Be More Sustainable
What can we learn specifically from the current economic
crisis apart from not to take out too big a loan or mortgage
that we can't truly afford to pay back?
It wakes us up to the way in which we have been living,
both individually and collectively, it makes us
question whether the current system is going to look after
us in the long term and what we have been aspiring to is
indeed correct.
However just as importantly, it soon helps us establish what
we do and don't need in our lives, in essence it makes us
naturally more sustainable. We start to pay attention to
our outgoing expenses, utilities, petrol and food, and what
we can reduce, reuse and recycle.
It also pulls into focus what we can do without and
what we truly want to spend our money on. We naturally
become more resilient, reduce our carbon footprint, detox,
declutter and become more streamlined, in turn releasing a
huge amount of energy for the things that we really want to
do in life. A necessary process in any personal
development.
For more information on what you can do specifically to
become more sustainable maybe it is time to research the
Set Your Planet Free service on the website or join a local
Transition Initiative near you.
For more on Set Your Planet Free click here.
Learn More About...
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Greetings!
We are living through unprecedented times, our financial
institutions are shaking at their knees, our climate system is
getting ever hotter under its collar and we are becoming
ever more stressed out in the process, as we try and come
to terms with a future that is not so certain. This is a
true shock to our system. It is not only Halloween that
scares us at this time.
It is sometimes hard to see where the positives lie in such a
situation, however there is a fundamental truth that
lies at the heart of all these problems that once understood
and acted upon can lead us all to feel far happier about life.
It won't happen over night, but with a clear vision of where
we all want to get to, everything is possible.
For the simple truth of the matter is that all these crisises
are currently in existence because we have lost our true
connection to nature. That's both our inner and outer
nature.
Since the industrial revolution, we have allowed society to
expand unabated, plundering the Earth's resources to build
the modern metropolis in existence today. Suburbia now
sprawls out where open pasture once lay. High rise office
blocks and huge financial districts dominate the
landscape where once trees and hedgerows were the only
things casting shadows across our natural habitat.
Our values have changed and we have been duped into
thinking that all we have needed to aspire to in modern life is
a higher paid job, a bigger and better house, all the mod
cons needed to fill it, a faster car and all the latest
personal entertainment and communication systems to
keep ourselves in line with society. We believe that the
accumulation of all this stuff will secure our
happiness and make us feel more
loved by others.
If not immediately having the finances to pay for this lifestyle
we have just simply been lent the money into existence,
immediately acquiring debt to be paid back over a
number of years. Many of us have become addicted to this
contemporary way of living, as if there was no alternative.
Those of us unable to establish credit have found other
forms of addiction to compensate or tried to acquire the
lifestyle through other, more dubious means.
Alas when finally we have accumulated all the stuff we
thought we needed in our lives, paying off the last
installment, we have sat down and realised
that all of this accumulation of consumerist wealth actually
hasn't made us any happier. We come to the realisation that
we
have been distracted away from our true purpose and feel
more isolated, lonely and separated from who we really are
than ever before. We become unwell, depressed and
ill at ease.
All what we are being faced with now, I believe has been
designed to teach us what we truly need in life and what to
truly value. It has been augmented to bring us back
together as a community, bring us back to Earth, bring us
back to true health, back to our true nature. Lets hope
we all gain the necessary understanding pretty quickly and
don't just go back to sleep thinking the storm has past, only
for it all to happen again in even worse circumstances in a
couple of years time, if that. For more understanding and
solutions to all these crisises please read on.
Simon.
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Become More Soul Orientated
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I like to use the analogy of a caterpillar when describing
Western society. Where we continue to eat
up our world with seemingly no thought about the
consequences, getting ever fatter in the process.
When we as individuals start off in life, we are one of these
caterpillars, driven by our ego's desires, totally oblivious to
the fact that at the very heart of us, there is something
altogether more beautiful just wanting to get out, to be set
free and to benefit our world.
Finally when we have eaten as much as we can possibly
eat, failing to see any value in any more mouthfulls.
Change begins to happen. We enter what Bill Plotkin (author
of Soulcraft) would say is our 'Second Cocoon'. Where all
we once knew starts to disappear and lose value, only for
the butterfly within to start to emerge.
Soul work is essentially what Set You Spirit Free does with
people. It helps you to understand what is at the very heart
of you. That at the very core of your nature there is this
butterfly, ready to come out and grace the world with its
presence. No matter how hard others have tried to
convince you that a caterpillar life is the only one that you
can ever hope for.
Set Your Spirit Free encourages you to believe it truly is the
time to unfurl those wings and really fly towards what you
are meant to be doing in this life. The incredible thing is that
instictively you already know, that there is this other you
buried deep inside, that is just dying to get out. It just
needs a bit of coaching out of its cocoon.
Maybe it is time to pick up the phone and get in touch to see
how you too can transform yourself into something
altogether more beautiful.
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Reach Out To The Community
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Transition Initiatives I believe are one of the finest examples
of where people are seeking solutions to our global
problems from a community orientated perspective, acting
together, looking at alternatives to how we currently supply
ourselves with fuel, food, transport and shelter.
Is it conceivable I ask that given a continued long term
recession and our current housing and finance system as it
is, that there could be more people living in the streets than
in their houses in the future as nobody would be able to
afford to live in them any longer?
It's a thought, hopefully this won't happen, but it doesn't hurt
to look at more sustainable alternatives. Co-housing, house
share, low impact development, in a bid to create more
affordable homes for everyone.
PL:21 is the transition initiative for my local area that I have
helped to set up, in September we ran a series of very
successful events designed to help people save energy
and therefore money on their fuel bills.
On Saturday 22nd November, we are running a Sustainable
Transport Day, here in Ivybridge. Designed to address the
state of our transport links within the town. Please come
along to the morning of talks at the Methodist Church,
Ivybridge if you are interested in learning more or promoting
the idea of a more Multimodal transport system for the
future.
We soon realised that we can't create a sustainable
solution for our local town unless we created a sustainable
solution for the entire surrounding area. In celebration of
this fact, PL:21 is arranging a cycle ride connecting the
town centre with all its parish centres in the afternoon
of November 22nd. So if you feel so inclined to join in please
bring your bike along for a 1.30pm start, outside of the
Methodist Church. Or contact pl-21@hotmail.co.uk for
more information.
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