Is downshifting a spiritual act? Is deciding to live more in alignment with the needs of the planet, humanity and ourselves an act of defiance, a refusal to comply, to be “socially included” or is it maybe a shift towards a mode of living that supports both our personal spiritual growth and the raising of global consciousness?

I have met plenty of atheistic, sustainable living and sustainable business enthusiasts who tell me that they see many reasons to simplify our social and business culture, to consume less, to emphasise personal and planetary wellbeing more, without needing to subscribe to any kind of spiritual beliefs or moral code. So, clearly, some sense of or belief in our spiritual nature is not a prerequisite for living more simply. For those who view living and working sustainably very much as part of their spiritual path, though, some kind of regular spiritual practice is paramount.

Why is that?

It’s like preparing to run a marathon. For most of us running a marathon is not something that we can just get up in the morning and do! We first need to train, to prepare and attune ourselves so that the task in hand becomes possible. For us to learn to change our approach to living and working to one where the needs of the planet, humanity and ourselves is uppermost in our consciousness, we need to practice being in touch and then remain in touch with that part of ourselves that guides us from the heart rather than from the head. I’m not saying that we never need guidance from the head, rather that our heads do a very good job of influencing us anyway, and flooding our consciousness for much of the time. By learning how to maintain contact with our hearts, our Higher Selves, the Divine, God, whatever that is for us, we will be redressing the balance between head and heart.

In my experience, regular, preferably daily, spiritual practice is a way to achieve this. What is it that gets in the way of us committing our time and energy to regular spiritual practice? What can we do to work with these obstacles and remove them?

Common Obstacles

Practical

• Lack of a physical space.
• Lack of a time space.

A very effective way around these kinds of obstacles is to consider our options more openly. If we can’t find room at home to meditate or practice Yoga, T’ai Chi or QiGung, for example, perhaps we can explore what changes can be made in our home environment to accommodate some space. Perhaps it is easier to go out to a regular class some days and practice at home on others. Perhaps there’s another space away from home that we can use. Perhaps there are some changes we can make in how our home space is used in order to accommodate some room for our spiritual practice.

Personal health/physical

• Illness of some kind, either an acute episode or an ongoing physical or mental illness.
• Surgery
• Personal weaknesses – physical or psychological.
• Lack of knowledge

In an ideal world, we would establish a robust spiritual practice when we’re feeling well in order to carry us through any illness that might emerge later. In practice, this doesn’t always happen and we will need to be honest with ourselves about what we can handle when ill and balance that against the healing benefits of maintaining some form of practice. We will need to let anyone who is caring for us know that this is a priority for us and part of our care regime. Whatever our state of health, we may well benefit from working with a spiritual teacher.

Emotional

• Limiting beliefs (those that lead us to sabotage rather than support our efforts)
• Conditioning (unconscious patterns of behaviour, usually learnt in childhood, which may hinder our progress in adult life.)

Awareness is the key here – to watch our automatic reactions and unpack them to reveal our underlying needs and how we might meet them in a life-sustaining way. Coaching can help to raise awareness.

Social

• Family, friends, colleagues unsupportive.

We can choose to ignore unsupportive comments, or we can choose to talk gently with those who appear to be putting obstacles in our way. In my experience, most of us would rather keep quiet and seethe than have what we fear might be a “difficult conversation”. In practice, it’s usually easier in the longer term to have the discussion.

Spiritual

• Unsure of my path, lack of clarity.
• Conflict between what attracts me now and the religion I was raised in.

Ironically, it’s maintaining a spiritual practice that helps us to achieve awareness of, clarity with, and insight into, all of the above. We can ask ourselves how flexible or rigid we want to be and where our boundaries lie. We can also investigate areas where we feel we would like to extend our knowledge. Spiritual growth can be a dynamic balance between the experiential and the expansion of knowledge.

Conclusion.

