As part of our ‘home and wellbeing’ theme, our Project Assistant Marie is trying to make some simple changes at home to be a bit kinder to the environment and herself. This is the first in her series of short blog posts about putting small changes into action.
I recently read about a new mental health charity set up in memory of the late Frightened Rabbit frontman Scott Hutchison. It’s name, Tiny Changes, is taken from one of his most loved lyrics – “While I’m alive, I’ll make tiny changes to this earth”. Although I don’t know a lot about Frightened Rabbit, it struck me how inspirational yet so utterly gentle this phrase is – in fact, that is probably how Scott Hutchison’s fans would describe him.
Like many of you, news about the climate change crisis makes me feel extremely sad, anxious and often helpless. Over the years, I’ve been through phases of trying to drastically overhaul my domestic habits and my home environment, fired up about a carbon free lifestyle. However, with juggling all the demands of daily life, I end up becoming disheartened pretty quickly. My inability to sustain the energy required to put my plans into action makes me feel like a failure. When it all starts to feel a bit futile, I to resign myself to the fact that I can’t really make much of a difference. I start to wonder what’s the point when big massive corporations and governments aren’t taking the drastic action required? And so the cycle continues!
Of course, I’m not going to single handedly solve the climate crisis. In fact, perhaps what I do won’t make much of an impact overall in terms of carbon reduction. But hearing about Tiny Changes has encouraged me to commit to making home life a bit more gentle and sustainable, for my own wellbeing and the possibility it might create a tiny ripple of movement amongst the people around me. It can only be a good thing to use more of what you’ve got and consume less of what you don’t need, whether that is material, physical or emotional.
Taking good care of our home environment has positive benefits for our minds and bodies. I find that when I am feeling calm and in control, I tend to turn less to wasteful habits such as buying cheap clothes I don’t need, or eating pre-packaged junk food that I don’t truly want. I would also like to be a bit kinder to myself when I fail to meet my own standards – doing something is better than doing nothing, even if it doesn’t always feel that way.
Over the next few weeks I’ll be exploring, trying and sharing some small actions to help make my home a more kind, gentle and sustainable place. I’ll be looking into creative and affordable ways of living daily life and setting achievable goals. If you have any ideas or would like to share your own efforts with me then please get in touch – I’d love to hear from you!
You can find out more about and dontate to Tiny Changes here.
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