Heal Humanity, Heal the Planet

When I first signed up for Vocal, there was a very specific topic that I wanted to write about, and I believe that this challenge is a good prompt for me to start. I grew up just like most typical North Americans. I bought into this fast culture - fast food, fast fashion, fast cars; I was raised to believe that the reason for my existence was to obtain all these things. Ten years ago, however, I started to pay more attention to what was happening to the environment, and from then, I gained a deep respect and passion for environmental activism. I changed my diet from convenient processed food to mainly local organic produce, I changed my relationship with the environment and developed a sense of stewardship over the land, and I changed my religious views towards more of a spiritual perspective. I believe that when you truly develop your spirituality, you gain a connection between the Planet and its inhabitants, and when you genuinely feel that connection, life itself becomes way more delicious.

Five years ago, I moved back to my childhood neighourhood and fell back on old habits and addictions; I worked for jobs that were not aligned with my values, I started to eat the same food that I tell people not to eat, I stopped meditating and dancing (as dance became an important component in my spiritual practice). The difference between how I felt ten years ago compared to how I feel now is like night and day. And it’s not just how I feel in my body, but I’ve started to isolate myself from my friends, the self-love I developed began to slowly fade, and I’ve been experiencing bouts of depression. I deeply believe that our bodies and minds are connected to the Planet, and so when we’re off, it’s an indication that the whole Planet is off and needs healing.

Many people try to fight the big corporations and put pressure on the government to regulate industry more (which is completely valid and important in itself), however, the best thing we can do as individuals is to demand products that are in alignment with Planetary sustainability. There is such an emphasis on economic growth, but what kind of economy will we be working with if our Planet runs out of resources? Perhaps industries need to be shifting towards more service-based products rather than brand new physical products. But that idea is for another post :)

I know it’s hard to change your lifestyle, especially when there are certain things that we live for like certain foods or experiences, but in order to change the world, we must be able to change ourselves. With this new coronavirus, it has given us the opportunity to pause and reflect on what’s working and what’s not. Trust me, I know how hard it is to shift towards a more sustainable lifestyle, but from experience, when you do, life is that much more satisfying. I didn’t realize how beautiful life really is until I made the move.

Here is a list of changes that I am proposing:

Limit/Eliminate processed food

There is so much wrong with processed food, from the way the original food was grown, to the way it’s processed in order to achieve a longer shelf-life, to the packaging that it requires, and finally to what it does to your body when you eat it. When considering the impact on the oceans, the packaging and trash that is produced for and from processed food is an environmental nightmare. Just think about it: in order to create the packaging, they have to create more plastic or use cardboard - the runoff from the chemicals used for that packaging goes back into the oceans. Every time you eat something processed, whether it’s a piece of candy or take-out from a fast-food place, you are throwing the packaging out, and that packaging will take years to decompose. I strongly believe in a karmic bank account where every action produces either a positive or negative charge in your karma bank, and whenever you throw something out, you are contributing to your landfill real-estate, which you pay for out of your karmic bank account.

In the best-case scenario, the packaging goes into the landfill, however, we all know that a lot of that garbage goes into the oceans somehow, whether thrown in by individuals or thrown in by the actual cities because they are running out of landfills. All of this trash in the oceans can be greatly reduced if we can all collectively limit the amount of packaged food that we consume. I mean, most of it is damaging our bodies when we consume it!

Eating more organic/local produce

In order to limit the amount of packaged food, people often wonder what is left to eat. The answer is real simple: eat real food! As someone that grew up with an addiction to processed foods and the sugar that is hidden in all of it, I know it’s hard to develop a palate for healthy food. We are bombarded all day with images of food that is meant to satisfy our cravings rather than our nutritional needs. I found that when you understand how your body works and what vitamins and minerals you need to function optimally, and also what processed foods actually do to your body, you begin to gain more of an appreciation for real, organically-grown food.

Years ago, when I made the transition towards whole foods (and I mean whole food, not the store), I noticed something remarkable: I didn’t even want junk food - I couldn’t stomach it anymore. I actually started to crave real food. I enjoyed picking up my produce from farmers' markets, I took pleasure in preparing the food I had, and I felt the difference in my body from making those choices. From those experiences, I’ve embedded those feelings into meditations to help myself remember the appreciation I gained for whole food.

When you choose organically grown food, you are choosing fewer chemicals in your body and in the environment. When you choose local, you are reducing the travel needed for your food to get to your plate and you’re helping support your local farmers, which is an important aspect of switching to this type of lifestyle. Local, organic farmers are probably some of the most wholesome and noblest people I’ve ever met. They’re not in it for the money - they sincerely care about the land and feeding people with healthy food. The more we can support them, the better off we will all be.

Growing my own produce:

There’s nothing more local than your own backyard. In order to appreciate the work that farmers do, and also in order to really appreciate the food that you put in your body, the best thing you can do is to grow food yourself. When you take care of the plants, watch them grow, tend to the land you’ve been gifted with, and then prepare the food with your own hands, there’s a spiritual cycle that happens within you. I believe we would all benefit from knowing how to grow our own food.

