Our health and feelings of well-being are central to our ability to contribute to our relationships, work and communities.
There is of course a huge wealth of information out there about health. In this chapter we open up a way of looking at our health through permaculture glasses and using design tools to increase our well-being.
We think about four aspects of health: physical, emotional, healthy mind and spiritual or intuitional health. These all overlap and influence each other.
Health is the balanced functioning of our bodies. Being healthy is to be able to access and flow with internal and external energies. In a healthy state we are in tune with the rhythms of life, living our dreams and content with who we are. We are joyful, aware, expansive, balanced and at ease with life.
Well-being is freedom from pain in our bodies, mind, spirit and emotions. We need to look after ourselves on all of these levels to stay healthy and fit. Listening intuitively and being aware of our bodies provides us with the knowledge of what is appropriate for ourselves. When we are self-observant we can act to divert illness, acting for prevention and timely maintenance rather than cure.
It is important to know what we don’t want and how this arises. When we have blockages in our life they can manifest as ill health in our bodies. Often what we notice in ourselves as illnesses are in fact symptoms of something else. When we are not following our own joy and passions in life – not being authentic – we feel lethargic and lacklustre. The word disease could be read as dis-ease, when we are out of alignment and not at ease with the world or with ourselves.
Stress is a state of tension; when we are beyond the elastic limits of what we can cope with, our physical systems will also struggle to cope. Stress has its usefulness in certain circumstances – it can get the adrenaline pumping to meet the deadline, or make the presentation – but there is an edge at which the level of stress is no longer beneficial. Sometimes we are so beyond our capacity that we are no longer learning and growing and our bodies experience difficulty.
The stress itself then produces different symptoms in the short, medium and long term. These symptoms can create further stress. Stress can lead to sleepless nights for example, which can decrease our ability to cope and exacerbate the initial stress, leading to a further spiral of erosion. In tackling this spiral we need to look for both points of intervention and ways of treating the root causes.
There are three aspects to stress: firstly is the external stimulus; this leads to an internal response; which then produces symptoms of stress. At each of these stages we may be able to alter things. Can we change the situation or choose a different one? Then our internal response is based on subjective interpretation so seeing it differently will change our response. Finally, we have a choice in how we deal with the symptoms of stress. Stress may be a healthy response to the circumstances we find ourselves in. Often though it is dealt with in an unhealthy way.
We can reduce stress through laughter, exercise, singing and social contact, but it is unrealistic to expect our lives to be free of stress. We can aim to use the tension rather than avoid it. We have to let nature take its course and accept the challenges, emotions and timescales of our situations. Stress is a symptom of the circumstances of our lives and how we are responding to them rather than a cause in itself. Our responses to difficulty relate to our attitudes to edges and stretching, our self-beliefs and comfort zones.
While we can try and avoid illnesses, accidents and traumas they are a reality of life and we need to know how best to recover from them. There are different levels of healing: emotional, physical and energetic.
When we heal we become whole. To do this we need to integrate the new experience into our being rather than suppressing it or pushing it away. Accepting our part in the healing of the Earth and acknowledging the connection between our own healing and the healing of the planet is part of the inner transition work.
A cranial osteopath described her work as holding the person in their discomfort so that the body thinks ‘this is wrong’ and a healing response is provoked. Other healers and therapists concur that the person themselves is responsible for healing and it can only come from within. The healer is there to help the person access their own healing but cannot do it for them. We can only make an invitation to heal. Our souls know the medicine we need – our own song for healing.
In the 20 years since Rod Everett has been practising and teaching permaculture he has only visited the doctor a few times, mainly to get a diagnosis of symptoms. Homeopathy, herbs, pressure points and specific exercises have helped to balance his body. He believes everyone can unlock their potential for healing. We can enable ourselves as healers by knowing the resources we have internally available to us, and exploring the gift of healing.
