Are you feeding yourself in a way that is sustainable for the sake of your personal health and wellbeing or are you sacrificing a nutritious diet, and thus your health, in order to survive in the Rat Race?

There are some worrying statistics being reported in the media. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), obesity has reached epidemic proportions globally: more than a billion adults are overweight, of which at least 300 million of them are clinically obese. Obesity is rising faster in Britain than in any other Western European nation and if the present trend continues, half the population of Britain will be obese by 2020. In the USA, the weight of 1:3 adults has reached danger levels.

At the same time, we are throwing away a third of our food, on average, according to a recent report in Planet Ark. Yet, whilst enjoying this apparent glut in the West, we are also undernourished due to the denaturing of our food that occurs as a result of factory farming methods and commercial food processing.

How do we make sense of this and feed ourselves in a way that nourishes us and preserves the planet?

Attitudes to food.

How will you know if you’re sacrificing your health in order to survive in the Rat Race?

If you believe that food is:

1. Something that you use just to combat hunger.
2. Something that you use just to induce pleasant sensations.
3. Something that you use as a reward for good behaviour.
4. Something that you use as consolation when things go wrong.
5. Something that you buy from the nearest supermarket when you can find a few minutes between other more pressing engagements.
6. Often a takeaway or eaten in a restaurant, especially when you are stressed or feeling short of time.
7. Stored mostly in your freezer and cooked mostly in your microwave.

…then the chances are that you are caught in this dilemma.

I suspect most of us will be able to recognise those behaviour traits in ourselves. Many of them will stem from our conditioning; our upbringing in a society where food is big business and our food supply is dominated by a few large, highly profitable manufacturers. The drive of these companies to make a profit appears to take precedence over any social responsibility towards the health and wellbeing of its customers.

What are the alternatives?

How can you downshift your eating habits, de-stress your attitude to food and make nourishing yourself a more sustainable activity for yourself and for the planet?

Change Catalyst

I’ve noticed during my coaching that for some people changing their eating habits can be the catalyst that motivates them to leave the rat race and live more consciously. When we examine the values we want to live by, being in good health often underpins everything else we wish to change. It can be a very easy first step to start substituting fresh, locally grown, organic produce for highly processed food. We can consciously set aside more time for food preparation to ensure that we nourish ourselves. Often the benefits of making such changes are felt very quickly in terms of an improvement in general health and also savings in the food budget.

Links with Nature

Food is an important link between us, as human beings, and nature. That can be a difficult one to remember when what appears on supermarket shelves as “food” reveals very few clues as to its natural origins. We are, literally, what we eat, since the food we eat, at a fundamental, elemental level is what the body uses to replace and replenish itself. Think very hard about this next time you eat or drink something – is this what I really want my body to use as basic building blocks for “me”? How much of what I’m eating or drinking will my body regard as foreign or toxic and how much of it will it recognise as useful, wholesome nutrition?

We can move from the Rat Race mentality of “food is fuel” to the simple living philosophy of “food is nourishment” by making a few simple changes in our lives. These involve:

1. Deciding that our health and wellbeing is high priority.
2. Deciding to nourish ourselves in a way that is in alignment with our values.
3. Taking time from our busy working lives in order to plan how and where we buy food.
4. Making time to prepare homemade meals.
5. Enjoying the physical sensations, the creative processes involved and social opportunities that mealtimes offer.

In part two of this article, we’ll look at the roles that nurturing, spirituality, sensuality and gratitude play in providing ourselves with nourishing food.

Suggestions for further reading:

The Science of Cooking –  Peter Barham
Grow Younger Live Longer – Deepak Chopra

“What is home education?” someone asked, “And what on earth has it got to do with sustainable living?” This voice came from a few feet behind me whilst I was browsing in the shop at the Centre for Alternative Technology. The shop stocks, amongst other things, a wide range of books on various aspects of sustainable living, from using natural building materials and organic gardening, to vegetarian cookery and home education. Not that I make a habit of eavesdropping, of course! It’s just that sometimes an unexpected question posed by someone else can make one stop short and re-examine an assumption.

Home education is where parents elect to take total responsibility for educating their own children rather than delegating a sizeable proportion of it to a school. It is a legal and equally viable alternative to conventional schooling in the UK and indeed in many other countries around the world.

Estimates of the number of home educated children in the UK vary widely from about 50,000 to 150,000 depending on the source. The number of families choosing this option appears to be on the increase. (Membership of Education Otherwise, a leading charity supporting home educating families has doubled in the last two years.)

So in what ways is educating children at home a sustainable activity?

