Whilst thinking about writing this blog, I was pondering for how long I have had a problem with waste, and I would say that it has been for well over twenty years. I’m basing that mainly on the fact that I can remember being at work twenty odd years ago and putting up a sign by the industrial photocopier encouraging people to do double sided photocopying so that they didn’t waste paper. I remember signing my note ‘on behalf of the trees’ but if I was truly honest, it wasn’t on behalf of the trees, it was on behalf of me, because when I was given handouts at work which had only been printed on one side it really annoyed me; not because it was a waste of trees but because it was simply a waste.
Now it would be very easy for me to validate my dislike of waste. I could talk about how wasteful we are as a society and about how much waste goes into landfill. I could talk about how our waste is a symptom of our lack of responsibility and how we only consider our immediate needs – and much of that is indeed true – but there would also have been a certain level of dishonesty for me to be able to share in such a way.
You see, my struggle with waste has felt almost pathological. It has been all consuming at times and it’s true to say that it has caused me more strife in my life than almost any other single component. I have despised waste and that loathing has had a very significant effect on my behaviour and how I have felt, which in turn has affected those around me.
I couldn’t even begin to imagine how many times my issue with waste has affected me; how many times for example I have eaten something that I haven’t really wanted to eat, simply to avoid throwing it out (and that includes food that has been going mouldy or that I have dropped on the floor). Not only that, but I have used my power over others to force them to eat food that they have clearly not wanted to eat, purely because I haven’t been able to handle the prospective anxiety that I would have felt were I to throw the food in the bin.
I have sat in team meetings and thrashed around when presenters have handed out wads of paper printed on only one side. I have painstakingly re-used plastic sleeves for documents rather than simply getting new ones. I have spent a long time trying to put broken sections of staples into staple guns, rather than simply getting a brand-new strip and fitting it with ease.
I go around the house moving rubbish from bin to bin, rather than run the risk of a bin going out that is only half full. It makes me anxious when people put something in the bin that could have been recycled. If someone throws the toothpaste out before I have had a chance to run the straight edge of the toenail clippers along the tube to methodically get every possible squeeze of paste out of it, then it really annoys me. I turn all bottles upside down before throwing them out, just to make sure every last drop has been extracted.
I can’t bear people running the dishwasher or putting the washing machine on unless it’s full and I remember violently lunging towards my son as he was about to start the washing up because I anticipated that he was about to use too much washing up liquid! Do I need to continue? No, not really, you get the picture – my pathological dislike of waste has infiltrated every single area of my life and pretty much every relationship as well.
And if I justify my dislike of waste as being ‘right or appropriate or even desirable’ then it prevents me from seeing the destructive effect that it has had on me, as well as on those around me and on Life as a Whole.
You see, now I know that it is what we feel in our bodies that gets registered. We like to think that if our “intentions are good,” or if our “heart is in the right place,” then this somehow makes it all ok, but this is simply not true. What gets registered by The Universe is what we feel in our bodies, therefore on all the hundreds of thousands of occasions that I desperately tried to avoid waste, what got registered was a rather distasteful cocktail of anxiety, annoyance, anger, frustration, intolerance and at times out and out rage. That was my contribution to Life in those moments and there is no getting around it by dressing it up as some environmental crusade.
And it is the knowledge of the absoluteness of this fact that has helped me to prise the fingers of this behaviour off my life because when I feel myself going into the well-worn grooves of my lifelong dalliance with waste then, to the best of my ability I choose to not entertain it. What this looks like practically speaking is for example, not eating food simply to avoid throwing it out, not opening the pantry at work with the intention of inspecting the shopping for excessive purchasing, putting a wash on before waiting for a full load, etc. Basically, registering when I am about to contribute an emotional and contracted body to the “All that we are” and consciously choosing not to.
Our bodies are an intrinsic part of the Universe –– a Universe that is made up of the collective consciousness of us all. It is therefore our individual responsibility to consider, at any point in time, quite what it is that we are contributing.
By Alexis Stewart, disability support worker, yoga teacher, massage therapist, mother, partner, self-appointed cheerleader for humanity, fragment of the Universe
Further Reading:
Carpentry – A Lesson on Energetic Quality from my 75 year old Dad
The Freedom – Responsibility Connection
The ripple effect of emotions
250 Comments
Alexis I love reading your blogs as they are always down to earth and have something to say about our patterns of behaviours.
How many of us go about our daily lives without thinking of the impact we are having on the rest of the world. We have not been taught that everything we say, do, think and feel has an effect. Knowing this it really doesn’t pay to be emotionally upset or angry as we are just adding to the polluted mess called society we are already struggling with.
We can have the best intentions ever, be right and correct in every sense. But if it comes from a reaction (and reactions aren’t always explosive knee-jerk reactions) or an emotion then it won’t help one bit.
