How often do you feel guilty for choosing a course of action – from forgetting to take a bag shopping with you, to wasting printer paper, to using your car when you could have walked? What is the point of that feeling of guilt?

I would suggest that guilt can be a clue that something needs tweaking. Guilt is often a sign that we’re misunderstanding a cause and effect and that we’re heaping unnecessary blame onto ourselves.

Supposing I were to feel guilty about forgetting to put an apple in my son’s packed lunch. Here’s what my internal Guilty Ecologist would be telling me:

“Oh no, now he’ll probably grab his favourite chocolate bar from the newsagent’s on the way home. That’s not good for the planet (think of the embodied energy in that compared to my locally grown, organic apple!). It’s not good for humanity (it’s not even Fair Trade Chocolate!) or his health (chocolate bar = hydrogenated fat + white sugar mostly isn’t it? – yuk. What will that do to his insides?!). And all of that is my fault!!”  All this time, my son, oblivious to my anguish, is carrying on with his day as normal. So, my thoughts about what I did and my projection of what the consequences might be are what’s triggering my guilt, not what actually happened!

As guilty ecologists, we can inflict plenty of torture on ourselves by failing to forgive our mistakes, our ignorance and our misunderstandings on our individual journeys to a more resilient future.

How could I have avoided torturing myself with my guilt in the example above?

Perhaps I could have done that by:

1. Being aware of the guilt.
2. Just watching my thoughts doing their monkeying around, rather than reacting to them.
3. Recognising my wish to live simply and sustainably and to nurture my son. Being grateful that I care.
4. Reminding myself of where my responsibilities lie – my son’s quite capable of making his own decisions about what to eat in place of the missing apple – or not. That’s his call. He might even learn something from doing that!
5. Take action to remind myself of the apple next time.
6. Forgive myself!

Written down that might sound like a lot of “stuff” for one small incident. In reality, this processing to relieve guilt can happen in a few seconds, with a bit of practice!

If, like me, you find yourself being The Guilty Ecologist from time to time, here are some ideas for preventing such self-torture:

Regret and Compassion

We can be sorry for what we did. Then we can recognise that the person who acted in the way we regret is not the same person that we are now. We are changing, evolving and developing all the time and can choose to act differently given a similar set of circumstances in the present or the future. We can have some understanding for the stresses we were feeling at the time that contributed to our actions.

Intention

We can reflect on our intention at the time of the incident. Sometimes we can cause harm to someone else or to the environment inadvertently. By asking ourselves what we had intended to happen, we can perhaps reduce the negative impact of our actions. For example, if I forget to take a bag shopping with me, I can choose to spend a little more money and buy a durable bag from the shop that I can re-use next time.

Learning the Lesson.

At the same time, if we’re in a situation where we’ve made a mistake and we can’t do anything to remedy it, then we can choose to accept the situation and to learn from it, rather than to undermine the rest of our efforts with guilt.

Responsibility

We can check whose responsibility the decision in question was. Perhaps the reason I didn’t have time to walk to my appointment was because I delayed my departure in order to help a colleague who had become unwell. Not all undesirable events that happen to us are our fault. Our responsibility is how we choose to deal with them.

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is an art and an important part of learning how to live in healthy relationship with others and with ourselves. Part of this is reminding ourselves that all normal human beings make mistakes. If we are to be capable of forgiving others, then we will need to learn to forgive ourselves too.

Feedback

At a time when we’re feeling courageous, we can confess our mistake to someone else and ask for their opinions on it. Perhaps our reasons for feeling guilty are not fair on us and someone else’s feedback will highlight this for us.

Giving

A great way to soothe any emotion that we perceive as negative is to find ways to give to others. It’s remarkable how this simple act can change our outlook on a situation in just a few minutes. How does that work? Energetically, it reverses the energy flow. Guilt is self-directed negative energy – we don’t like ourselves. Giving is  other-directed positive energy – just the opposite!

There are many negative emotions that can arise on our quest to live and work more sustainably. We can imagine these as being like weed seeds in our minds. If we feed them they will grow. All we need to do to ensure that they remain dormant is deprive them of nourishment i.e. stop dwelling on them, and instead focus on growing the seeds that are good for us. 

