One life-changing principle to guide your life by
There are a few principles I guide my life by, one of which is sustainability. I'm constantly assessing whether my life is sustainable. Dictionary.com defines sustainable as "capable of being maintained at a steady level without exhausting natural resources or causing severe ecological damage". So many lifestyle choices aren't sustainable, so many products marketed to us actually drain us of our health rather than sustain it. Is my lifestyle sustaining me? Are my relationships sustaining me? My work? Diet?, or are they draining me of my resources, taking away, depleting my energy, or spirit, or enthusiasm for life? This is always a guiding principle when I assess my life. Recently, with the beginning of some nerve pain in my foot, it became a guiding principle for buying shoes. Are my shoes slowly damaging, taking away, from the health of my feet, or are they sustaining it? Is my diet sustaining my body and health, or slowly draining it? Matt and I have made small dietary changes over the years, first cutting out processed food, then meat, then gluten, now most dairy and refined sugars. Don't get me wrong, I love to indulge in pizza, or ice cream, or bacon on a special occasion, but these are treats, exceptions to my diet, because I believe consistently consuming these foods would slowly detract from my health rather than sustain it. Relationship habits can also be sustaining or slowly draining, quietly leading you down a path of burn-out through a 20-year long road to divorce. Poor communication, unspoken resentments, passive-aggressive actions, secrets, can all be non-sustaining relationship patterns. Stressful jobs with long hours aren't sustainable. Crazy diets, chemical-ridden conventional beauty products, luxury shopping sprees, social isolation, excessive exercise routines, are all non-sustaining practices which take from us. Maybe I'm trying to say life is all about balance, but it's even deeper than that. Are you creating a life that's nourishing, sustaining you, or does it deplete you? Where can you begin making small changes? Can you apply the concept of sustainability to every aspect of your life, to all the decisions you make, to every dollar you spend, everything you consume, the relationships you keep, the amount of crap in your home? This concept is really about looking at how experiences, decisions, actions, food, relationships affect our energy. The media tries to sell us so much, most of which detracts from our life, but if we take the time to critically judge everything with the sustainability principle, we can see past marketing strategies. Live well everyone. May you always choose that which sustains you, nurtures you mind body and spirit.