Medicines can be anything that promotes healing. Medicines were traditionally seen as preventatives as well as curatives. In modern cultures medicines are mostly viewed as drugs that we take to cure an illness. They often have side effects that can in turn need treatment with further drugs. There are times and places for allopathic medicines and we could be too rigid with wanting to use renewable resources when in fact we need a drug or intervention to save our life. But complementary medicines are generally more gentle on the system, and rather than just suppressing the symptoms they work to shift underlying causes, whether on a physical or emotional level.
There are many ways we can relax and lift our spirits; hot baths, music, singing, walking the dog, being in the garden, meditation, yoga, tai chi, cooking, reading, dancing and companionship. We can research our own personal treatments to maintain healthy body, mind and emotions and rebalance ourselves. The methods that we use can interrelate and become a whole system of self-care.
Keeping our bodies moving is a natural state. Our modern lives allow us to keep still for much longer than we would have done in our ancestry, so we have to create opportunities for exercise. How we move our bodies has been developed over the years of sitting at school and office desks and is unlikely to be fully natural and freely flowing. If we watch children moving we can witness what it’s like to move freely with the whole body. Our bodies get caught in habitual patterns; just starting small such as walking at a faster pace can help to break these.
We might say that we want to improve our health but we have limiting factors that slow us down. One of these might be time in our lives, and we need to find ways of incorporating exercise into our existing daily and weekly routines. Cycling to work, walking to school, taking stairs instead of lifts, parking further away, stretching at our desks or walking faster, are all steps to creating energy in our bodies and building momentum that might lead us on to other forms of exercise.
What we put into our bodies determines what the body can do – it’s not rocket science. When we choose our food, unless we are growing our own, we have to interact with bigger systems that may have something other than our best interests at heart. Supermarkets are more interested in profit than health. Most of our food choices are not made on a nutritional basis but are influenced by geographical, social, political, religious, psychological and economic factors. We have to weigh up availability, cost and nutritional value while being bombarded with advertisements and special offers. It’s hardly surprising that the rate of obesity is increasing so rapidly in the West.
The nutritional requirements of humans are quite simple but there is a huge diversity of ways in which we can meet these needs. Different foods represent different things to us, beyond just their nutritional value. Typically we seek ‘comfort’ food, or associate certain foods with security or love. Advertisers play on these associations.
We will have developed patterns of the foods we choose, methods of eating, preparation, number of meals per day, time of eating and size of portions from when we were small children. These habits come into being and are maintained because they are practical or symbolically meaningful to us. They can be very ingrained and it may take a while to shift to more appropriate patterns for our current lifestyle. Ecological and economic factors change availability forcing change of habits. New foods and recipes are discovered, widening our choices. When we share food with friends and family we also share our habits.
Whatever we eat has short, medium and long-term effects. A lot of the food we are sold tempts us on the short-term taste effect. This is indicative of the short-term thinking that dominates the industrial growth culture and has created many problems for the planet. Short-term effects are felt within the first hour: the taste, the feeling in our stomach, and the change in energy. After that we move into the medium-term effects: how do you feel in an hour or two, do you want more, have you got more or less energy, do you feel bloated? And then the long-term effects: is it excess fuel that your body is going to store as fat? What is it doing to your internal systems? There are also effects outside of ourselves: where did the food come from, what is the packaging and where is it going? Unfortunately it is the long-term effects that we pay least attention to. When we start to ask ourselves these questions we can learn to self-regulate more effectively. Using the biotime diary can help us to get in touch with how we feel after different food types. The next step is to interact with those observations.
Cooking with fresh ingredients has more nutritional value than processed food; generally less sugar, salt and fat. The process of cooking also has value and enjoyment in itself and is not just about the end product. Growing, preparing and cooking the food extend the experience and bring more satisfaction, incorporating other needs of participation and connection as well as exercising our design skills and creativity.
Rest and relaxation are important parts of maintaining our systems. They have benefits for our physical and emotional bodies. Our energy follows a wave pattern and periods of rest and renewal are as necessary as the activity. If you are taking some time out to relax then there is no point in feeling guilty about it and thinking that you ‘should’ be doing something else. Sitting and doing nothing and just daydreaming for 20 minutes is a valid part of self-care. The dream state is a powerful place to be in; it is the edge between our conscious and subconscious1 minds and allowing time for this integration by just sitting and being is valuable. Expanding the edge between sleep and activity allows the lessons of the subconscious to surface and take root. Being fully present and conscious that this is your time to relax will help you get the most out of it.