Picking coffee beans

We are in the middle of Fairtrade Fortnight here in the UK and I find myself feeling somewhat irritated with that phrase. Why do we need reminding to buy fair trade? Why don’t we just choose fairly traded goods all the time? How come there are such things as non-fairly traded products?

There’s a practice in Buddhism known as “deep looking” where we’re encouraged to contemplate an object, say something manmade, or something from nature and to reflect on how it is connected with other things. The intimate connection between things, people, animals, everything, is known as “interbeing.” So, when we read this blog, look at his computer screen more deeply, we might be able to see the oil that was used to produce the plastics, the vegetation that was crushed for millions of years to produce the oil, the metals and semiconductors that were extracted and processed to make the electronics, the power station, wind farm or solar cells that are producing the electricity that power it and all the human beings involved in those complex production and distribution processes.

Think of all the events, people and other living things throughout the world who have been involved in ensuring that we are able to sit here now and read this blog!

If we were to use “deep looking” when we are shopping for food and clothes, for example, perhaps we would never pick up an item that was not fairly traded, because we would immediately be aware of the exploitation we were colluding with. Perhaps we would even begin to see the unfair trade that is happening, not only in third world countries but here in the UK too, where millions scrape an existence on something less than a living wage.

“But I can’t afford to buy only fair trade!” is what I hear some reply to this.

And when we look very deeply, can we really afford not to?

The New Economics Foundation published a report last week about the possibility of reduced working hours leading to a more sustainable future.

As far as I’m aware, the term work/life balance derives from the old, unsustainable, industrial growth model where life and work are viewed as separate and in conflict (work being regarded as something akin to slavery, which it still is effectively for many living in poverty or in debt-funded affluence).

In a  life sustaining social model, there are less clear boundaries between life and work. If we were  leading this kind of sustainable lifestyle, we would be so true to our purpose in life, our offering to the world,  that work that earned a living would be close in nature to how we spent the rest of our time. What we might call a hobby now might be seen as a vocation as well as a way to spend some leisure time, enjoy the company of friends and experience joy. Thus, there would be little need for work/life balance. There would be only life!

There is still something else here about balance, though. The way I see it, the need is for balancing roles rather than balancing work with life. This is an idea that is promoted by Stephen Covey in his time management book, First Things First. He suggests that we contemplate our lives in terms of the various roles we play in it, regardless of whether they earn us money. Then, we aim to balance the time spent in each of those roles as a way of ensuring we nurture our physical, mental and spiritual selves. Examples of roles might be: computer programmer, parent, friend, conservation volunteer, son/daughter, brother/sister, tennis player and so on.

To achieve this, we can start by reducing the time we spend in paid employment that does not feed our soul. Whilst this will probably reduce our income in the short term, what it increases is the time available to reassess our roles in life and what we truly value.  This will doubtless throw up other challenges. But unsustainable cycles and patterns of working have to be broken somewhere.

Here’s my Letter to the Future:

Dear friend,

I am writing to you from the year 2010. We are facing challenging times. There are changes in our climate that threaten to obliterate millions of people and much of our wildlife. We have depleted the earth’s natural resources to a point where we are unable to sustain our current way of living. We have become dependent on money and yet  live with  chaos in our economic systems. So far we have few solutions and little guidance from our government leaders. Some people cannot even see  or acknowledge what our future appears to hold if we take no action.

Some of us are taking action in our jobs and in our communities and personal lives to raise awareness of the need to live and work more sustainably. We value community, cooperation and quality of life. We aim to live in harmony with nature rather than exploit it. We recognise the need to honour the natural capital that surrounds us rather than remain in slavery to the financial capital that we have created. We know it should be possible to effect this transition to a life-sustaining future using our personal skills, our intelligence and the technological advances we have made.

If you’re reading this letter, then maybe that means the transition was successful. I hope this letter finds you in good health, happiness and living harmoniously.

Love from Sally.

What would you include in your Letter to the Future?

