The Context

Most people struggle to take care of themselves

"Ever since a clock was first used to synchronise labour in the 18th century, time has been understood in relation to money. Once hours are financially quantified, people worry more about wasting, saving or using them profitably. And the more valuable something becomes, the scarcer it seems. As a result, free time started to seem more stressful, as people feel compelled to use it wisely or not at all"

- The Economist, Why is everyone so busy?

Generally people don't really know how to take care of themselves, and these three blockers are to a large extent big contributors to it:

1. To a large extent many of us have been programmed with so much deep self hatred, that either it feels unattainable or unreachable, through forces such as the media, politics and day-to-day mixed messaging, fast paced Instagram like culture that can often pose as challenges and obstacles.

2. If we do feel motivated, we are often overwhelmed by all the parts of ourselves that require care. It's our skincare, our nutritional care, our communication skills, our relationships, its our physical body etc. There is just so much we need to learn to take care of, that we often feel overwhelmed by the abundance of information. Making it challenging to know where we should actually start?

3. It's a fucking challenge to implement real change or commit to actually mastering a discipline as new habits *according to science (to be credited later) between 30-66 days to master. Which is why most often when we aren't held accountable to anyone, and do not have the right context or conditions to support behaviour change, we fail. And lose motivation altogether.

Feel like getting really honest with yourself? Try this

So what is the connection between taking care of ourselves and the environmental crisis?

The state of the outside world is merely a reflection of the condition of our minds and our disconnection with spirit (or whatever label you want to attribute to what we are all a part of). This is because we are often hindered by our own lack of self-awareness, and self-compassion, which leads to an unintentional tendency to become self-centred.

And being self-centred increases our motivation for self-preservation which further promotes individualist ideals (John, T Cacioppo, 2017). And when often times a large portion of our energy is consumed in self-preservation, we then lack the care, thoughtfulness, and conscientiousness needed to nurture our environmental surroundings which includes our relationships.

That’s why the more we begin to nourish and care for ourselves, the better our relationships become and naturally we become more thoughtful and consciousness of the environment around us and want to be in service of it.

The work before the work

Priya Parker says so eloquently, its about doing the work, before the work.

Ideally we need to invest in deep personal work first, before we can successfully do the work of the world. Working to consistently practice and embody various virtues and character strengths. Actively participate with our own self-awareness and engage in contemplative reflection, nourish our bodies and our minds to the best of our abilities. Which is much easier said than done. Especially when one has socio-economic limitations they are confronted with and resource deficits that prevent them from accessing necessary components that nourish, like food.

We need to be part of a living community of learning with our peers in which we are engaged to transform ourselves in the ways we want to offer others we are in service to - Linda Lantieri, Colombia University

But change is much easier done with others. Especially when we are a part of a living community of learning with our peers. Because we can only really give to others what we have first given to ourselves. This is exactly why, now more than ever we need to look at alternative and new pedagogical and andragogical models. Models that equip us with both the context and the tools to learn how to better take care of ourselves, our relationships and the environmental world.