Whilst not a prerequisite for living and working sustainably, maintaining a sound spiritual practice is something that many downshifters find supportive, inspiring and a great comfort. Whilst there can appear to be many obstacles to this approach in our modern, fast-paced way of life, it is possible to remove these. As with many areas of downshifting, effecting life changes that are important to us can lead us to question our assumptions and beliefs and thus to benefit from the process of growth that accompanies the change.

At his carpet company, Ray Anderson has increased sales and doubled profits while turning the traditional “take / make / waste” industrial system on its head. In a gentle, understated way, he shares a powerful vision for sustainable commerce.

Notice the incredibly beneficial effect this company’s “Mission Zero” business plan has had on goodwill and market share.

Highlighting the dominant role that business currently plays in plundering the earth’s resources and stressing the potential for business as a solution to the problem, his message is clear:

“Theft of our children’s future will one day be a crime.”

Do create a 15 minute window in your day to benefit from the uplifting messages in this short video.

During my musings, I had a flashback to choosing my “O” level options. “O” levels, for those who are not quite as old as me, or who are not familiar with the British education system, were exams taken usually at age 16 in a broad range of subjects. The modern equivalent are known as GCSEs. The idea is to prove one’s competence and to qualify for further and higher education or for entry into the job market. At age 14, the “0” level options I chose were a few science subjects, maths, English, a couple of languages and music. If I’m honest, I didn’t so much “choose” these subjects as delete from my “options list” those subjects I thought I couldn’t possibly tolerate for another 2 years!

Nowadays, with the benefit of several decades more life experience under my belt and a completely free choice in what I learn, I can take a much more flexible and empowered approach. As a quick, fun exercise, I decided to choose some subject options now from an imaginary list of my own “Skills for a Changing World.” My choices didn’t include some skills and knowledge areas that I’d consider essential because I reckon I’m already competent enough to pass the exam ;o) These would be skills such as basic literacy and numeracy, growing and preparing food, making clothes and child rearing, ethical business practice, coaching, some basic communication and relationships skills.

Rather than that, what follows represent subjects where I have a little knowledge, enough to know I’d enjoy further study and practice, but where I’d like to know a lot more:

1. Permaculture design and implementation
2. Ayurveda
3. Vipassana Meditation
4. Non-Violent Communication (NVC)
5. Naturopathy
6. Mediation

I don’t think that there are GCSEs available in any of these (yet!), although I have found other courses for all of them, for adults only. Now, all I have to decide is when to do what and how to live long enough to make good  use of them all!

If you were 14 again and had a completely free reign in what to study, what would you choose that would help equip you for life in a sustainable society?

What is most important to you when you consider the training options open to you now and what you’d most enjoy doing? Why?

As time has gone on and my work has become more internet based, I’ve started  being inundated with emails, calls to network, tweet and blog, complete surveys and interviews, read “important information” related to my profession and areas of interest and so the list goes on. Along with many of my clients, I have started to find this overwhelming and ironically self-defeating. It almost seems as though the communication highways have become like our motorways – the more of them you build or widen, the busier and more congested they will get.

How on earth does anyone, especially those of us championing the idea of living and working more simply, deal with this communication overload?

From a space free of distractions, for the moment at least, I thought I’d share with you some reflections on what it is I believe motivates us to get caught in this particular manifestation of the rat race:

1.    Fear of missing out and appearing unknowledgeable.
2.    Fear of not keeping up (with the latest data, world news, technology, political moves, gossip etc)
3.    Fear of appearing ineffective, inefficient, outdated, out of touch.
4.    Fear, fear, fear…

My two favourite antidotes to fear are…love and action. What we need to remember is that fear is a major driver in the Industrial Growth Society, the old paradigm. It is a tool commonly employed in the rat race to disempower. One route to a Life Sustaining Society, the new paradigm, is to recognise our fear, decide instead to work from our love of life and of what we do and take action on that.

