"Take care of the earth and she will take care of you." ~ Unknown
In the morning when the sky turned red and the sun didn't come out, I decided to sell my car. In a strange way, it seemed like the ultimate act of self-care.
Mind you, my wife and I are a family with two cars and neither of us commutes in the pedestrianized Bay Area. So losing a car would not be a problem. Instead, it would be an open statement to live my values. A way to stage my own protest and live it true.
I now understand that this is exactly what my friend John was after.
I knew John a few years ago when I was living in the Adirondacks, and he was a career environmentalist. And instead of going everywhere, he cycled everywhere 365 days a year. Up and over mountains. In the pouring rain. All the way to the grocery store and back, many miles away.
I will never forget to see a blurry spot on the road on a snowy day. There was John, playfully cycling up a hill in a snow storm. At the time I thought he was crazy. Maybe even a little dramatic.
Now I think he is wise and admirable. Because even then, John really understood it. We really do live in an emergency.
For this reason, creating a more fuel-efficient, environmentally friendly life with a lower carbon footprint is the next arc of my own self-sufficiency. For what is true self-care other than returning to the often low whisper of your own inner voice? It turns out that she's been asking for it for quite a while.
All I had to do to flip this switch was wake up on a strange dark morning in Oakland recently. I checked my watch and it was well past 8 in the morning. Still, my entire bedroom was as dark as if it were 2 a.m.
I sat up confused and uncertain. I suspected that historical forest fire pollution in the upper atmosphere was responsible … but that was extreme.
What the hell was going on?
I took out the sleepy dog, who was also confused. When I tried to wake up our urban chickens, they didn't show up. Instead, they stayed on their nests, chuckling softly, believing, like me, that it was still the middle of the night.
I went into the front yard and looked around. The sky was a strange dystopian orange and I looked at her somberly. At that moment I was utterly scared. Obviously the world was seriously broken … and if I hadn't got it before then, damn it would be me now.
I started to cry. All of California was now on fire or badly polluted, freak acts of nature were the norm now, and I felt smaller and more powerless than ever.
The dreaded future, about which we had read so much and of which we had assumed that it would never occur in our lives, had indeed come. There is no more procrastination.
And yet. When we fall apart, we can often be reborn quickly and sometimes radically. I learned this lesson when my daughter died eight years ago and I was forced to reinvent my life and work. It was then that I discovered self-care, a practice that I have written about at length since then. Now a new consciousness set in.
That morning I sat down and assessed the situation. I wondered if it was actually possible to integrate self-care into my new, very urgent sense of environmental protection. Or was this perhaps the new self-care version 3.0?
Because I now know that I need both very, very very much.
This is what my new practices of “green self-care” look like. First, I am only willing to live my values now, not someone else's. That said, I put myself and the earth first before requests from companies like oil and gas companies that are not in my best interests.
I am beginning to realize that my loyalty to them was purely habitual, as if I were considering my bike as a "only sometimes for sport" ride.
My new engagement means that I will ride a lot less and now mainly rely on walking or riding my bike. My city has many beautiful hiking and biking trails and I know how to use them. If I have to go, I can go with my wife or friends. There's a bike sharing station just down the street and I'm no stranger to public transportation so I'll be using that too. One way or another, I get where I need to go.
Here's the self-care aspect: All that walking and cycling is definitely good for my body, isn't it? When I lived in New York City and San Francisco, I walked many miles and took the subway or bus every day. I've never owned a car. Why did I have to now?
I completely cut red meat from my diet. While I've said many times that I would, on occasion I would indulge in cravings for burger or lamb. But now meat is officially off the table. In fact, I think I'll take the plunge and try to go vegan for a month to completely remove cows from my life. The health benefits are obvious.
There are also all of the low consumption tricks we can do in our homes, and some blend well with self care. Washing your clothes in cold water will keep the fabric much better, and hanging clothes to dry in the sun will add a peaceful zen to the day. Decreasing your reliance on screens gives your brain and eyes much-needed rest while reducing the stress on the electrical system.
In fact, pulling away from the myriad sources of electronics will generally make my life far less stressful. Do I need to dig deep into social media and news feeds from all of my devices? No. Instead, I can turn it off and go back to reading good old books and writing in my notebook. I can play the piano again and do more puzzles. I can call my sisters or old friends for a chat. Meditation seems to fit here too.
I can see many walks in nature in my future too. But this time I won't be so focused on doing the most sweaty workout.
Now I tend to move slowly and enjoy the natural but fragile beauty around me. What was not decided by chance is critical to optimal brain health. Not to mention an excellent way to overcome anxiety and depression.
Could it be that simply adopting green practices will also further increase my own self-care? I say yes. And now I'm ready to develop a whole new set of conscious, healthy habits.
I suspect I'm not going to immerse themselves all at once in one comprehensive, radical do-or-die train. Instead, I'll make my way easier and experiment with what works and what doesn't so I can build a truly sustainable new set of environmentally friendly self-care practices.
At least it's not just what I want and need. It is what the earth clearly needs.
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