Take a moment to note your reaction to the idea of sitting and doing nothing for 20 minutes. Try it now and see what happens.
For many people sitting in front of the television is their main form of relaxation. Sitting may relax the body but what we are watching determines what is happening to our emotions. When we plug ourselves into the TV we are denying ourselves time to just be and dream, to reflect on our day and be in our own thoughts or to be creative.
What form of rest or relaxation do you take daily and weekly? How long do you spend weekly relaxing? Having regular times and activities gives us signs of self-worth and increases the benefits.
Alice Walker talks of the pause, “the moment when something major is accomplished and we are so relieved to finally be done with it that we are already rushing, at least mentally, into The Future. Wisdom, however, requests a pause. If we cannot give ourselves such a pause, the Universe will likely give it to us.”2
Many of us have first-hand experience of illnesses or cars breaking down, or other ways we have been forced to take time to rest. If we design these periods of rest and rejuvenation into our systems, with the pause anchor point, then they might happen less often in unplanned ways with other difficult side effects.
Sleep is vital to our physical and emotional health. It allows the subconscious mind to process our day’s events and integrate new learning.
We will have inherited beliefs and assumptions about sleep; these could be cultural beliefs as well as personal ones. Personal beliefs we may have about our own sleep patterns are ‘we can’t get to sleep at night without...’, ‘we can’t get out of bed easily in the mornings’, ‘we can’t get to sleep if we are cold’, ‘we can’t nap in the day’. Again we need to ask ourselves if these beliefs are currently useful to us and if there are exceptions to them.
If we experience a ‘sleep problem’, can we turn it around and make a solution out of the problem, by using the characteristics to our advantage? For example if we have trouble getting to sleep at night because we have too many thoughts going around our heads can we write them down and catch some of the ideas? Could we relax and enjoy the edge between our dream state and conscious thoughts when we wake in the middle of the night and listen to the messages this time holds for us?
Many people’s lives are peppered with anger, fear, worry and guilt. Can you imagine the difference in our communities if people felt joyful, confident, hopeful and peaceful on a regular basis? Two things become apparent here. Firstly, how affected we can be by the emotions of others and secondly how these negative emotions can almost be connected up into a spiral of erosion: worry leading to fear to anger to guilt and maintaining momentum to spiral into more and more negative feelings. It would be hard to distinguish the cause and the symptoms. There are likely to be other effects on our health and relationships such as disturbed sleeping and eating habits and arguments, that would in turn further compound these feelings.
Negative moods are giving us messages from the subconscious mind; they are letting us know that something is out of balance, a need is not being met, perhaps the need for time alone, being heard or rest. Taking time to find out what that message is helps to change the moods.
Our energy can shift rapidly. This is particularly true with children; they can be out walking and saying how bored and tired they are one minute and the next they see a cat ahead and run off. We could be sitting at work trying to plough through our jobs and we get a phone call inviting us to a party; suddenly we are excited and have energy. Equally it can dissipate rapidly; a sarcastic comment from your boss and you might deflate instantly or be thrown into confusion.
Our emotions and our energy levels are linked. Our emotions can follow a wave pattern and it isn’t necessary for us to expect to be totally joyful all the time, but when we get stuck with feeling low then it is good to have some way of pushing ourselves up again without resorting to something artificial that is unhelpful to our health in other ways, such as alcohol.
Weeding and pruning are part of gardeners’ processes to keep a balance. What emotions can we weed or prune out of our lives, making space for the ones we do want?
Anger is a symptom of something else going on. Anger can arise from a physical hurt, shame, teasing, unfairness, fear, misunderstanding or embarrassment. We can develop anger habits; circumstances, people or timings provoke the same feelings over and over again.
We can use the energy behind the emotion to motivate us to do something. We need to find ways to integrate and transform the energy rather than suppressing it. When it has no outlet anger is likely to be turned inwards and cause illness or explode out into the world creating more problems.
