how sustainable living begins with mindfulness

Show Notes

Show Notes

I’ll tell you I was really was struggling with feeling connected to myself and to others – I remember I kept telling myself I felt like I was on a hamster wheel to nowhere, and really just felt like I lost my lust for life. Have you ever felt that way too? Do you want to be the person who is constantly running, stressing, comparing, and competing in the rat race – just consuming more hoping to fill the void, and rushing to the next task? Well, I didn’t – so I started to practice mindfulness and it completely shifted my mindset and improved my well-being more than I could have hoped for. I started to feel a deeper connection with my mind, body, and nature. It opened me back up feeling alive and started me on the journey to living more sustainably because I felt that deeper connection to everything around me. The best part is that it is something that you can start easily today.

In this episode, you hear from Lauren Wimmer. We get into mindfulness practices and connect the dots between mindfulness and sustainability. We also discuss the human-nature connection, slow motherhood, how a woman’s cycle is connected to nature, and finally, Lauren walks us through a nature-focused mindfulness practice with a prompt to help you connect deeper to yourself and nature.

what is mindfulness

Mindfulness is the practice of bringing your attention to the present moment. It’s an awareness that helps us relate to ourselves, others, and the environment. Mindfulness and meditation often get confused, but mindfulness is meant to be a practice that you carry with you everywhere. It’s being aware of our thoughts, feelings, behaviors, movements, and the effects we have on other people. People who practice mindfulness see an increase in their compassion, clarity on their values and goals, they see greater empathy, and improved nutrition. When you are more mindful you find that you’re more loving and content with yourself so the marketing tactics or idea that we need things to make us happy or to feel approval from others really doesn’t apply anymore. It’s reaching a higher level of understanding of yourself and the world around you.

mindfulness as a sustainability practice

Sustainability is a practice in mindfulness. When you start living it – you are constantly learning, seeing how the systems and structures are shaped to make life unsustainable, which allows you to let go of the guilt.
Research connects mindfulness to sustainable behavior because your values being to align with a deeper empathy towards helping other people and the planet. It leads to less consumption, less impulse buying, and brings you out of the day to day routines that may be unsustainable. If you’re practicing mindfulness in every moment, you’re not trying to do everything right, you’re just trying to make the next best decision.

Slow motherhood

Slow motherhood is the practice of saying no, to the world around you and only serving what is worth your time and your energy. Enjoying what it means to be present and take life as it comes without planning out everything that we need to do.

Human – Nature Connection

The best way to connect to nature is fully being in nature without any outside distraction. “Connecting to nature can help us connect to not only wanting to protect the earth but wanting to protect each other.” This could be looking at the stars, observing the wind in the trees, discovering new leaves or flowers, or even just having a plant in your home.

“Women’s bodies connect to nature in the same way that seasons connect to the earth. There are four phases to a woman’s cycle and four seasons in a year.” Periods are created innately in nature so we can go inward and reflect. There is also a way to be connected to nature in our food if we eat seasonally with the earth. We feed ourselves with the earth and give back to it at the same time. “We are nature. So we need to evolve and adapt and live by the rules of nature if we really want life to be sustainable.”

something to grow on

Lauren challenges everyone to start a nature journal on a physical piece of paper and go outside every day for at least a week. Write how you’re feeling at first, then just be in nature for 10-20 minutes, write what you observe, and then when you’re done write how you’re feeling afterward. This will help you to connect deeper to yourself, and connect even deeper to nature and the world around you.