Heal Ourselves To Heal The Earth

Without valuing ourselves, it's impossible to value the planet. If we're not taking care of ourselves, why would we bother to take care of anything else? What are you doing to heal yourself? Healing yourself causes a ripple effect to those around you and subsequently, Mother Earth.

Transcript

Well,

Hello there.

I wanted to talk today just simply about,

I don't know,

All the things that are going on on the planet.

And without sounding preachy or anything like that,

I just wanted to just share some of my own feelings about how we might be able to save the earth.

I think naturally,

Obviously,

We all want to survive and thrive,

But our focus kind of needs to shift to the earth.

I mean,

No one needs to tell you that the earth is in crisis,

Right?

If we sit back and think that whatever is going on out there is out there instead of part of the collective experience,

We really have missed the very fact that over time we ourselves have badly mistreated the earth.

The soil is depleted of all the nutrients and toxified by pesticides and man-made chemicals that pollute the drinking water.

Hurricanes,

Drought,

Flooding,

Fires,

All reveal disturbances in the planet's water cycle.

And hurricanes are a symptom of disturbed wind,

And that same wind carries toxins from factories into the lungs of all the people and all the animals.

And the plants that naturally cleanse the air can't keep up with the amount of pollution we're producing.

It's not possible.

It's untenable,

Actually.

And uncontrollable wildfires are destroying forests and entire communities,

All because we really haven't been responsible stewards of the land itself.

And it doesn't stop there.

I was reading an article recently about how women are disproportionately affected by climate change all over the world,

And how the climate crisis fuels gender inequality.

So the climate crisis might be a collective problem,

But it impacts in different ways,

And those impacts don't fall equally.

It kind of acts as a threat multiplier,

That article said,

Meaning that it essentially finds existing injustices and amplifies them.

So the women and the girls that are already grappling with gender inequality,

Those are the same women and girls that when extreme weather devastates a community,

Those inequalities actually worsen.

So sure,

I think we're all really aware,

Keenly aware by now,

Of the climate crisis,

And how our weather patterns around the world are becoming increasingly unpredictable.

And then there's,

Of course,

More increased incidents of uncontrollable and uncontrolled fires,

Devastating floods,

Hurricanes,

Glacial melting,

And more.

But the effects of climate change also include intimate partner violence spikes,

Girls being pulled from school to help with the family,

Daughters married off as young as 11 because the family can't afford to feed them because they weren't able to grow the crops they used to sell for income,

Or even worse,

Girls are being forced from their home altogether for the very same reason.

And this,

Of course,

Then puts those same girls at risk of sexual exploitation and trafficking.

I think we can all do the healing work on ourselves that we want,

And try to bring peace and beauty and harmony to our families,

Only to be driven out of our home and our familiar lifestyles by the disasters caused by our very own disrespective Mother Earth.

We're supposed to be stewards of the health of the natural world,

Which provides all of us with the beneficial microbes that live in our digestive systems and the sunlight that allows our bodies to produce vitamin D and contributes to our health and well-being.

But we haven't lived up to our obligations,

I don't think,

Anyway.

I believe that to save the Earth,

We really have to heal ourselves,

And the irony is that to heal ourselves,

We have to save the Earth.

That's the very nature of what it means to be interconnected.

We have to prioritize the well-being of the planet and,

After that,

Its creatures,

And only then we prioritize people,

Including the ones in our own communities.

Because you know what?

All the therapy and detoxing in the world that we do isn't gonna amount to a hill of beans if we have no place to hide from the planet's upheavals.

We're gonna have to let go of some old ways.

Slipping back into our old ways of being is easy and seductive,

But we need to move forward and evolve as a species and create some kind of new way of being.

We have to become still.

We have to observe the naked truth of what we're doing and why.

And we have to witness to that we're not alone,

And we're not unsupported in our desire to help the Earth,

As well as we're not unsupported in our desire to help humanity and help ourselves thrive.

It certainly can be pretty alluring to hang out on the couch and scroll mindlessly through our phones for hours on end.

The truth is is that the big change you say you want is very different from the one we need.

The transformation you seek is not gonna be other people in situations altering themselves to meet your needs or your ideas about how things quote-unquote should be.

None of us can afford to sit back and hope that things are gonna change,

That some politician or other person is gonna miraculously heal the planet.

The transformation that we seek is gonna have to be our own transformation.

So I invite you,

As well as myself,

To sort of examine the way I treat the planet,

The way I treat Mother Earth.

What is,

What am I doing,

What's my part,

How do I,

Not only how do I work to heal myself,

But how do I work to set an example for my children and my friends and,

You know,

I,

It's funny because I was on the dating scene some time ago and it was this green,

Green singles or something like that and this guy was so over-the-top conservationist,

In my opinion,

That he would not date me because I didn't drive a hybrid car and because I didn't,

Because I actually had garbage to throw out,

That I needed to be someone who didn't have any garbage and,

You know,

It was,

It was over-the-top and I have respect and support his way of living,

It just isn't mine,

But I know that I am doing the very darn best that I can to at least try not only to transform myself and the way that I do things,

But that also includes,

When I do that,

I know that I'm also transforming the world around me,

Right?

Because if I change,

Then everyone I touch somehow has to be,

Or not has to be,

But will be moved by whatever change it is that I'm making,

Right?

Because it's a ripple effect,

Right?

We all have a circle of friends who have a circle of friends who have a circle of friends.

So I know that if I shift and change that some,

At least some of the people in my world are also going to shift and change,

Right?

So I didn't mean to get on a soapbox or anything,

But I do believe that to save the earth,

We really have to heal ourselves.

So that's all I have.

Thanks for listening today.