What does this look like when we apply it? We can:

1.    Decide for ourselves how much time we want to spend reading (taking information in) each day and where our focus is going to be. If we still feel a twinge of the “fear of missing out” then we can make a reference file for “material to be read later”. (An interesting experiment is then to review this file after 3 months and see how much of what you wrote there is still important to you!)
2.    Use the utmost discretion in answering any email that makes a request of us (and therefore is likely to add to our list of tasks to do.) Is this an opportunity? Is this in alignment with my business or personal mission? If not, we can train ourselves to say no, firmly but politely.
3.    Use the smallest amount of the simplest technology we can in order to complete a task. This includes networking sites and methodologies.

My theory is that anything more than this could be classed as a distraction and that we can use the time, space and energy we’ve just created to re-connect to our truth and to give to others.

What do you think?

What type of communication is a distraction for you?

What would you deem to be an essential?

Whilst downshifting or aspiring to live more sustainably can seem on the surface to be like a dream, in reality what I, and many of my clients, find is that it’s more of an interesting journey than a dream to be achieved. So, ironically, even striving towards the goal of a “sustainable living dream” can be counter productive. What guides us on the right path of our journey I would call a vision rather than a dream.

When we feel that we don’t have something tangible to aim for, that our future holds little in a material sense for us to obtain, what is really happening is that we are encountering obstacles on our journey that are obscuring our view of our vision.

What are the obstacles to envisioning a future?

1. Being in the rat race and having no time for quiet reflection.
2. Feeling too stressed out, tired, or ill for contemplation.
3. Believing that we have to bow to pressure from others – loved ones, friends, work colleagues so that we fail to contemplate what we’d actually like for ourselves.
4. Believing that we have no choice.
5. Being in uncontrolled debt (which is in effect another form of point 3.)
6. Living in fear.

What happens when we clear the obstacles on our route is that we start to take responsibility for the way in which we experience the circumstances of our lives and a vision starts to emerge of the path we’re already on.

In practice, my clients and I have found the following to be helpful:

1. Spending a day or longer away from the computer.
2. Having a complete break from the media (T.V., newspapers and magazines, internet, mobile phones etc)
3. Having some time alone, away from other people and in a peaceful environment.
4. Honouring our bodies through quietly eating nourishing food and taking gentle, enjoyable exercise.
5. Practising gratitude. Finding some time each day to silently, or openly, appreciate the people, events, circumstances, environments that we are grateful for in our lives.
6. Remembering to include a regular dose of inspiration in our week, through reading material, film, poetry, music or whatever works for us.
7. Establishing a regular, committed, spiritual practice e.g. meditation, Tai Chi, Qigong, prayer, Yoga.

What happens when we remove the obstacles?

We create some space in our lives for the truth, our vision of our future, to break through and make itself apparent. We know when this happens because we feel on course, more balanced and clear and quite possibly a sense of relief and ease.

Downshifting, or voluntary simplicity is all about clearing obstacles from our natural path, rather than striving for something material. In the rat race we have money, success, winning, meeting budgets and deadlines that are supposed to motivate us. They don’t of course, past scaring us into submission and depleting our energy. A more sustainable way of living favours happiness, health, community, meaning and fulfilment as part of our vision for the future. These are qualities that we each have a conscious choice in, in terms of how we choose to experience and act on what we are given. This therefore leads to us feeling more empowered, valued and energised.

A Paradox?

You might have spotted that the practical ideas for getting us back on track to a simpler, less stressful way of life are much more about living in the present than making things happen in the future. Is this at odds with engaging in any planning?   Actually, I would suggest that it isn’t. Living in the present is necessary in order to enjoy each moment, cope with crisis, make wise decisions, cultivate peace of mind and serenity. We do need to plan for the future too otherwise we are like a ship without a compass. If we think of the future as being a collection of successive moments in time, then we can actually do both – plan and enjoy the present -  by making wise choices in every moment whilst being aware of the principles we prefer to live by. This is what I mean by having a vision rather than striving towards a dream. This is why unearthing a vision can be more satisfying than setting goals. Having goals tends to lead us into establishing some kind of dependence on the outcome of our decisions and our actions. Having a vision frees us to live for each moment, to aspire to “be” a certain way rather than to achieve a particular, materialistic goal.