Anger about injustices in the world has provided the energy for action to change them. The bumper sticker ‘if you’re not angry you’re not paying attention’, reminds us there is much in the world to be upset about. Many permaculturists have their roots in campaign movements fuelled by anger at what is happening in the world. Permaculture has led them to being proactive in finding solutions.
There are times when we find ourselves caught in mental circles. This could be from worrying about something, replaying conversations or gossip, or being caught in a loop of indecision.
These loops can be exhausting, taking our energy away from taking any positive action. They may be spiralling and the situation gets blown out of proportion. We can get caught up with imagining and second-guessing what the other person is thinking and interpreting their comments and actions.
We need to stop and find the learning or growing edge. What can we learn from what has just happened? How does it affect me in this moment – not the future or the past? We can write down why we are worrying, what we might like to do differently and possible courses of action, focusing on the lesson and then letting it go.
It can be beneficial to imagine a big STOP sign in your mind, a barrier coming down in your thinking, switching the tracks of thinking and getting off the negative thought train.
How can we grow happiness in our lives? Small amounts of joy can quickly dispel a lake of anxiety, if only we could bottle it. We all need to find our own ways of building up our reserves and being able to access them at times to bring ourselves up. Being joyful and happy can motivate ourselves and others around us.
We could use the design tool of inputs and outputs to gain a better understanding: what are we putting into our emotional bodies? Daily news, soap operas and crime programmes are going to filter down into our emotions. What other influences are we surrounding ourselves with? And what is coming out in our lives – family arguments, sleepless nights, nightmares, self-criticisms and fear?
Are there inputs that we could stop to curtail the negative emotions? What would we need to put in to get more positive emotions out?
When he is teaching Qi Gong, my friend Paul Eagles suggests we give ourselves permission to be unreasonably happy. There are cultural norms and limits on how much is ‘right’ to feel and express. What other permissions could we give ourselves – permission to be less than perfect, make mistakes, experiment, love, be creative…
Our confidence, self-esteem and trust are all interlinked and can be increased by expanding the edges of our comfort zone. When we give ourselves feedback in the form of self-appreciation rather than self-criticism, we might reflect and improve instead of feeling regret and guilt.
We make decisions every day, all day; what to wear, what to cook, where to go, how to speak to people. Every decision that we make sets us on a different path. Different decisions have a variety of short-, medium- and long-term outcomes, so while something may seem to be not the best thing in the short term it may be that further down we arrive at the place we were aiming for. It is virtually impossible to tell what all the outcomes of our actions will be further downstream.
Saying to ourselves ‘I should have done this’ or ‘I should have known better’ undermines our confidence. The word ‘should’ implies lack of choice and responsibility. It ties us to the past instead of allowing us to be in the present and plan for the future from where we currently are. Replacing shoulds with coulds allows us to see that there were in fact many other possibilities that may have given us different outcomes. We can feel that other options were open to us and think about what might have been without implying we were in the wrong for not taking them.
A useful principle that can shift our attitude significantly is the problem is the solution. Each situation we find ourselves in has a unique set of characteristics. Focusing on how to use these characteristics to our advantage rather than trying to change them can lead us to a satisfactory conclusion. Within there somewhere is a solution, we just need to be open to finding it and recognise it as such.
This principle invites us to seek the blessing in disguise from the outset. For example, if an event is cancelled, how can we use the time we now have available – what gifts arise from the new situation? How can I turn it around to make the most of it – what are the positives, the advantages? How do I utilise the plus points? If I was to think of this as a great thing that was happening to me what would that be like? This involves changing perceptions and reframing the situation. Altering plans provides new opportunities and opens doors into unseen scenarios.
Our lives follow a branching pattern; each decision we make opens new doors ahead into different scenarios previously unseen. Only if we stay still do we restrict our potential to learn and grow.
Building trust in ourselves builds our resilience for the changes and challenges we face.