However, with Spring still not quite with us yet, what can we do when we succumb to the Winter Blues? The usual distractions of overeating, drinking alcohol or vegging out in front of the TV that many of us are tempted by can lead to addition physical and emotional difficulties. What simple, sustainable alternatives are there?

First of all, we need to have a deeper understanding of why the Winter season has a tendency to get us down.  In addition to the cultural, materialistic reasons mentioned above, there are natural, energetic reasons why this happens. The energetic nature of Winter (in the UK) is to be cold and damp. The physical effect of this on our bodies is to make us feel like exercising less, expending less energy and eating more. Emotionally the effects are to make us feel like making fewer changes, taking fewer risks and staying grounded.

One of the wonderful benefits of living more simply and sustainably is that our self-awareness becomes supercharged and our sensitivity to our surroundings, and in particular what the natural world is up to, becomes greatly enhanced. As this awareness matures, we are more likely to notice how, when our environment changes with the seasons, it affects how we feel. Then we can start to make some rather different decisions about how to respond to that in a simple, sustainable way.

This might not eliminate “Blue Monday” altogether, but it may well lead to us having a much more comfortable and productive day.

So, how do we change our approach?

Acceptance

Rather than resisting the qualities of Winter that we don’t like, we can choose to accept the cold and the wetness. What can we find about Winter that we enjoy and look forward to? By accepting what is, we can start to relax and reduce the stress that we are imposing on ourselves. We might even begin to enjoy it!

Alignment

This is a kind of “if you can’t beat it, join it” principle.  It’s all about engaging with Winter, but in a way that nourishes our minds and bodies. For example, we can make a point of enjoying some light, moderate exercise each day (not as much as we might during the other seasons). If we cultivate a winter habit of wrapping up warm and walking for a short time around midday, when there is most sunlight, then this also boosts our mood and encourages vitamin D production. This in turn can increase our feelings of energy and wellbeing. Eating warming, lightly cooked, balanced foods, as Alana suggests, at our major meal times not only warms us from the inside, but helps to endure that we get adequate nourishment to boost our immunity to colds and flu. This is a time to use our company cafeteria rather than take a cold, packed lunch to work or to take time out to cook our main meal at lunchtime if we’re working from home. Another healthy way to engage with winter is to take steps to improve our sleep patterns. Rather than fighting winter by attempting to get by on the same amount of sleep we need in the summer, we can accept that our needs vary with the seasons and give ourselves permission to sleep a little more. If you have difficulties falling asleep at night, you could try this delicious, stress-relieving bedtime drink (see the Hot Milk Drink recipe).

Action

My third remedy is a favourite of mine for alleviating the blues, feelings of fear and apathy and general malaise – action. What type of action is prescribed in this case, though?

First, let’s look for some of our favourite sources of positivity. Who out of your friends and acquaintances make you laugh, radiate an aura of wellbeing and positivity? They’re the people to make sure you spend time with on Blue Monday.

Perhaps you have other sources of humour and positivity that you like to turn to when needed.

When socialising, be mindful not to use it as just another distraction, but rather as a means for meaningful connection with others .

Conclusion.

When faced with Winter Blues, we can choose to succumb to our usual materialistic, unsustainable distractions, or we can choose some simple, sustainable options for nourishing our bodies and minds. In this way we can transform Winter Blues into Positive News.

In the traditional model, business can be seen as a vehicle for channelling money from the compliant poor to the ruling, wealthy elite. The needs of the business owner are met through exploitation of raw materials and of other people – lesser paid employees and a material hungry client base mostly. Whilst successful in terms of achieving what it sets out to achieve, this version of enterprise provides a service to the community that has major limitations:

1.    Meeting human needs through constructing “wants” for the client to have.

2.    Promoting those to suit the needs of the business and involving the consumption  and waste of limited resources.

3.    Little regard for the effects that the business has on the environment, other than complying with legislation or a nod of some kind to Corporate Social Responsibility.

4.    A focus on profit and the wishes of shareholders at the expense of the wellbeing of the people involved in the business and the natural world in which it operates.

Contrast this with the activities and attitude of those businesses whose remit is to employ ethical marketing methods. Ethical marketing in this case is an appropriate (and measured ) response to a wish to meet a particular genuine human need in a way that embraces care for the earth, for people and for how the wealth generated will be shared.

