Environmental Wellness

What a biggie environmental wellness is and yet of all dimensions it is the easiest to put aside and ignore. After all, there’s you as an emotional, physical, spiritual, and intellectual being. The social and occupational dimensions are easy to understand as vital parts of our lives. But the environment? With or without us that’s going to be there, so there is an automatic separation. It’s a ‘me and it’ version of us and them.

And therein is the problem. I could end right here because that is the alpha and omega, top and bottom, main point and heart of the issue. I’m not really done though. I’m just hammering the bottom line, which is this: to whatever extent we distinguish between us and the environment, to that extent we are screwed, doomed, in freefall and a liability to ourselves and our biosphere. Connection is at the center of all the dimensions. It is not only at least as true for this one as all others; it is a moral imperative.

We are no more separate from the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we ingest, and the climate in which we live than we are from our own bodies. There is no away, there is no apart, and there is  no distinction. Period.

Should I stop sugar coating now and really express my opinion? I admit my passion on this topic, so bear that in mind if you dare read further.

If we had to pay through the nose for air (LOL), would we prize it more? Would we complain to the powers that be if the air were not clean and clear? Would we sue if someone tampered with the air in our backyard? Would we start a citizen’s action committee if someone told us they were taking out  20% of the oxygen we breathe? Probably. OK, more like absolutely.

So why in the name of clear blue skies don’t we react when the Amazon rainforest, which provides 20% of our oxygen is being cut down by the size of Connecticut every year? We would fight to the death if someone tried to inject our children with poisons, but we pass along an astounding array in mother’s milk! I’ll hold myself back here because you either got the point already or you won’t.

Environmental wellness is simple. It acknowledging our connection to the world around us and treating it as if we happened to be stewards of a precious jewel. One way to help intensify our connection to the environment is to bring it closer to us, physically.

I think we’ve gotten too used to hearing about it in abstract, scientific lingo. What if we defined environment the way Dr. Bruce Lipton does, as “everything from the edge of our own skin to the edge of the Universe.” For our purposes it is the ‘edge of our own skin’ part that is most pertinent.

That means everything we touch, taste, feel and react to is part of our personal environmental well-being or lack thereof. That also means personal responsibility lies with each of us. It is how we live in the privacy of our own mind/heart and emotions. It is who, how, and what we choose to have around, on, or in our bodies. Like I said, it is the alpha and omega of how we live that matters.

This goes way deeper than living ‘green’ or thinking sustainably. As the creator of the wellness dimension paradigm said years ago, the environment doesn’t need to be a separate category because it is transcendent and overlays all others. I think it should be a separate dimension and I think since we all live at the whim of our biosphere it clearly overarches all.