Heal Yourself, Heal the Planet: A Little Guide to Transformation

1.    Start with you. While scientists once believed we were separate from everything else on earth, we now know that couldn’t be further from the truth. We human beings are made up of the same stuff that makes up the stars we gaze at, the grass we walk on and the very food we eat. Spiritual teacher Deepak Chopra says it best: “At some point in our lives, the realization dawns upon us that freedom does not come from external situations or circumstance. All of creation, everything that exists in the physical world, is the result of the unmanifest transforming itself into the manifest. Everything that we behold comes from the unknown. Our physical body, the physical universe — anything and everything that we can perceive through our senses — is the transformation of the unmanifest, unknown and invisible into the manifest, known and visible. The physical universe is nothing other than the self curving back within itself as spirit, mind and physical matter.”

With this in mind, how we think about ourselves, treat ourselves and feed ourselves becomes a whole new ball game: every negative thought we hold and reaffirm to ourselves is also reaffirmed to the universe, every bad diet choice directly affects the health of universe, every unkind action or thought towards another has a direct affect on the universe and so on. Making conscious, educated choices every day is the first and most important step in healing the earth. A great place to start the education is with inspirational author and teacher, Louise L Hay and her bestselling book You Can Heal Your Life. To get a deep understanding of how the lives of humans and animals are deeply connected, watch Earthlings, a documentary narrated by Joaquin Phoenix.

2.    Change your diet. While the meat and dairy industries do everything in their power to ensure consumers believe meat and dairy help us grow healthy and strong, there is much evidence to the contrary. Besides the undeniable health risks of eating meat and dairy that can no longer be ignored due to the rise-and-rise of cancer cases, there’s another reason it’s important to reassess the amount of animal products in your diet—and that’s the detrimental impact meat production has on the planet. A 2006 United Nations report found that the meat industry produces more greenhouse gases than all the SUVs, cars, trucks, planes, and ships in the world combined. When asked by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) what personal change people could make to help the environment, ex-Beatles star Paul McCartney answered, “I think the biggest change anyone could make in their own lifestyle would be to become vegetarian.” Find out how here.

As with anything, it’s about being kind to yourself during the process if you decide to give up meat and dairy. Do your research to ensure you do things at a pace that works best for your body and lifestyle. An important thing to remember: vegetarianism and veganism are not diets in the common sense of the word, or religions for that matter. Rather they’re a lifestyle choice—an action resulting from understanding how everything on the earth is deeply connected, and how what we put in our mouth has a profound effect on everything we are and do. That means taking it all one meal and day at a time, so leave any feelings of guilt or failure at the door. Every step you take towards making a difference adds up. Be proud of yourself and tell yourself often.

3.    Stop buying plastic water bottles, shopping bags or containers. We’ve all certainly heard it before: buying water in plastic bottles and getting plastic bags at the supermarket isn’t a good choice for the environment. Treehugger.com has an article that gets straight to the point detailing what is known as the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” or “trash vortex”: (it’s) essentially a floating expanse of waste and debris in the Pacific Ocean now covering an area twice the size of the continental U.S. Believed to hold almost 100m tons of flotsam, this vast “plastic soup” stretches 500 nautical miles off the Californian coast, past Hawaii and almost as far as Japan. Gotta see it to believe it? Watch this.

As said before, being kind to you, also means you’re being kind to the world around you. Plastic water bottles contain the cancer-causing chemical known as Bisphenol A, which leaches from the bottles to the water you consume. Step one: buy a reusable water bottle. Step two: fit a reverse osmosis filter to your kitchen tap (same goes for the shower: many municipal water supplies are not only highly chlorinated, but also contain high levels of pharmaceutical drugs—such as antibiotics, oral contraceptives etc—which get ingested through the skin, which is the body’s largest organ. Read more here.

4.    Recycle, buy recycled and make your own. Recycling household items needs little explanation these days, as most of us seem to have it down. If you’re not sure about what can be recycled, check out this handy guide. Everyone loves a gift, but everyone loves a handmade present even more. In this consumer-driven world, buying new has become the norm. But thanks to the recession (translation: blessing in disguise) people are learning to appreciate the more authentic, simple things in life. If you’re not yet ready to embrace your creative side, when it comes to buying Christmas, birthday, wedding gifts and the like, head to Etsy.com, a site that features beautiful handmade treasures, many of which have been made from pre-loved items. When it comes to furnishing your home, finding pre-loved items from garage sales and antique shows can add an individual charm that will make your home uniquely yours.

5.    Learn how to compost. Composting is a natural recycling process that continuously happens in nature. Throwing vegetable scraps and grass clippings into the trash not only adds to the world’s overflowing garbage dumps, it also throws away wonderful nutrients that you can use on your own garden (regardless of whether you live in a house or apartment). How do you make compost? Plowhearth.com explains: There are four key words to remember: green, brown, air, water. What this means is that, to make compost, all you have to do is bring together moist, fresh, predominantly green ingredients (grass clippings, weeds, kitchen scraps, and the like) and predominantly brown ingredients (dead leaves, straw, hay, wood shavings or chips, etc.), ensure that the mix remains damp, and turn it all every few days to reintroduce oxygen to the pile. That’s it. In less than a month, you’ll have rich, crumbly, brown compost that you can add to your garden soil, use in containers, or mulch with. Also see Howtocompost.org.

6.    Ask questions. Just because the local newspaper, six o’clock news or your favourite website says something is so, use your intuition, gut feeling or whatever you choose to call it and ask questions. Just because it’s in print or because a news anchor spouts statistics, doesn’t mean it’s God’s given truth. Look deeper to see who funded the research. Read labels and ask yourself if the ingredients sound like they’re good for you and your family. By educating yourself and gaining an understanding for yourself is one of the most important daily actions you can take.

7.    Share your knowledge. As we’re all on this journey together, the best gift we can give to others is knowledge. As you pick up any healthful, earth-loving information that you feel is invaluable and can help others in some way, share it. Start a blog, start an action group, join an environmental group. Or simply start a journal of your journey that you can refer to when you feel someone who know could use some information you’ve previously recorded.

Photo courtesy: jurvetson