Something for those readers who are single and would rather be in a partnership. Here’s an article I wrote recently for the internet dating site, Natural Friends:

Are you feeling a lack of enthusiasm for dating as the year draws to a close?

Longer nights, shorter days, colder and wetter weather can all enhance our natural tendency at this time of the year to want to hibernate. We crave more sleep, less physical activity and more starchy, warm food. Maybe this isn’t such a bad thing and, if we listened to our bodies, they would be telling us something about how we can make the most of our winter lethargy. What nature is trying to tell us in relation to our dating activities, I believe, it that this is an ideal time to review, re-evaluate and plan.

What does this mean when it comes to finding a life partner?

Winter can be an ideal time to:

Take Care of Yourself. This is about treating yourself as you would have others treat you. If you cannot love and respect yourself, how can you expect another to love and respect you? In practice, this means remembering to rest, taking compassionate steps to nurture yourself when ill, eating healthily to boost your immunity to winter chills, taking moderate, enjoyable exercise and talking to yourself kindly.

Review Your Year. What has been happening with your dating activities and your efforts to find a partner this year? What has worked and what hasn’t? Can you pinpoint your strengths and weaknesses? What kind of feedback have you had from others? How much credibility do you give it and what can you learn from that?

Plan for Next Year. Knowing what you know now, what do you want to do about finding a partner next year?

One of the exercises I offer coaching clients is to write a description of their ideal life partner. They then produce a detailed picture of Mr or Ms X  in terms of their values and attitudes to life, work, children, the planet, money, health, sex, personal growth – everything they can think of that’s important to them. This can be a great way to vision a partner and attract them into your life. It can also draw your attention to your own values in primary relationships and highlight some areas for personal growth.

Another benefit of taking the time and energy to elicit this type of grounding, rational information is that it can serve to steady you during the headier times of falling in love, when you may be prone to forgetting (or dismissing completely)  the importance of compatibility as well as chemistry in a relationship. Some say that it’s our souls who fall in love, but it’s our personalities who have to get on with eachother!

So, I would encourage you to make the most of the opportunity that nature offers us during the winter months for review, self-care and renewal. I wish you well in refreshing your enthusiasm for your quest and may this serve you well in finding your life partner in 2010.

Values

In several of the articles I’ve written, I mention authenticity and the benefits of living in alignment with our values – living authentically.

Beverley has contacted me to ask that I produce some kind of straightforward checklist on how to lead an authentic life.

Here’s what I’ve come up with (so far!):

1.    Know your values and principles and commit to them daily.

2.    Learn from your reactions and examine your habits. What do they tell you about your alignment with your values and principles?

3.   Prioritise time for silence and quiet reflection (so you can hear your intuition speaking to you – your intuition is your key to your authenticity.)

4.   Examine your motives – inspiration or coercion?

5.    Live and work with conscious intent rather than on autopilot. Another term for sustainable living is “Conscious Living”

6.    Be present. (Eckhart Tolle’s “The Power of Now” is the best text I know on this.)

7.    Give up seeking approval from others and start living by your own lights.

8.    Spend time alone. Be happy in your own company. (To give yourself some time away from the influence of others and just be yourself.)

9.    Practice speaking up. (Voicing your truth can be an effective way to support yourself  and others – with assertiveness rather than evangelising)

10.    Learn the Gentle Art of  Non-Persuasion.

True intelligence is the capacity of the mind to yield to the wisdom of the heart. Altazar Rossiter. (From Developing Spiritual Intelligence. The Power of You.)

Whenever you are true to yourself, you are beautiful. Andrew Schneider

“For all my good intentions, there are days when things go wrong or I fall into old habits. When things are not going well, when I’m grumpy or mad, I’ll realize that I’ve not been paying attention to my soul and I’ve not been following my best routine.”
Robert Fulghum

Is downshifting a spiritual act? Is deciding to live more in alignment with the needs of the planet, humanity and ourselves an act of defiance, a refusal to comply, to be “socially included” or is it maybe a shift towards a mode of living that supports both our personal spiritual growth and the raising of global consciousness?

I have met plenty of atheistic, sustainable living and sustainable business enthusiasts who tell me that they see many reasons to simplify our social and business culture, to consume less, to emphasise personal and planetary wellbeing more, without needing to subscribe to any kind of spiritual beliefs or moral code. So, clearly, some sense of or belief in our spiritual nature is not a prerequisite for living more simply. For those who view living and working sustainably very much as part of their spiritual path, though, some kind of regular spiritual practice is paramount.

Why is that?

It’s like preparing to run a marathon. For most of us running a marathon is not something that we can just get up in the morning and do! We first need to train, to prepare and attune ourselves so that the task in hand becomes possible. For us to learn to change our approach to living and working to one where the needs of the planet, humanity and ourselves is uppermost in our consciousness, we need to practice being in touch and then remain in touch with that part of ourselves that guides us from the heart rather than from the head. I’m not saying that we never need guidance from the head, rather that our heads do a very good job of influencing us anyway, and flooding our consciousness for much of the time. By learning how to maintain contact with our hearts, our Higher Selves, the Divine, God, whatever that is for us, we will be redressing the balance between head and heart.

In my experience, regular, preferably daily, spiritual practice is a way to achieve this. What is it that gets in the way of us committing our time and energy to regular spiritual practice? What can we do to work with these obstacles and remove them?

Common Obstacles

Practical

• Lack of a physical space.
• Lack of a time space.