In a life sustaining society of the future, there is the potential for small, localised ethical businesses to effect positive change, not just in what they can provide materially and in the form of expertise, but in the ways they interface with their local community, other businesses and the wider world.

On a personal level, though, to be able to accept this reframing of “marketing” we require a change of mindset. This is not just for those natural leaders who are starting and running this new generation of businesses, but for those of us who will be their clients too. It involves acknowledging and examining our own needs and choosing to meet them, not primarily at minimum cost and maximum convenience, but by looking longer term and demanding sustainable solutions: those that are humane, environmentally responsible and fair to all involved.

For business leaders, this is also about a willingness to meet the needs of others through genuine service. I don’t mean the type of “meeting needs” that results in subservience, victim behaviour and other traits resulting from feelings of unworthiness. What I refer to is recognising that we each have a unique role to play in this world and that we can safely do that in partnership with others and for our mutual benefit. That the world might be a better place just because we exist – quirky and diverse beings that we are – is an idea than can be alien to many of us raised in a society that values compliance, standardisation and uniformity.

These new business owners – servant leaders of the future – know that their primary focus, with ethical marketing, is to find ways to offer their unique gifts to those who might benefit and to hold their business vision on behalf of those they employ.

It’s much easier and more enjoyable than “flogging stuff”.

Here’s a delightful video from an alternative sort of school that I think you might enjoy:

For those of you who would like to see lasting, positive changes in the ways that your children are educated at school, the website mentioned in this video is worth a visit. If enough parents and teachers get involved, this could well be a route to the sort of education system that supports the transition to a life sustaining society.

Marks out of 10?

So, if growth is not about all of those parameters I’ve just mentioned, what is it really? And how does this relate to our personal and business lives?

Signs of Life

Exchange, evolution and renewal. One of the definitions of a living thing is that it grows. One of the miracles of our human forms is that, although on a moment by moment basis we appear to be solid, unchanging matter, at a microscopic level we are a buzz of activity with our cells continually exchanging matter, evolving and renewing themselves. So, growth for a living thing is about exchange, evolution, renewal and being part of a natural cycle that also, eventually, includes our demise.

In Our Personal Lives

Re-integration. In our personal lives, we are continually open to fragmentation and contamination, physically, socially and emotionally. Physically, we can become fragmented and contaminated through lack of exercise, eating unwholesome food, or being exposed to pollutants. Socially, this can happen through spending too much time with people with a negative outlook on life or who behave aggressively. We might also use socialising as a distraction or in order to manipulate others rather than to connect with them. Emotionally, we cause fragmentation and contamination by dwelling on grievances, bearing grudges and maintaining limiting beliefs.

So, on a personal level, we can ensure healthy growth by being aware of our behaviour and favouring habits that reconnect us with positive and wholesome influences on our physical, social and emotional wellbeing. We can take steps to remind ourselves of our part in the natural rhythm of life and avoid sources of physical, mental and social contamination.

With Our Children

Modeling Healthy Growth. We can model healthy growth for our children by living it ourselves and by encouraging them to do the same. For example, by eating well, getting plenty of exercise, steering clear of bullies (adults or children) and spending time with others who are caring and supportive of them. We can help them spend some time each week in nature and to express their gratitude for the things that have gone well, the true friends they’ve spent time with and the people they love.

In Our Business Lives

Georgia wanted more than anything to grow her fledgling organic clothing business. She had begun by searching for business partners and associates, approaching retail outlets, online green products directories, anyone she could think of who might want to do business with her. Now, she was at full capacity with her suppliers, the working capacity of her staff and the limits of what her mental and physical health could stand. Initially she wanted coaching to help her take a step up to the next level

The next stage of growth for her business, as she saw it, was massive expansion, but it involved a leap of confidence – to take on extra staff, quickly find additional suppliers and promote herself to a more hands off directorship role. She had held off taking this next step and she wasn’t sure why, but her body was telling her something. She had some persistent low level illnesses that she just couldn’t shake off.