Even if our intentions and actions don’t come from a place or reaction but come from an alignment to the pranic consciousness then they ‘won’t help one bit’.
When we allow the space people can make there own way in life and it takes away any judgement of what another is doing out of the equation so we are opening ourselves up to a deeper level of Love as we are all able to not impose upon another, which is sharing the Love we all innately are.
“We like to think that if our “intentions are good,” or if our “heart is in the right place,” then this somehow makes it all ok, but this is simply not true. What gets registered by The Universe is what we feel in our bodies……..” I so needed to re-read this blog today. I get caught up in the temporal rather than feeling what is true.
“Our bodies are an intrinsic part of the Universe –– a Universe that is made up of the collective consciousness of us all. It is therefore our individual responsibility to consider, at any point in time, quite what it is that we are contributing.”
Love this, it brings it back to basics, we are here to be love and to let love in – anything else is complication.
Letting go of rubbish in our life is much appreciated as we explore the realms of our essences and the ensuing intimacy and thus appreciation of our universality through our evolutionary path.
“That was my contribution to Life in those moments and there is no getting around it by dressing it up as some environmental crusade.” The current frenzy of ‘Climate Change’ activists is compounding and creating the problem they are getting emotional about.
” my struggle with waste has felt almost pathological. ” One would wonder when this actually became part of your conscious living. The word “waste” even sounds funny for what can be wasted ” for energy cannot be created or destroyed it can be changed from one form to another.” I think this is Issac Newton. It sounds more like people have disrespect which then leads to disregard, discard , so perhaps its not the “waste ” that up sets you at all.
We know that there is something very wrong with how we are living when there are countries in the world where literally right now there are people starving to death yet in other places vast quantities of food is simply being thrown away.
A thought provoking blog Alexis. I too have an issue with waste, learned from my Gran who – post war – who saved everything from pieces of string to brown paper. I’ve always had a ‘just in case ‘mentality and decluttering isn’t easy!!
We live with and create so much waste, it is like there is a feeling of not being adequately prepared for what is to come and this means we hoard for that ‘just in case’ moment.
A great article Alexis, I just love this line “Our bodies are an intrinsic part of the Universe –– a Universe that is made up of the collective consciousness of us all. It is therefore our individual responsibility to consider, at any point in time, quite what it is that we are contributing.” our true responsibility. Thank you .
Well said, we rarely consider that bigger picture do we and yet when we are irresponsible or careless we are peeing in a great pool of energy that we all swim in.
Yes Jill, it is about being aware and responsible about what we are contributing at any and every point in time.
If we keep life simple and only buy what we need and no more then in our everyday living there will be very little waste. Great blog Alexis, lots to ponder on.
Before reading this blog I saw a post somewhere else, of the sea in the Dominican Republic only it was not the sea as we know it, it was a sea of plastic and all of us are seeing more and more images of this, so its really apt what you are talking about here of our responsibility in how we are with waste but more importantly if we judge another etc that is just as toxic as waste.
I wonder how much our approach to waste has to do with the feeling of a wasted life…..
mmmm good question or simply not caring. For if we do not truly care for ourselves then how can we care for another or our environment?
We can’t, it’s as simple as that.
“Our bodies are an intrinsic part of the Universe –– a Universe that is made up of the collective consciousness of us all. It is therefore our individual responsibility to consider, at any point in time, quite what it is that we are contributing.”
Love this, when we bring it back to the bigger picture we can see just how much our every thought and action has a ripple effect on everyone else.
Worrying about Waste or worrying about anything is a complete WASTE of energy.
I have observed that it is interesting how we humans like to pick and choose what we get worked up about and conveniently ignore other things for example we might correctly point out that we dislike a waste of paper or trees but then at the same time we might not be so on it about wasting time or wasting opportunities to really connect with our loved ones.
I was feeling that too as I read this blog, many things I would have been or be bothered about, yet other things I am fine with. We are all so unique, it is bringing it back to how we are, we have a responsibility for the quality of energy we live in, as that has an effect on all around us.
It is funny the issues we can let consume us – all so we don’t feel our real glory.
It strikes me that we worry a lot about waste and yet are happy to allow people to be wasted through physical and mental illness and disease, verbal and physical abuse, on-line trolling, alcohol and substance abuse and suicide. Who is jumping up and down and shouting about people wastage? I can’t hear anyone, can you?
Wow good point, we consider people wastage until it affects the money side of things and then the decision is not so clear.
Very god point Ariana. So much waste everywhere with regard to so many areas of life. What we get annoyed about brings me back to what responsibility i’m taking…..
The whole subject of recycling is a bit like cancer, we demand a solution to a problem we created by the way we are living.
If only we took our waste of potential of each and every one us seriously… we would then need not worry about the physical waste issue we have now.
