.

Like, you know, in this vulnerable position I'm in, having had a stroke, like, whoa, it has like an immediate impact. So I got the importance of self love. But I also the lesson I got was the access to it that that that the self love was not a matter of convincing myself I was worth loving. The lesson was that, oh, absence of resentment, absence of judgments I naturally love. So the real lesson, Richard, was, oh, when we are free, we love when we're free. When we're trapped by opinions, when we're trapped by resentments or judgments, we're not free and it suppresses our love. So I discovered that it wasn't that wasn't a matter of trying to become more loving. It was a matter of.

Setting aside opinions, resentments, judgments, and when I set them aside. I was naturally loving. So I got the difference between what had become normal, what had become normal was judging and assessing everyone in myself. That was normal. I think it's normal in society. But I discovered there's a big difference between what's normal and what's natural and just becomes something has become normal doesn't mean it's natural. And when I put aside resentments and judgments, I naturally loved. So that was the real lesson is that when we're free, we love.

It's natural to us and we don't. The job is not to try to become more loving. The job is to set aside everything that keeps us from being loving in the first place, the opinions, the resentments, etc.

TalkToMeGuy : What happened as I was reading toward the end of the book and I got to number two, which is the one that talks about empowering to be present your purpose for living.

Even if we're not sure exactly what that purpose is. About 13 years ago, I was hospitalized and had over a year, about 30 hours of surgeries. So I lived in a so I was in a health care facility for a year because my recovery was difficult.

And at some point, which I was ambulatory again, and I was in large facility, meaning 250 bed in Northern California. And I started to walk because the doctor wanted me to be walking for a bunch of various reasons. And so I would walk at first I was allowed to go outside. And so I'd walk around inside and I would see people every day because I walked a couple times every day inside. And I would see people who had come and gone. And when they came back, they were frequently more what I would term as doped up, not necessarily because they were in pain, but because they were easier to manage. This is my personal view.

Let me be clear that my personal view and my observation. And so in visiting these people is I would walk around and see them. Some of them at this moment, one in particular, one in a wheelchair, who when she was there months before was had fallen and had an injury. Now when she came back, because I guess she was bothersome and demanding, they had her doped up enough that she was just sitting in a chair kind of slumped over. And she was one of these people that I would see twice a day on my walks.

David Cunningham: Oh my gosh heartbreaking.

TalkToMeGuy : And I would see her on the walks and I would come come over to her. I never knew anybody's names. I'm bad with names, but I she would remember me and I could I would stand in front of her long enough that she would slowly lift her head and open her eyes and look at me and just smile. And so I did that with anybody that I came in contact with in the facility.

I would stand and be with them for a few minutes and see them. And that's all I was doing. But it was some mystery.

It wasn't until I read this in your book that I kind of got the a-ha of I was being loving with these people and they felt it and received it and got it and liked it.

David Cunningham: And there you are in a facility yourself. Yeah. As a patient. Yeah. For a purpose. Yeah. And it gave you life. Yeah. Yes. And you know you found it. It was there and it's not like that is we didn't have to worry was that the right purpose for Richard or is that really your purpose. It was just it was there to create oh this is something I can contribute. This this is something I can do with my with my life in a facility. I can give other people love. It gave you a purpose and it gave you life.

TalkToMeGuy : And it kept me walking you know in the best of ways. A few of the people tried to walk with me but by the time I'd been walking so much that they had a hard time keeping up because I had quite a case going and it was just you know I'd see them every a couple times every day and it was and we'd have moments. It would take me about an hour to walk around because I would stop and some people I could talk to some people were not talkable. Some people was as I say like this particular woman she would just raise her head and look at me like I'm still in here.

David Cunningham: How beautiful how beautiful.

TalkToMeGuy : And so it was it was as I say until I read that in your book I didn't get the it was finally the aha for me. Oh that's what I was doing.

David Cunningham: That's what you were doing right. And it's it's so life giving to create a purpose for yourself under any circumstance. Okay yeah it's beautiful. What a beautiful demonstration that is Richard. Thank you for sharing that with me.

TalkToMeGuy : Yeah thank you. In your as we're rounding the bend which I'm surprised we are already. In your 30 plus years of transformational work how do you stay grounded and love daily? What sustains you through challenge conflict and possible heartbreak?

David Cunningham: It's a good question. Let's see what sustains me. Let's see what sustains me I guess is the future. See it's the future we imagine for ourselves that gives us life now. If you and I if you and I let's just be silly for a minute but like let's suppose that you and I got told we're going to win a million dollars tonight and midnight tonight we get a million dollars you know so we wouldn't wait till midnight to get excited we get excited right now.