Our path is then defined by the choices we make and the vision we hold in each moment.

Enjoy the journey!

In this inspiring and challenging talk, Karen Armstrong, a writer and commentator on religion, explains her wish for a Charter for Compassion.

There is the possibility, as she sees it, for religion to become a force for harmony, through the widespread re-adoption of the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule is a teaching that is central to all religions – do not do to others what you would not like them to do to you. The Golden Rule is fundamentally about compassion – our ability to feel with the other, to “de-throne ourselves and put someone else at the centre of our lives” as she expresses it. Compassion, not conflict, she explains, is a route to happiness and harmony.

For me, “living more simply so that others may simply live” is a way to modify our behaviour every day in the recognition that there are others in the world who desperately need us to do so, just to survive.

How can we follow our hearts and speak out for what we believe in without causing further suffering or hardship? How can we be effective and consistent in how we decide to act? How do we engage in non-violent methods of transformation?

According to Joanna Macy, author of “Coming Back to Life: Practices to Reconnect Our Lives, Our World.” There are three dimensions to shifting towards a more sustainable way of living. They are 1) actions to slow the damage to the Earth and its beings; 2) analysis of structural causes and creation of structural alternatives; and 3) a fundamental shift in worldview and values. Whilst we can see that it is necessary for all of these to happen, we might wonder why any of us as individuals should take part in number (1), which is basically about becoming activists.

Becoming an activist can mean putting ourselves in the spotlight, opening ourselves to criticism, aggression and stress. So why would we do it? The “holding actions” and campaigning that activists engage in as part of point (1) are necessary to buy us more time to carry out parts (2) and (3). There will be government legislation needed as an inherent element of part (2) and some of this will require campaigns by the public to bring necessary laws into existence or to ensure that they are drafted to allow for optimum resilience and sustainability. The cultural shift mentioned in part (3) can be achieved through a softer form of activism in terms of education, mentoring, coaching and training, writing and journalism and facilitating discussion.  So there are many different ways in which we can choose to become an activist.

On a personal level, being involved in activism and campaigning on sustainability issues can add meaning and purpose to our lives and a tremendous feeling of achievement that we know will serve not only ourselves and our contempories, but possibly many generations to come.

The 7 “Hows” of becoming an activist.

1.    What are you passionate about? What are you angry about? What breaks your heart? Follow the answers that feel strongest for you. This is where your motivation and energy lie. These are your chosen areas of engagement, your “causes”.

2.    When you think of each of your causes, what needs to change? What needs to happen for this area to be heading in the right direction for a sustainable future?

3.    What kind of obstacles are standing in the way? Legislation? Bureaucracy? Lack of education?

4.    Who else thinks the way you do? Find others you can join forces with. E.g. campaign groups, charities, online forums.

5.    Decide how much of your time, energy and skills you are willing to devote to your activist role. Be clear on your boundaries (especially with respect to time) and responsibilities (what actions you’re happy to do and what you’re not prepared to do.)

6.    Decide on what methods you will use to stay informed on events in your chosen areas of engagement (your causes).e.g. newsletters, specialist magazines, blogs, google alerts.

7.    Be mindful of the 5 tiers of service: Serve i) the divine by expressing your gratitude, ii) yourself by staying healthy and inspired, iii) others through random acts of kindness, iv) your local community by getting involved, v) the world by taking responsibility as a global citizen.

Anita Roddick is an example of an activist who achieved much through her campaign work and her business in her short life. Anita’s website (set up by her husband Gordon following her death) contains some useful ideas to inspire you and I will leave the final words to her:

From: www.iamanactivist.org

“I am not an activist in pursuit of recognition or fame.
I am not an activist so that strangers will think I am a good person.
I am not an activist because it is good for business (although more often than not it is).
I am an activist because being an activist makes me feel alive.