We can all do our bit when it comes to recycling but I still wonder where all our plastic waste goes to and if it is actually being recycled or not. This subject has a huge consciousness and it’s easy to get sucked in.
Ideals and beliefs attached to good causes that are not ours can have detrimental consequences. In the 1980s, the Animal Liberation Front in the UK near Oxford broke into a mink farm and released hundreds of minks that devastated the natural wildlife for years by killing everything it could. The government put a bounty on the minks and it took a decade to cull the unnatural species that was introduced
There is something about knee jerk reaction to things which I know from experience don’t work – ever – even if they look like they do short term. Then again I have been witnessing the way those around me who live with absolute love, regard and care for everyone and every aspect of life, and seen how I naturally feel inspired to be much more loving, aware and responsible as a result of their reflection. I now know the way to true harmonious and loving change, whatever area of life we are looking at.
Knee jerk reactions are a sure fire sign from the body that something is up. The problem is that knee jerk reactions by their very nature have a momentum built into them that makes it hard for most of us to pause and consider what’s going on on a deeper level. But if we were able to bring in a pause then knee jerk reactions would become a tool rather than a hindrance.
And this is key… getting drawn into issues perpetuates the angst and actually distracts us from realising the part we can play to reduce discordance.
Yes Matilda, I wonder what the energetic effect is on the environment when people chain themselves to trees in an attempt to stop them from being cut down and the scene turns into a battleground between the loggers and the environmentalists.
Ardency is not the same as commitment and dedication. I have often lost myself in a good cause and contributed to the angst in the world with my justified indignation about other people’s behaviour (so much judgement). The more I take responsibly for the quality with which I approach life and all that I do the more I realise that it is this we need to concentrate on and it is this that will bring sense to a world that currently makes no sense.
Absolutely Matilda, bringing it back to the quality we choose to live in and with, ‘The more I take responsibly for the quality with which I approach life and all that I do the more I realise that it is this we need to concentrate on’.
When looking at the empty jar above I think about how there is only space and form and the never ending movement and transformation of energy between formlessness and form.
When I look at the jar I don’t see it as empty at all, I see enough peanut butter for at least one more piece of toast.
Which is worse though, the material waste we can see or the waste of wisdom that we are all an inherent part of?
A wise comment, Michael… which indicates the truth behind our real frustrations around waste.
I love the profundity you are sharing here Michael. Whilst we remain wilfully ignorant over the wisdom we are all a part of, which in denial hurts us more than we know, that inner tension has to find a release somewhere. it makes sense that we would turn to what we can see and focus on this rather than dealing with the root cause of the issue. Accept and align to the innate wisdom we are, we would find that we would waste little.
Oh I hate waste too and am genuinely disgusted by how wasteful and irresponsible human beings can be, but the key is do I react emotionally to this and get righteous and judgemental about it which changes nothing, or do I allow my hate to actually spur me on to be less wasteful and more responsible in my own life?
Waste is a hot and trendy topic. My son often talks about projects and talks at school and I always feel like we are missing a key point, which is to simply, quietly, responsibly review the impact that all of our choices and actions have, obviously with the physical aspect of waste but also the quality of our conversations and the way we treat ourselves and others. A gentle body does not abuse its living space.
I almost had an “emotional and contracted body” moment today as I was walking through K-Mart. I was stopped in my tracks as I realised that everything in the store was at some stage going to end up as waste – that was a huge whoa moment! Then I started multiplying this future waste by the number of others stores and as I did, I could feel my body begin to respond to my reaction. So I took a breath, chose to let the mind-boggling scenario go and continued shopping, but at the same time, in no way ignoring the gross scale of the waste problem we have in the world.
Your relationship with waste, Alexis, is just one of many fanatical/obsessive relationships I have had with things in life. All of which turned out to be distractions from seeing things as they truly are and embracing my responsibility and purpose. They were like smokescreens or landing platforms that kept me from being here and feeling everything in full.
We get bamboozled and identified by the detail but what it all boils down to at the end of the day is whether or not it takes us away from or back to ourselves.
In looking at the empty jar in this photo I see all the space that is available. How much do we clutter our lives or over consume to not feel the ever present communication of space?
Constantly.
Thanks Jenny for pointing this out. Yes – how distracted do we choose to get so we don’t acknowledge, let alone see, the abundance of what is on offer when it is right before us?
Standing on a soap box proclaiming our indignation about a subject is musing for others. When we live our actions, they are felt by others.
I have to catch myself whenever I do anything expecting an outcome, because invariably when the pictures are not fulfilled, the energy of blame and fury that comes through me is not awful. In fact I find whenever I go down the route of wanting people to respond in a particular way, I and everyone else is in trouble.
When we deepen, we deepen into the body of us all.
