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April 21, 2013

From Changing Climate to Declining Happiness. ~ Zuzzie Philibin

Hunger for power, dominance and social status has become a prevalent driving force in our ego-centric society.

Through material dependency we reduce ourselves to be valued according to the amount of money we are able to spend and the worth of the property we have acquired. It starts in early childhood when children use material possessions to establish dominance. They form their status based on who has the best toys. Parents are perplexed about what is the right thing to do. As soon as they buy the newest toy for their child the trend shifts and the child will ask for something new to feel valuable in front of their peers.

This huge turn-around in products, let it be toys, clothes or electronics, is directly feeding the vicious cycle of depleting Earth’s natural resources, destroying the land of wildlife as well as of people, creating disease through hazardous production and disposal, and last but not least it keeps adding to the ever growing pile of garbage that we are have a hard time disposing of.

 

Money means power. Money means dominance. Money means social status.

We have been conditioned to believe that the source of happiness is money. Our eyes are open, but we just can’t seem to comprehend that we are seeking happiness from all the wrong sources. Accumulating material possessions and climbing the social ladder of hierarchical dominance is yet another way to try to fill the void within our souls. Due to social conditioning many have lost empathy towards one another. People have become emotionally detached in order to climb to the top on others’ expense. Preoccupation with endless pursuit of money and status is like chasing the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. We can’t find happiness through money and we have to realize we are only setting up the stage for greed, compulsive behavior, and addictions, leading to feelings of inadequacy, fear, anxiety and depression.

Focusing so intensely on the material aspects of life we neglect to fulfill our need for intimacy and connection with others. A lot of people try to fill the emptiness they feel from the lack of intimacy with another with material possessions. Many are willing to sacrifice their moral values and virtues in order to rise to the top. They lose sight of really how much damage is done to Mother Earth during this pursuit. Actively participating in consumerism we are creating our own extinction.

What can we do? What we need to do is wake up.

It’s time to reconnect to our true nature and bring our world back to balance. We need to reawaken the human heart and allow ourselves to feel again.

We are all interconnected. Our actions ripple through the whole ecosystem. When we are seeking gratification through the material world, we create demand for the products, which means more of it needs to be produced. Not only that we will not be able to satiate the root cause of our desire, we keep contributing to the consumption of our resources faster than they can be replenished. The cost of all the stuff we buy goes way beyond the amount of money we personally spend to buy it. We must realize that something urgently has to change, before we reach the point of no return from the environmental standpoint, as well as from the moral, ethical and emotional stand point.

Once we know our values, it’s easy to make decisions.

There is a pressing need to restructure our value system. Obviously, we are not happy living in a world where our self worth is measured by how much money we are able to spend. We can’t let media tell us what we need – to perform better, to look better, or to have more fun in our lives.

We must stop obsessively buying new things. Think about all the resources that go into making these products, all the underpaid labor, toxic work environments and you end up using your stuff for a few months and you move on to something new. Can the pleasure you get from using a new product justify all the sacrifice that goes into producing it?

Photo: Love of Neibhor Caravan

In our current ego-dominant society we tend to suppress anything that has to do with the feminine aspects of our existence; let it be intimacy, allowing ourselves to feel, listening to intuition, expressing emotions, compassion and love. As a result of social conditioning we don’t allow ourselves to experience the natural joys that can be found beyond the material aspects of life and we rigidly confide our awareness within the framework of raw physical manifestation.

In other words, our idea of the pursuit of happiness is to have a job, make money, provide for ourselves and for our family if we are fortunate to have one, buy stuff, buy more stuff and buy more stuff. This heavy focus on stuff has caused a major disconnect from our inner consciousness. Hunger for power, greed, violence, sexual objectification are only a few dysfunctional outcomes of our one-sided focus.

The world needs a shift in consciousness.

The time has come to recreate the connection to our true nature, where we care for other beings and we tend to our emotional states rather than try to cover them up or escape from them. Doing so has the ability to initiate a shift in our own consciousness that will manifest through our actions thus directly transforming the collective consciousness and our physical world.

We need to begin where we are right now. We can start by emphasizing conscientiousness in our workplace as well as at home. Corporations need to take steps towards sustainability and stop trashing our planet, the home of everyone. The good news is that we can already see people waking up to the need to tend to our core needs and our planet. Concerns regarding global warming are surfacing and serious steps are being taken towards sustainability all around the world.

Compassion towards all beings is initiated through cultivating love, compassion and respect towards ourselves.

Let’s set ourselves free!

I invite you for the next few minutes to let go of your fixation on the aspects of life we are socially conditioned to focus on and let yourself sink deep to explore what would true happiness really feel like.

Allowing the flow of the intuitive, soulful and sensual values into our hearts we can balance the masculine and feminine, yin and the yang within our being. Cultivating inner peace, living in love and compassion will fulfill our emotional needs and we are able to become proactive instead of impulsive and reactive. Slowly, we can create a world with higher values, diminishing greed and the need for material hoarding.

Through opening our hearts we open up to a wider and richer experience of life.

Transcending our egos we are able to find our authentic selves and recognize the interconnectedness of all beings. Once we individually return to this kind of balanced state, seeking fulfillment thorough our current material means becomes less important. Money will hold no power over us and we find meaning in deeper values. Attachments to the lower forms of expression will be replaced with the abundance originating from the higher values. It is inevitable that we collectively transform our value system and our world. Let’s make this shift happen! For the good of all and harm to none.

 

Zuzzie is passionately devoted to guiding the humankind back into its Heart. As a woman she initiates this transformation by evoking her Creative Feminine Force, balancing the masculine and feminine energies. Leading by example to purify, empower and uplift women all around, she is devoted to elevating the expressions of the Divine Feminine and activating the receptivity in the Man’s Heart.  She is here to fully engage in the human existence, inspire with love, act with compassion and flow with grace. Woman in Business of Energy Management, Renewables, and Energy Efficiency, Promoter of Green and Sustainable Lifestyle, Yogini, Artist, Lover of Gaia

 

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Ed: Kate Bartolotta

 

 

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