This year, I’ve started a little garden, as I don’t have much experience with growing food en masse just yet. I’ve started out with a little patch in the backyard, growing tomatoes, french beans, cabbage, cucumbers, peppers, and eggplant. In individual containers, I have kale, lettuce, and herbs like rosemary, basil, mint (for the mojitos!), parsley, and dill (for the butterflies). The best thing to wake up to in the morning is going outside and seeing these happy, healthy plants, thriving from the care we show them. I’m sure there will be obstacles (we’re already having some issues with rabbits eating the lettuce planted in the ground), but figuring it out is part of the appreciation of real food and adds to the knowledge of working with the Planet.

Limit/Eliminate Meat, unless I know where it’s coming from

If you’ve watched the movie “Cowspiracy”, you already know where I’m going with this. And if you haven’t, my suggestion would be to set a day to watch it, especially if you’ve been on the fence on whether to stop eating meat or not. Basically, the meat industry is just terrible for the environment. Our collective demand for meat is not sustainable. It requires more land and water than we can keep up with. They are even tearing down the rainforest in order to grow cattle. And of course, there’s the cow fart issue, in which the flatulence of billions of animals used as livestock is adding way more CO2 into the atmosphere. There are obviously humane issues with commercially raised livestock, which I won’t even go into right now because most of us have already watched videos of commercial farms that break our hearts. But if we’re talking strictly about the environmental impacts, the Planet would be much happier with our species if we can perhaps cut down our meat consumption.

My goal is to eliminate commercially raised meat out of my diet. I am, however, open to eating meat if I know where it’s coming from and how it was raised (i.e. from a local farmer or even from a local hunter or fisher). And now, that leads to the next action step: stop eating fish and seafood unless I know for sure where it is coming from.

This is inspired by the sister film that was just released, “Seaspiracy” - again, another documentary that is highly recommended, especially if you are eating tons of fish to get your omega-3s, but still want to help the Planet. In a nutshell, the commercial fishing industry takes more than the oceans can handle, in order to meet demand. At this point, it’s not even meeting the demand, it’s creating demand through its large supply. And the only way to combat this in order to save the oceans is to stop supporting commercial fisheries. Just like with meat, if I were to consume fish or seafood, I need to know exactly where it came from and how it was caught.

I don’t know if we can totally eliminate meat and fish out of our diets collectively, but at the very least, we should all try to limit it as overconsumption is horrible for our health and the Planet synergistically.

Be conscious of where my clothes are coming from

Fast fashion, though fun in a sense, is horrible for the Planet. From obtaining the raw materials, to making the clothes, to the poisonous dyes that leak into the ocean, and finally from all the clothes that end up in the landfill because of high turnover, there is nothing environmentally friendly about fast fashion.

When I made the transition towards a more sustainable lifestyle a decade ago, I started to meet more and more people that were on the same wavelength. I found there are so many better solutions to this problem. I was introduced to cool thrift shops in the city and local clothing makers that find sustainable materials to make their clothes. Usually, these local designers are unique artists, and their clothes would reflect their genius and artistry. I found that living this way would create way more colourful, interesting and unique outfits and expressed my personality better - and it was all saving the Planet, while supporting the local economy.

Of course, this lifestyle is not for everyone. But with the growing awareness of the damage that fast fashion is doing to the Planet and the people involved, the larger corporations are taking note, and are slowly transitioning to finding more sustainable solutions for their product-line. These are the companies to keep investing in, as they are trying to be the leaders in the new change in fashion.

Personally, I would like to adapt to the lifestyle I had years ago - finding unique pieces in thrift shops that tell a story and also supporting local designers that source sustainable material.

Move towards a minimal lifestyle

We are hit hard with advertisements all day trying to sell us more things. As I mentioned earlier, our society is so focused on economic growth, that the main focus in business is to make products and convince you that your life will be better with these products. There are so many people that are hoarding material in their homes, and from personal experience, the more material things that you have and are not using, the more mental space it takes up in your mind. Adapting to a minimal lifestyle will help in utilizing everything you have to the fullest, and ultimately minimize the impact we make on this planet.

Apply my own meditation practice to recondition habits

To help with this transition, I have created a series of movement meditations to help reprogram my subconscious to choose healthier options and to feel more connected to my purpose and place on this Planet. I have taken my experience and past feelings and embedded them into meditations in order to re-calibrate my subconscious in choosing the healthier routes. I will be applying my movement meditations each day for at least the next three months in order to fully recondition my habits and lifestyle. I will be posting reflections here on Vocal; the aim is to keep myself accountable as I transition, and perhaps inspire others that have been looking to become more sustainable in their habits as well.

I know this list sounds like a huge change, and maybe impossible for some, but my goal is to show how it can be done. It may even seem like in order to change, you need to sacrifice pleasures, conveniences, and fun, which I totally understand. But in truth, what you’re “sacrificing” are the things in your life that are hurting you in the long-run, because whatever hurts the Planet, eventually hurts you. Humans are the reflection of the Planet. When we change our spending habits, corporations will change. This is not some hippy-dippy ideology anymore. With the growing awareness of the rise in sea levels, the dangers of climate change, the amount of garbage our lifestyles are producing, the damage that industries are doing to the oceans and Planet in general, and the inequality of abundance on this Planet, it is becoming more and more prevalent to many people that a change needs to happen. The goal is not to sacrifice life in order to save the Planet, but rather to change ourselves in order to know what it really means to LIVE.