I don’t watch the news but any connection with friends, social media and an awareness of the energy around me keeps me up to date on the reality that the world, my world, especially our world in the US is in dark times. This isn’t one of those, “Did you hear what he did now?!” sorts of essays. My focus is more on what can I do?
I know some people want to resist what’s happening in our government today. But I see dysfunction in so much more than government. I worry about health care (availability and quality). I’m saddened that making money is valued much more than people, their lives, freedom and quality of life. I fear for our planet, her plants, animals and other inhabitants as our voracious NEEDS seem to tear thru lands and seas stripping resources for profit. I’m sick that animals are raised in veritable prisons and treated brutally by industrial agriculture and that people eat these sad creatures as their food source with no thought to the pain the animals lived thru and how that energy when ingested affects our bodies. I cry that we look to people with money or celebrity as role models when the world dearly needs leaders who care, who help, who extole compassion and love.
With all that on my heart, how do I resist? Where can I begin? What can I do that will make a difference?
In time, for me… the answer came easily and gently. What can I do to care for the world? I can begin my caring for me. I can live as I wished the world would live. I can show compassion and love. I can support local farmers and my own gardens for food that is raised and cared for with love, not chemicals and profit goals. I can adjust my diet so that not so many must die to keep me alive. I can move, exercise, breathe and rest so that my body might stay healthy and strong. I can be careful in caring for my home and the grounds around it so that I don’t soak my environment with toxicity. I can be grateful for pure, clear water and use it with honor and care.
I can spend time in quiet, exploring my own spirit, seeking wisdom from within. We wish for good leaders but am I a good leader? Do I offer help and compassion as I can? Do I try to be a good example, a good friend. Do I offer to teach the skills that I have to those in need. Do I sit and listen so I might learn from those with certain knowledge and experience that I don’t have.
The energy to change can come one small life at a time. The goodness, kindness, health and vitality that glows from your life changed can help the world. Each of us generating more love is not just additive but exponential in creating positive change.
Running here and there demanding change isn’t my path when there are things right here in my heart and mind that need changed first. Too often, we think “they” should do this or that. There is so much that each of us CAN do. My first line of defense in helping the world isn’t a “they,” it’s me.