A very effective way around these kinds of obstacles is to consider our options more openly. If we can’t find room at home to meditate or practice Yoga, T’ai Chi or QiGung, for example, perhaps we can explore what changes can be made in our home environment to accommodate some space. Perhaps it is easier to go out to a regular class some days and practice at home on others. Perhaps there’s another space away from home that we can use. Perhaps there are some changes we can make in how our home space is used in order to accommodate some room for our spiritual practice.

Personal health/physical

• Illness of some kind, either an acute episode or an ongoing physical or mental illness.
• Surgery
• Personal weaknesses – physical or psychological.
• Lack of knowledge

In an ideal world, we would establish a robust spiritual practice when we’re feeling well in order to carry us through any illness that might emerge later. In practice, this doesn’t always happen and we will need to be honest with ourselves about what we can handle when ill and balance that against the healing benefits of maintaining some form of practice. We will need to let anyone who is caring for us know that this is a priority for us and part of our care regime. Whatever our state of health, we may well benefit from working with a spiritual teacher.

Emotional

• Limiting beliefs (those that lead us to sabotage rather than support our efforts)
• Conditioning (unconscious patterns of behaviour, usually learnt in childhood, which may hinder our progress in adult life.)

Awareness is the key here – to watch our automatic reactions and unpack them to reveal our underlying needs and how we might meet them in a life-sustaining way. Coaching can help to raise awareness.

Social

• Family, friends, colleagues unsupportive.

We can choose to ignore unsupportive comments, or we can choose to talk gently with those who appear to be putting obstacles in our way. In my experience, most of us would rather keep quiet and seethe than have what we fear might be a “difficult conversation”. In practice, it’s usually easier in the longer term to have the discussion.

Spiritual

• Unsure of my path, lack of clarity.
• Conflict between what attracts me now and the religion I was raised in.

Ironically, it’s maintaining a spiritual practice that helps us to achieve awareness of, clarity with, and insight into, all of the above. We can ask ourselves how flexible or rigid we want to be and where our boundaries lie. We can also investigate areas where we feel we would like to extend our knowledge. Spiritual growth can be a dynamic balance between the experiential and the expansion of knowledge.

Conclusion.

Whilst not a prerequisite for living and working sustainably, maintaining a sound spiritual practice is something that many downshifters find supportive, inspiring and a great comfort. Whilst there can appear to be many obstacles to this approach in our modern, fast-paced way of life, it is possible to remove these. As with many areas of downshifting, effecting life changes that are important to us can lead us to question our assumptions and beliefs and thus to benefit from the process of growth that accompanies the change.

At his carpet company, Ray Anderson has increased sales and doubled profits while turning the traditional “take / make / waste” industrial system on its head. In a gentle, understated way, he shares a powerful vision for sustainable commerce.

Notice the incredibly beneficial effect this company’s “Mission Zero” business plan has had on goodwill and market share.

Highlighting the dominant role that business currently plays in plundering the earth’s resources and stressing the potential for business as a solution to the problem, his message is clear:

“Theft of our children’s future will one day be a crime.”

Do create a 15 minute window in your day to benefit from the uplifting messages in this short video.

Ever since discovering The Handbook of Sustainability Literacy, I’ve been mulling over the idea of how this fascinating book can guide me in choosing further training opportunities to equip me for the next few years. I want my learning to be enjoyable and fulfilling. I also would like to feel that I’m equipping myself to continue to earn a living from what I most enjoy doing – working in partnership with others on their personal and spiritual development. Another aim is to complete the conversion of our house and garden to a comfortable low carbon, low-waste home that is reasonably resilient to the external effects of climate change and resource depletion.

During my musings, I had a flashback to choosing my “O” level options. “O” levels, for those who are not quite as old as me, or who are not familiar with the British education system, were exams taken usually at age 16 in a broad range of subjects. The modern equivalent are known as GCSEs. The idea is to prove one’s competence and to qualify for further and higher education or for entry into the job market. At age 14, the “0” level options I chose were a few science subjects, maths, English, a couple of languages and music. If I’m honest, I didn’t so much “choose” these subjects as delete from my “options list” those subjects I thought I couldn’t possibly tolerate for another 2 years!

Nowadays, with the benefit of several decades more life experience under my belt and a completely free choice in what I learn, I can take a much more flexible and empowered approach. As a quick, fun exercise, I decided to choose some subject options now from an imaginary list of my own “Skills for a Changing World.” My choices didn’t include some skills and knowledge areas that I’d consider essential because I reckon I’m already competent enough to pass the exam ;o) These would be skills such as basic literacy and numeracy, growing and preparing food, making clothes and child rearing, ethical business practice, coaching, some basic communication and relationships skills.

Rather than that, what follows represent subjects where I have a little knowledge, enough to know I’d enjoy further study and practice, but where I’d like to know a lot more:

1. Permaculture design and implementation
2. Ayurveda
3. Vipassana Meditation
4. Non-Violent Communication (NVC)
5. Naturopathy
6. Mediation

I don’t think that there are GCSEs available in any of these (yet!), although I have found other courses for all of them, for adults only. Now, all I have to decide is when to do what and how to live long enough to make good  use of them all!

If you were 14 again and had a completely free reign in what to study, what would you choose that would help equip you for life in a sustainable society?

What is most important to you when you consider the training options open to you now and what you’d most enjoy doing? Why?