1. It eliminates the school run. This reduces the number of miles traveled, although some of these miles will be made up by families traveling to events and social gatherings.

2. It provides the opportunity for children to take part in daily sustainable living practices. Recycling, composting, growing and cooking their own food, looking after animals, caring for younger children, maintaining the house and garden, learning how to reuse and repair items rather than just throw them away. (Thus learning about how things work and the materials from which they are made.)

3. It provides the opportunity to present information to children in a way that promotes a holistic perspective. Many materials used in schools are produced from the perspective that consumerism is the norm. Some are sponsored by private enterprises who have a vested interest in encouraging children to start using their products from an early age e.g. information on dental hygiene produced by a leading manufacturer of toothpaste who promote the use of fluoride. At home, parents may point out all the alternatives of which they are aware. e.g. the pros and cons of using fluoride as a means of protecting teeth.

4. It encourages children to learn to be in tune with their bodies. They gain greater self awareness through learning how they learn, how they feel about their learning, at what time of day they learn best and how their emotions and health affect them. Children are free to experiment with this and with different learning materials. Therefore, the type of learning is holistic, takes into account their spiritual and emotional wellbeing and is tailored to their individual needs.

5. There is plenty of opportunity for physical exercise e.g. playing in the garden, taking a walk, going for a swim when the swimming pool is quiet.

6. Reduced expenditure on clothing – there’s no need for separate clothes and shoes for school; no need to succumb to peer pressure to buy expensive designer labels.

7. Efficient use of resources at home. The house is well used all day, rather than just being somewhere to sleep or spend the weekend.

8. Efficient use of everyday materials for learning. Much of the equipment used in schools are expensive substitutes for the real thing in the outside world e.g. plastic imitation coins, artificial weights and measures are used in the maths curriculum. At home children learn by using real money, from weighing and measuring real items in, for example, cooking activities, they learn to read from real books. They use the internet and television in the same way as mature students, and conduct their own science experiments using items found in the garden and kitchen and their observations of and interactions with the world around them.

9. Efficient use of time. Little time is wasted traveling between lessons or preparing for them as much of the child’s learning happens spontaneously and during normal everyday activities. Even traveling to and from the occasional tutor led lesson for a home educated child is often filled with purposive conversation, or listening to music or a story tape.

10. Because time is used efficiently, there is more time to engage children in alternative medicine, relaxation and spiritual practices such as yoga, meditation and prayer in a calm and unhurried way.

11. There is also plenty of time to indulge in a favourite subject area or hobby e.g. music, arts and craft, astronomy, bird watching.

If the numbers of home educating families continue to grow, how will this method of education sustain itself?

A strong possibility is by the establishment of learning communities, perhaps incorporating the facilities already present in libraries, village halls, leisure centres and other community buildings. How is a learning community different from a school? According to Ron Miller in his book “Creating Learning Communities,” schools are places where “Learning is divided into subjects and packaged into textbooks and lesson plans. Teachers are not accredited for their mentoring skills but for their training in methods of class management and curriculum delivery.” He sees the need to “reinvent social and economic arrangements that nourish the soul and reconnect the individual to culture, to community, to the organic process and cycles of the earth, and to avenues of spiritual fulfillment.” Thus in learning communities, the participants – adults or children – decide on their own learning programme, which events they will or will not participate in and with whom. They follow their own learning styles and preferences and learn alongside others with similar interests regardless of age, sex or any other differences.

Parents in many home educating families make the decision to reduce their working hours and/or work from home in order to home educate. This in itself releases adults with a wide spectrum of abilities and interests to facilitate workshops and other forms of learning groups. Life long learning is a growing necessity of the information age. It is no longer true that the majority of what we need to know can be absorbed between the ages of 4 and 18 years, spoon feeding fashion, from a minority of adults officially qualified to teach.

We as adults are already finding that we need the flexibility to retrain and diversify in order to remain employable or successful in self-employment. In my view, it is our ability to learn and continue to learn that will set us apart in the future. For our children, this is likely to be even more so as they are faced with the prospect of a longer working life peppered with many technological, social and environmental changes. Working from home or within a learning community cultivates these self-teaching habits and skills which are the keys to sustainable home learning.

Supposing you’ve made the decision to live more sustainably and are leaving the Rat Race in order to set up in self-employment, doesn’t it makes sense to incorporate sustainability into the new business plan? That way your business will be run in alignment with your interests and values and working in it will ultimately lead to a higher level of enjoyment, fulfilment and meaning.