Indeed Ariana it is a vey big ouch moment when I consider the delay of not expanding with and deepening to all of who I am.
Do good, be responsible, be righteous and live in drive are also rewarded by society as being a ‘good citizen’ yet it is deeply harmful of ourselves and of those around us. I appreciate your honesty in all you have shared Alexis for this is happening around us. If we choose to go deeper and respond to the call the body is making then every choice we make, the way we move and the lifestyle we live will have a true foundation of love and no longer will there be a place for the many extremes you have so beautifully articulated and many more I have observed.
This just shows how we can run with something and then it takes over our lives. I do recognise some of the antics being played out in myself but not to this extreme.
“Our bodies are an intrinsic part of the Universe –– a Universe that is made up of the collective consciousness of us all. It is therefore our individual responsibility to consider, at any point in time, quite what it is that we are contributing.”
Great observation, its true we are always part of the whole.
Every reflection is a mirror, held up in order for us to be able to see ourselves clearly in and the only question we ever need to ask ourselves is ‘is it love that is being reflected back ?’ The answer is always a straight yes or no. It’s then up to us what we do with the answer.
This simplicity makes things more than crystal clear and represents an absoluteness that would serve us all well.
I love the honesty with which you have expressed here Alexis. And the absurdity of the picture when observed from the outside seems almost amusing. It is a great question to reflect on when we go on a mission to do some form of good or another: is the manner we are approaching the issue, and the possible emotional and energetic poison we may be spewing, any less damaging than whatever it is we want to save the world from?
And even if we think the harm from our own antics is not as bad, is this truly what we would want to have logged as our contribution?
Universal Medicine is a clinic of excellence, how could it be otherwise when the foundational principles are truth and love in all interactions, whether from reception staff, products and from the practitioners.
It’s a big question to consider “what are we contributing to the universe?”
Yes it is but is there any other question that’s as relevant to the whole of Life as this one?
Our emotions are the waste that we energetically contribute to the universe. As with waste it has to go somewhere to be dealt with by someone/somewhere else, to then get ‘dumped’ elsewhere. But eventually catching up with us at some point in the future.
Alexis, reading your article makes me realise that it is the ‘anxiety, annoyance, anger, frustration, intolerance and at times out and out rage’ in people who have crusaded for not wasting things that has actually put me off their cause and put me off listening to what is being shared. A woman that I know lovingly, calmly and gently shared with me about waste recently and this really made me listen – there was no emotion in what she was sharing, it felt factual and clear.
Emotion in another is generally a turn off for us all and so if we have someone who is emotionally ranting about how we shouldn’t eat meat, throw vegetable scraps in the bin or drive a car, we will often shut down and automatically discount anything that’s being said.
We miss so much when we allow ourselves to react rather than feel what is being expressed by another.
Unless we are aware of our reaction and then it becomes a golden opportunity to be able to see clearly our unloving ways and to choose differently next time round.
Caring and protesting about waste can make us look like very responsible human beings. Many people wear the cape and preach around about the problems of waste, yet in that there is an arrogance, an ignorance and nothing is changed. Nothing is saved and like you say, the universe cops it all.
Alexis, it’s great to be reminded that it is what we feel in our bodies that gets registered – our quality, this helps me put things in perspective and to make this quality my focus.
Yes it is very revealing when we are truly honest about our energetic contribution to the Universe – what quality are we contributing to this planet that is then reflected out to all other planets?
It always comes down to our body and how it is feeling no matter what is said or expressed and this way of being as a foundation in life requires a commitment to deeply loving the self.
By committing to our bodies we also commit to ourselves, life and God.
It occurs to me that there is some truth in hating waste as it highlights a lack of care and attention to detail and a disharmony-after all nothing gets wasted in nature for example. However it is what we do with this that counts – do we react to it in an emotional way or simply respond and deal with it and learn from what it may be showing us?
“now I know that it is what we feel in our bodies that gets registered.” This changes everything in how we react and how we live our lives offering a different reflection of the harm or love we add to the world and our responsibility with this.
Having an issue with anything, be it waste, money, gender, family, etc. simply causes tension in our body and this stops us from truly connecting because the issue(s) we hold onto pushes people away. It can feel imposing and controlling when we dump our issues onto others. Most of all the tension takes us away from connecting to ourselves. It’s a silly game but one many of us play and can relate to.
It’s actually the only game that most of us are playing.
If we were to treat our own bodies with the concern we have for the environment, maybe we would have a whole different health outcomes for this planet.
If we were to treat our bodies with the concern that most people have for the environment we’d be dead.
Having just come through Christmas, I heard that in London alone over 32 tonnes of rubbish was creating by gift-wrap paper alone. Perhaps its time to appreciate that the piece of wrapping paper is also an important part of the present!