On the other hand if you and I got told at midnight you're going to jail we wouldn't wait till midnight to get upset we get upset right now. So the point is the future we imagine for ourselves gives us our experience of life now. Okay so what sustains me always is the future that I'm creating or the future that I'm saying for the future I see possible in every interaction you know so I worked with hundreds of thousands of people and I was graced by them including me and some of the biggest struggles they were having in life right and giving me the opportunity to support them and coach them in that and what sustained me always was the future I was committed to for them and saw possible for them like a future of real health and peace and joy and effectiveness in their lives. So again sorry for the long answer question but it's the future that I was the future that I'm always creating and standing for is what sustains me and right now I'm standing for a future where literally the way of the world is love our leadership is based in love our we bet everything on love so what is sustaining me now day in day out is that future called okay we're creating a world where love prevails this is a prominent way of being on the planet. No it's the future. Yeah and by the way if I could Richard please you know the guys I work with who come right out of prison yeah I work with these guys I get so humbled by them yeah I'm just thinking of one gentleman who he went into prison at 17 years of age Richard and he's now 67 being released where he's been in prison for 50 years wow from 17 to 67 he's in prison and he comes out it is and I'm and you know he was the one thing every night he was terrified he'd never never had a relationship never ran in an apartment never had a job never had a bank account never had a credit card he was even scared by he got startled by doors that open automatically because he never seen the host do you know I mean yeah so he was really struggling he had no he couldn't imagine a future for himself and the only future he really mentioned for himself was going back to jail and you can imagine how disempowering that was so the work with him was to really be able to get him to visualize create imagine and stand for a future for himself and of real freedom real freedom in the world and being related and having really extraordinary relationships because you know he had to he hadn't been with his family for 50 years so the future of being related to his family future of being able to contribute to society and then his past didn't matter at all anymore the only thing that mattered was his future and when the future carries the day the past ceases to impact you and you have the power that the future gives you that's why that's so important

TalkToMeGuy : one of my favorite uh well this was a tv series for a while but i knew somebody who worked as part of this program where they were taking dogs into prisons and having the inmates train the dogs and see the transformation of the prisoners from doing this process of training a dog to then go out and possibly be not necessarily a rescue dog but possibly just more likely be a pet they weren't training them to be guide dogs or they weren't they weren't that sophisticated a program not in a mean way but just in a like that was not what their their goal was really to help the inmates but it helped the dogs and it was just amazing to see how it opened the the love of a puppy was something that they probably like this gentleman who was in jail for much of his life they really had lost that experience to be so to see these like and you'd have like big gruff guys with tats all over and looking you know like you might be if you've been in prison a long time handling these little dogs and being licked on the face and being laughing with the dogs cuddling a puppy right cuddling a puppy it was just you know beautiful and amazing

David Cunningham: such a good lesson not to miss everybody's humanity right where we find them and what

TalkToMeGuy : everybody has humanity um i think i would you is there something that i missed or something that you'd like to mention i'll get to i'll ask you about where people find all that kind of stuff about you but is there some other closing thoughts you have or well actually let me ask you this is there a thing that you would have listeners you you know strive toward or an invitation i'll put it that way an invitation you would leave listeners with for their own lives

David Cunningham: yeah i would it's the love footprint okay i would invite the listeners to start actually keeping track of their love footprint okay i you know when i work with it i literally rank myself like i give myself a what do you call it the one of those ratings like a five you know one star through five really it's useful like okay i just walked away from the clerk in this door okay what do i give myself in terms of my love footprint right one star two star three star four star five star i would i really would invite us to start literally paying attention you know sometimes we make a terrible mistake richard like i oh my gosh just a few weeks ago i got in an argument with my dry cleaner over a shirt it was like and i'm telling you richard i was so right i can't you how right i was but but i walked out i walked out of my dry cleaner you know kind of righteously indignant right and i had a five minute drive home and by the time i got home i just couldn't stand it anymore right so i just as soon as i could i called him back and apologized and you know really cleaned it up with him because i just couldn't stand it so um the thing i'd leave your listeners with is that yeah pay attention to their love footprint and actually like pay real attention like rank ourselves at the end of an interaction at the end of a day at the end of the week at the end of a month at the end of a year at the end of 20 years of marriage right you know what's our love footprint and rank ourselves bring out a weirs that knowing that no matter how bad a mistake we made like i made with my dry cleaner you can clean it up in a second okay that's what i i have i draw his attention to

TalkToMeGuy : that's good the the dry cleaner lesson that'll go with the next book exactly that's so perfect and um and that you were so right i

David Cunningham: guess that's so very perfect i know i've i've kind of catch myself something so right

Speaker 1: it's it's a tricky one um where would you like people to find out more about your work your coaching community and all of that

David Cunningham: yeah just and www your love does matter dot com your love does matter dot com and they can find out about the the project love goes to capital there they can find about about the course i'm leaving there called the awakening which i'm really pleased with it's in that course richard i bring i think i've discovered a place where the best transformational discoveries cross paths with spiritual awakening i just think i found a really wonderful crossroads there that so i'm doing that of course so they can find out about the course called the awakening um and they can find out about the love matters collaboration and they can get for free those meditations i'll be doing more meditations by the way so they can find out when you know anybody can join me i do those on zoom so anybody can join for free um so watch for the announcement of that i love leading those guided meditations it's just thrilling um and so you find out about everything right there on your love does matter dot com okay great thank you thank you

TalkToMeGuy : all right david that was uh fun i thought it was going to be fun and it was even fun

David Cunningham: good I'm glad so thank you for the opportunity to you know i was watching a little bit of the news this morning i was watching uh like the airspace is getting filled up with some messages that i would characterize as negative i guess to say the least and i thought okay all right the airspace is getting filled up let's get the airspace let's just all right let's get a different message going out there if we don't there's just a void it will get filled up with all that other stuff so i appreciate this opportunity to fill the airspace with some good good good good wonderful

TalkToMeGuy : conversation the vibes are out there they're being broadcast as we speak

David Cunningham: yeah thank you so much thank you for your partnership, thank you

TalkToMeGuy : and we'll see you next week thank you