So, what is a “sustainable business”? One official definition goes something like this:

“A Sustainable Business is a constituted organisation that takes full account of its triple bottom line – i.e. managing and contributing to social, environmental and economic improvements in its business practices.”

Simply put, a business’s “triple bottom line can be expressed in terms of the three Ps – People, Planet, Profit, and, most importantly, in equal priority. So now, rather than taking the conventional view and running our business primarily for profit, we are running our business for the welfare of society and of the environment with the same emphasis on these aims as on earning a profit.

Let’s face it, for most of us there are a host of different ways in which we care capable of earning money, even if some of those ways we believe wouldn’t generate “enough” income for our current needs. When we set up our own businesses, hopefully there are reasons other than money and capability that prompt us to do so. These reasons form our Business Purpose and they stem from our Business Values. They are what’s most important to us in our business lives: the non-negotiable parts. Examples of business purposes might be “providing enjoyable education programmes for adults”, “helping others to improve their health”, “enhancing the lives of children/the elderly/new parents”, “making marketing ethical and easy”.

Let’s look at the elements of the triple bottom line in more detail:

People

Think about all of the people who are involved with your business. Even if you don’t directly employ anyone else at present, who else do your actions affect? Who else does your business depend on? Your answer might well include your suppliers, your clients, your associates and colleagues. A sustainable business treats all of these people in a way that’s in keeping with its business purpose and sustainability, for example, by employing staff who live locally and sourcing from local suppliers. You could reduce your clients’ needs to travel by providing your products and services local to them rather than centralised wherever possible.

Planet

Many of you will be familiar with the term “Reduce, Re-Use, Re-cycle”. Maybe you are not aware that those instructions are stated in order of priority. That is, it is more important for us to reduce our consumption than it is to re-use items and re-using items is more important than re-cycling our waste. So, uppermost in the sustainable business owner’s mind will be minimising the negative impact on the planet of running that business by reducing consumption of energy, fuel, water and toxic substances.

Profit

Just because profit has now been relegated to one of three in the business’s bottom line does not make it any less important as a concept. For a business to be sustainable in the sense of growing and surviving long term it will need to generate a profit (unless it was set up as a not-for-profit organisation.) What the triple bottom line does is to remind us to keep profit generation in perspective with the other elements. With our business accounts as with our personal finances, if we keep our costs to a minimum and minimise our consumption, the income we need to generate to cover our costs and pay ourselves is reduced.

To help you in your business planning, I’ve produced a “Sustainable Business Checklist” which you can view here.

Communicating your Sustainability

Once you have incorporated sustainable business practices into your everyday business operations, it is worth considering how you can use that information to communicate your sustainable approach with the outside world. For example, on promotional leaflets you could include the words “printed on recycled paper”. If you are providing refreshments for visitors to your business, you could let them know, for example, that the food they are eating is organic and locally sourced wherever possible.

How will this benefit you? Other people who are endeavouring to lead sustainable lives and run sustainable businesses will be attracted to doing business with you if they believe doing so will make a positive contribution to their triple bottom line. They will feel more comfortable in your company and better able to establish a relationship of trust with you. In short, it will strengthen your business connections with similarly minded people and contribute to your business not only being a financial success, but inwardly rewarding and meaningful for you too.

According to a recent research report (January 2007) produced by a financial services company in the USA, 60% of Americans are planning a gradual transition into retirement by downshifting into part time employment or a less demanding full time job.  A simple google search reveals that similar trends are also being reported in Europe, Australasia and Japan. Some are choosing this route of voluntary simplicity in order to reap the benefits of a downshifted lifestyle, while others feel forced into downshifting rather than complete retirement due to adverse financial circumstances.

Those of you who have been subscribing to my newsletter for a while will be well aware of the many benefits of downshifting in terms of stress reduction and improved quality of life. What if downshifting fills you with dread because you were looking forward to stopping work altogether and now you find you will have to carry on earning for a while?

Did you have other plans?

Maybe you’re in a job you love and you can simply reduce your weekly working hours as you near retirement. If you’re in a job that you are desperate to leave then just switching to part-time working is unlikely to fill you with enthusiasm. Now could be a good time to consider other, more enjoyable and fulfilling options. It will probably help you to look for the positives in your situation. Keeping active, having a fulfilling vocation and focus can help to keep you young and healthy. Perhaps this is your chance to work at a less stressful, more meaningful job, maybe hobby related? What would you be doing with your time if you knew you didn’t have to earn money? How can you turn that into an income generator?

Are you fit for work?

