Realization Without Fear

For us, eating organic is not only a choice but a privilege. We are thankful to be able to feed our family of eight what we consider to be “the best food on the planet”. It’s not necessarily because we can afford to eat only organic food, it’s just that we believe in it so deeply that we choose that over other things.

The realization that we could begin to shape the world through our purchases as a family began to infiltrate into other areas of our lives. From this place of awareness, we embarked on a journey that shaped our families success to “go green”.

I began to think about how we were so easily able to switch our lifestyle as other mothers inquired about our accomplishments. Exactly how do we unravel the webs we have found ourselves trapped in? Corporate America has led us down a destructive path that is hard to break away from.

Now I must admit, I have always lived a bit outside mainstream ideology. But recognizing the culminating devastation occurring on the planet right now during my lifetime challenged me to begin questioning my personal role in the big picture a little more deeply.

As mothers, when one of our children is not well, we instinctively react with a quickness that only a mother can muster. Our intuitive natures kick in and we assess the situation and immediately begin to find solutions. If we simply ignore or mask the problem, sooner or later it resurfaces until we get to the root of the problem.

Now imagine that the earth is one of our kids. Deep down, our innate feminine wisdom tells us that something is wrong – very, very wrong. It is essential that we not only trust this wise part of ourselves but also heed the warning call. Only when we acknowledge the truth can we begin moving towards living our lives in a new way.

I looked back over our evolution as a family going green and saw a pattern in the way we integrated each new initiative we embraced. In the next series of blogs I will outline the ten steps necessary to effectively alter our behaviors as families that are crucial to the survival of our species.

The first step for creating real change in our behaviors and in the world is to RECOGNIZE that there’s a problem. This requires lifting off the veils of illusion and seeing things for what they really are. And the truth is, our planet is in peril. The generations of the immediate past, including our own, have rapidly depleted the resources available on our planet at a rate faster than they can be replaced. There’s not much left for generations to come.

My intention here is not to motivate through scare tactics, but rather to tell it like it is. In this way, a foundation is established from which we can accurately base our decisions. Right now there is a lot of dishonesty in our world. Money hungry corporations are still trying to squeeze every possible dollar they can from the market before it crashes. And it’s not that they don’t know what I am telling you. It’s just that they are not telling you that they know so as not to cut into their profit margins.

When we begin to look closely, however, we can see them beginning to prepare. “Green” initiatives are sprouting up all over the place moving these ideas into the mainstream. A good number of companies are leading the way while others, such as Clorox with their new “green” cleaning line “greenwash” their products leading consumers to believe they actually care about the environment. Still others blissfully maintain business as usual.

The catch is that all of these good green changes are in some ways useless if we, as Americans, don’t take an honest look at the rate in which we consume things. As a country we make up about 4% of the world’s population yet produce 25% of the world’s carbon emissions, 6 times the global average. When we look at America in comparison to other countries, one can see the direct correlation between consumption and carbon emissions. Even with the talk of global warming our purchasing power continues to escalate and our energy consumption is off the charts.

The rest of the world is waking up, while America is in some kind of drugged stupor. Like an addict we won’t stop until we hit rock bottom. Only when we recognize and acknowledge the reality facing us at this critical point in history will we be able to affect change. By recognizing there is a problem we can move on to the next step, which is accept personal responsibility for the role we play in the big picture.