When we took an audit of the company, a kind of bird’s eye view coupled with some reliable financial data, we discovered that if she were to take the steps she envisaged to grow the company (as she thought she “ought to”) then she would be a little better off financially, but would be spending most of her day doing tasks that she didn’t enjoy. She would have completely lost touch with her reasons for starting her business and her business mission.

Business growth, in terms of increased turnover, profit or manpower, is not always the healthiest move, for the company or for the business owner. A mature approach to business growth means:

Exchange and renewal – reviewing business and personal data on a regular basis, communicating with and acting on messages received from clients, associates and employees.

Re-integration – being aware of sources of fragmentation and contamination (be they physical pollutants, changes in external circumstances, complaints from clients or unhelpful behaviour and beliefs from colleagues.) and addressing these. It also means having methods in place for helping the business learn by adding more effective communication systems, more enjoyable working conditions and continual professional development.

Through coaching, Georgia was able to reconnect with her business purpose and reintegrate that with her personal aspirations. Both she and her business were able to continue to “grow” but in a way that was sustainable for her and her employees as well as for the planet.

Not one, usually, to wave the flag for our Royal Family, I surprised myself yesterday by shouting “Go Charlie” at the radio on hearing Prince Charles’ speech at the BBC Food and Farming Awards. Known also as the “British Food Oscars”, these awards are designed to help us celebrate the culture of quality food in Britain and to encourage us to “keep our food system in good heart”, something very much valued by simple living and sustainable living enthusiasts.

The winners and finalists came from a wide range of food related enterprises and represented many fascinating, foodie specialities. What I found so uplifting about this programme was the initiative and imagination demonstrated by all of them in a very challenging industry and with stiff competition from giant corporations.

Do have a listen online. Prince Charles’ speech lasts for approx 4 minutes 30 seconds and starts about 2mins 20 seconds into the programme. In particular, listen out for the “important questions we should be asking ourselves” and “What we risk losing if we continue to treat food as an easy commodity rather than as a precious gift.”

Happy New Year!

Edwin is a product design consultant, speaker and author who helps people figure out how to make their products sustainable — good for people, profits and the planet. The following is reproduced with his permission:

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I was thinking about the basics of my perspective on the environment when I noticed that they are very similar in structure to the four noble truths that underpin Buddhism.

In case you don’t know them, they can be summed up as:

1. Suffering exists.

4. This Way is the Eightfold Path: Right Understanding; Right Thinking; Right Speech; Right Attitude; Right Livelihood; Right Effort; Right Concentration; and Right Mindfulness.

So here is my version:

1. Pollution exists
There are people who say that there is no problem, but if you are an environmentalist you acknowledge that there are terrible things happening to the natural world and to people.

2. The origin of Pollution is poorly-designed industry and agriculture
I’m using ‘pollution’ as a shorthand here for all environmental ills, including habitat destruction and so on. I think it’s a pretty good word that anyone in the street can also understand. It is the design that’s to blame, not the designers; they didn’t know any better at the time.

3. There is a Way to have no Pollution
A surprisingly large number of people in the environment movement really don’t believe this. I’ve asked large groups of people during my talks and it always amazes me how few think we can have no pollution.

4. This Way is the Fivefold Path:
· Right Flow of Materials (100% cyclic);
· Right Sources of Energy (100% solar);
· Right Type of Materials (100% safe);
· Right Use of Materials (Ultra-efficient);
· Right Treatment of People (Social).

What’s also interesting is that many non-buddhists adopt the Eightfold path as a good way to live anyway. It can provide a good model for an environmentalist as well:

Right Understanding

Continually learn about nature and about new sustainable technologies and techniques.

Right Aspiration

Make a commitment to work towards 100% sustainability in your job and home life.

Right Effort

Get on with it. Do what matters, do what works.

Right Speech

Speak helpfully and compassionately about your work to everyone.

Right Conduct

Be sustainable in all your tasks; walk the talk.

Right Livelihood

Make your living from working on sustainability.

Right Concentration

Keep focused on your goal, avoid distractions.

Right Mindfulness

What are you waiting for?

Edwin Datschefski
BioThinking International

www.biothinking.com