Perhaps you were looking forward to total retirement because you have an ongoing health problem and you believe that continued work will aggravate your condition. This is where it’s even more important to use this opportunity as a way to reduce the stress in your working life. In what way does your current job threaten your health? If reducing your working hours alone will not be sufficient to alleviate this negative effect on your health, in what ways would your job need to be different in order for it to benefit your health?

Are you ready to slow down?

Perhaps your drive and ambition are changing; you had envisaged that stopping work would enable you to slow down and lead a more leisurely, simple existence. If this is you, then you’re not alone. Many people imagine that that they will have to wait until retirement before they can have more leisure time. Then, when full retirement is delayed for some reason, they assume that the new, more enjoyable way of life will have to be put on hold too. Yet most people can achieve this simpler, less stressful form of existence at any time in their working lives simply by reassessing their goals in life and what’s important to them. If you don’t believe me, then do make a point of reading the guest articles that appear in this newsletter each month as they are inspiring examples of real life downshifting stories.

The good news is that it is possible to do both i.e. slow down and simplify one’s life, whilst at the same time earning a living. This is what downshifting is all about.

Are you worried by financial difficulties?

The prospect of living longer and not being able to cover medical expenses, fuel bills, home maintenance costs etc is a serious one.

My previous article “How will I cope?: The financial implications of downshifting” may well help you here.  If you are seeking an alternative to your current employment in order to downshift, where are you going to look?

Talk to others, whoever you can think of who will be knowledgeable in the arena in which you would prefer to work and stay open to unusual opportunities emerging. It is worth searching on the internet too. Employers and Government agencies are wising up to the fact that a combination of an ageing demographic with ageist practices could deprive companies of a wealth of talent, experience and insight, so they are keen to persuade companies of the benefits of recruiting mature employees.

What about opportunities for self-employment doing what you most love to do? If being self-employed does not appeal to you because you do not want to shoulder that level of responsibility, are there friends who you could team up with to run a joint venture? Maybe you could create a business that would be worth selling in 5-10 years’ time and that would provide a supplement to your current pension or other financial provision for retirement.

Whatever situation you are starting from when you consider downshifting into retirement, the key to a happy, simpler and low stress lifestyle will be in giving yourself time to re-evaluate your priorities in all areas of your life and to act in accordance with them.

Many of us are aware that communication plays a vital role in any relationship. That doesn’t always mean that it’s easy, of course! When we are approaching a major change in our lives or perhaps have changed our priorities, as is often the case when we are thinking of leaving the rat race, it is important to be able to convey that information to the ones we love. We’ve decided we’ve had enough of leading a high pressure, high stress lifestyle and feel that the rewards do not justify the costs in terms of our health and wellbeing. It’s at times like this when we most need our partner’s understanding and support. And they need to know how and why we’ve changed and how that affects them. How do we communicate this in a way that maximises our chances of success?

Prepare the ground – open up discussions. Get the discussion started by asking your partner to set aside some time to chat through something that’s important to you. This does not need to be a long discussion to begin with. It’s just to introduce the ideas and see what their reaction is. If they show signs of actively wanting to know more at this early stage, point out a few relevant books, courses, websites, magazines, but not so much they that are overwhelmed! Then ask questions to find out where you other half is with it first. What are their opinions on what you’ve just said? Focus on understanding their point of view on the situation.

Sow the seeds – in the context of your partner’s situation and understanding, explain your thoughts. Let them know that you are serious about it and that it means a lot to you to at least investigate the options together.

Apply some nourishment – discuss how you will investigate the realities of a possible new lifestyle together. Respect your partner’s right to take time to adjust to the ideas. Accept that, whilst they may be supportive, they are likely to have different perspectives on the situation. View this as another opportunity for learning together rather than a sign of possible problems. Whilst there may well be some heated discussion and difficult conversations, remember that working your way through these times is likely to lead to a deeper level of intimacy and sense of connectedness.

What if your plans don’t thrive? – you may need to accept that your partner does not share your enthusiasm for downshifting. If this becomes evident, don’t panic just yet. There may well be other solutions open to you both that will make you happy. Explore the possibility of your downshifting and your partner continuing as they are alongside you. You could perhaps agree to downshift but take just a few small steps and re-evaluate the situation. Some may find that they are faced with a stark and challenging choice – what is more important to you, your relationship with your partner or your own wellbeing and authenticity?

Watch it grow – set aside time on a regular basis to discuss your research, plans and progress made. If your partner is actively engaged in your ideas by now, make downshifting a joint venture, even if you’re not each doing an equal amount of the work in the beginning.

Harvest time – take your first steps together on your downshifting journey. Remember to offer each other support when mistakes are made and to celebrate your successes at each stage.