Activism is being a voice for the voiceless, standing up for the weak and the frail, engaging the human spirit. It’s putting your head above the parapet, being heard. being seen, being counted…Do something. Do anything. Just do something.” Dame Anita Roddick 1942-2007

Some other, related, websites that you might also like to have a look at are:

In the UK: www.38degrees.org.uk
In the USA: www.moveon.org
In Australia: www.getup.org
For world citizens: www.avaaz.org

1.    List 7 things that I love

□    Birdsong
□    The moment of stillness just before dawn
□    Reading
□    Growing fruit and vegetables
□    Harvesting fruit and vegetables
□    Walking, especially the Coast Path.
□    Divine chocolate and Somerset cream teas

2. Link back to the blog that awarded it to me, which I’ve done above.

3. Choose 7 blogs to award as ‘Kreativ Bloggers’

□    Elderwoman blogspot. Marian Van Eyk McCain’s occasional thoughts on green and conscious ageing, simple living, loving the earth … and life in general.
□     Outer Travels, Inner Journeys. A journey of a wandering soul living in Peru.
□    Downshifting Path. Enjoying the “now” in every moment. A work in progress towards living a sustainable , healthy life, making a living and creating a life, leaving smaller footprints on the earth. It is my hope that the smaller footsteps will gain momentum and leave large imprints of conscious living to enable our children to enjoy the beauty and abundance that surrounds us.
http://transitionculture.org/ About this site
□    Transition culture. How might our response to peak oil and climate change look more like a party than a protest march? This blog explores the emerging transition model in its many manifestations
□    Anchors and Masts. In this space, Tess explores ideas and practices around living everyday life consciously, with an awareness of what is sacred.
□    Choosing Voluntary Simplicity. About finding balance in your life, connecting with who you are, and creating a lifestyle where you wake up each morning eagerly anticipating the day ahead.
□    Terra Infirma. Gareth Kane’s very useful green business blog.

4. Comment at each blog to let them know they’ve been chosen. Ah, my very next mission…

So I thought it might be helpful to mention a couple of networking sites that seem particularly supportive of sustainable businesses and their aspirations.

The first is a site I was prompted to visit by a comment in Chris Johnstone’s newsletter, Great Turning Times.

It’s called Wiser Earth and Chris describes it as a “Great Turning version of Facebook”. Having tried Facebook for a few weeks and decided it was not for me, it was this statement that caught my attention.

Wiser Earth brings together well over 100,000 organisations and individuals from all over the world to “connect, collaborate, share knowledge and build communities.” Originating with a vision of the author Paul Hawken, the website was launched 2 years ago and is funded by the Natural Capital Institute in the USA and by individual donations.

The second website, Pledging for Change  started in April 2008 and was set up by Karen Maskell as a Community Interest Company, based in the UK but with a global vision. Karen’s pledge is to “actively promote and support all organizations who work ‘In the Spirit of Harmony with Our Planet’.” She says that the aims of Pledging For Change is to “give a hand up (not a hand out) to sustainable business, charities, non-profits and fundraisers” and to this end, the organisation operates an elective share scheme.

If you are involved in any of these areas, then do go and have a look at what’s happening in these active and inspirational forums and encourage others to get involved too. And if there are others you’re involved with and would like to mention here, please feel free. I expect we can all benefit.

By: “Awakening and engaging collective intelligence through conversations about questions that matter,” according to The World Cafe.

Here’s a short video of a World Café style meeting in action:

 
I was first introduced to this concept through the Transition movement  and have been researching the idea with a view to using it  more in our local transition initiative and in sustainable business training courses.

The World Café website has some useful looking hosting guides which cover the process and design principles, how to manage logistics plus some ideas for powerful questions to whet the appetite.

The reaction from those I know who’ve already had experience of using this method is that it’s both effective and fun.

What are your views?

If you have experience of using World café for business meetings, how effective did you find it? What drawbacks, if any, did you discover?

If you haven’t already tried it, would you be attracted to giving World Cafe a go?