In my writings about joy, I speak of the environment often.\u00a0 I wrote such things as ‘our environment impacts us constantly, regardless of whether we are aware of it,’ and ‘the environment also means things we surround ourselves with mentally, emotionally, and socially.’\u00a0 There is truth to those words, but I missed a more significant point.\u00a0 In the west, we have been raised to think of ourselves as isolated centers of awareness placed in a separate world, which we then confront.\u00a0 We say things like, ‘we come into the world,’ and ‘we’re a product of our environment,’ demonstrating a detachment from the environment.\u00a0 Fruit does not ‘come into the world;’ it comes from the plant.\u00a0 People, too, come from the world.<\/p>\n
We commonly believe the self extends only to the skin, and the environment is something external. \u00a0We think ‘nature’ is outside somewhere else.\u00a0 We look at a bird’s nest as natural because an animal built it, but a human house is artificial because we are separate from nature.\u00a0 How do you describe a person without describing their environment?\u00a0 If you talk about someone’s skin, aren’t you recalling hundreds of thousands of years of genetic evolution – which is environmental?\u00a0 If you talk about someone’s socio-economic status, aren’t you also describing the environment they were brought up in and the challenges they faced?\u00a0 The head does not grow and change without the body; the person does not grow and change without the environment.<\/p>\n
The problem with operating as if we and the environment are not the same is it allows classifications and judgments.\u00a0 People, believing they are separate from the environment, will destroy it for short-term profit.\u00a0 Instead of caring for the environment as they would themselves,\u00a0 they don’t give it a second thought.\u00a0 In America, three people own more wealth than the bottom 50% of the country combined. \u00a0Since people see themselves as separate from a vast harmonious system, such systemic inequalities will never be addressed in meaningful ways.\u00a0 Believing we exist outside nature gives us room to believe we are superior to it and act accordingly.\u00a0 If three animals hoarded and ate more than 50% of an ecosystem, the system would die out.<\/p>\n
Whether in the workplace, a hobby, or a life’s passion, we often give it a familiar name if we are deeply connected to something.\u00a0 We call an inanimate object of devotion ‘my baby’ or a reliable co-worker ‘my work-wife.’\u00a0 Such terms are symbols of attachment.\u00a0 If the object or person changed somehow, the person attached would also change.\u00a0 However,\u00a0 it is a common misconception to think if the ocean changed, we would remain the same.\u00a0 We are part of a wheel; if you push one side down, the other gets pulled up.\u00a0 We do not exist in isolation, wherein we can change something, and everything else remains static.<\/p>\n
“I am the environment.” it is simple as that.\u00a0 When pondering a spring redecorating project,\u00a0 it isn’t about ‘creating’ a supportive environment but expressing yourself honestly within your space.\u00a0 Just as the fruit is the expression of the tree,\u00a0 your space is an expression of you.\u00a0 Perhaps your space isn’t where you want it to be because, deep down, you don’t value yourself much, and so it reflects that lack of self-worth.\u00a0 The vital idea is to see ourselves (body, mind, spirit) and the physical world as intrinsically linked.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What happens to the trees happens to us, and how we treat our bodies impacts our minds.\u00a0 The person on the park bench comes from the same place we do.\u00a0 The stuff we do, create, and love is just as part of nature as the birds and clouds in the sky.\u00a0\u00a0 Take care of nature; you are worth it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In my writings about joy, I speak of the environment often.\u00a0 I wrote such things as ‘our environment impacts us constantly, regardless of whether we are aware of it,’ and ‘the environment also means things we surround ourselves with mentally, emotionally, and socially.’\u00a0 There is truth to those words, but I missed a more significant […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[304,337],"tags":[315,321,319],"class_list":["post-28362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dear-diary","category-the-mindfulness-journey","tag-315","tag-environment","tag-joy"],"yoast_head":"\n