One of the main aspects of a healthy mind is to be continually learning. We can increase our ability to learn new skills with some simple self–reflection and awareness techniques. The learning cycle continues throughout our lives, not just in formal education settings. Starting a new job, embarking on a project or becoming a parent are all learning opportunities. Improving our peoplecare skills of self-care, communication and creativity all follow similar patterns of learning. Understanding these can save us time and effort and increase the health of our minds.
One of the primary beliefs of home education is ‘if children can motivate and think for themselves they can learn and do anything they choose to’. It is more important that they know how to learn than knowing specific facts by rote. Once a person knows how to ask questions, research, use their memory and integrate the learning into their lives, they can apply this to any new skill.
Questioning is a sign of curiosity, intelligence and dynamic engagement. Questions show that you want to integrate the new information with existing knowledge and your map of the world. It is not accepting the information as static but allowing it to be expanded upon. There are many questions in this book to stimulate self-reflections and the search for your own answers. The questions are an invitation to slow your reading, and turn the book into a conversation in which you can learn much about yourself.
When we want to learn a particular skill we can look to people already doing it. This is looking at the details of what people are doing and trying to find the patterns of their success, the underlying principles that they use in their work.
From reading a book to attending a workshop, we can look deeper than the content to the underlying structures and processes that either engage or bore us. To improve our business skills we could look at successful businesses. All around us are living examples of peoplecare in action to learn from. For anything you want to do you can look at the deeper level of what others do. You can see what the metapicture is that makes them successful and apply this to your own situation.
Asking ourselves why things do not work provides us with as much information as recalling how and why they worked well. We can learn from the mistakes of others as well as our own.
When something doesn’t work quite in the way we expected we could use this as a learning opportunity. This is starting to break the mould of success and failure. These mistakes are not failures in our lives; they are opportunities for us to try something new, problem-solve and improve our skills. We can harvest the feedback from the experience to provide us with rich information and a better starting position in the future. What could we do differently next time? How could we improve? What are the patterns of what we did that could be different and what are the details that could be changed?
Gemma Suggitt, a gardener, says that permaculture helped to liberate her from her self-confessed perfectionism. It has allowed her to see that it is OK to break rules, experiment, copy other people’s ideas, and do things her own way. It allowed her to see that there was more than one way of doing things, and it might not work out the way she planned in the garden, but that is OK.
The competence cycle shows how we move through four stages from not knowing at all about a skill to it becoming second nature. This could be anything from patterns and principles to listening and facilitation.
When we first come across a skill we have no idea how to carry it out, it is all a mystery to us. We see the finished product but have no idea of how to get there. We may have heard the term ‘principles of nature’, but have no understanding of what that means.
In stage one people can be complacent, static, defensive or in denial. They may be in their comfort zone and happy in their place of ignorance. They could be in a state of anticipation and expectation of something new.
In this stage we are shown how to do something and become aware of what we don’t know.
Moving to stage two may be overwhelming. People can feel shocked, panicked or embarrassed and have a sense of urgency when they see how much there is to know. There can be excitement and a hunger and eagerness to know more.
We learn how to do a skill and can accomplish it ourselves with concentration.
This stage brings highs and lows with growing confidence punctuated with times of humbleness. There can be satisfaction and frustration. The concentration needed is tiring and we can be either self-conscious or arrogant.
After practice the skill becomes second nature and we are able to do it without thinking about each individual step so much.
When we have moved to stage four we can feel relieved, confident and relaxed. We may forget the previous stages we have journeyed through and not value the skill, feeling bored and complacent and insensitive to the incompetence of others. We may become stale in our skill and think we know it all and the passion for learning may go out or we may be buzzing with enthusiasm to share.
When we learn another aspect of the skill we go round the cycle again. We can be in more than one stage at a time. We may have reached stage three with driving a car, but still be at stage one with parking. The stages are more of a continuum that we move through rather than distinct steps.
What is illustrated here is the connection between our emotional health and our ability to learn. It is obvious that there are emotions here that would push us on and inspire us to continue learning and there are others that may make us give up. We have been through this cycle numerous times in our life, from learning to walk and riding a bike, to science classes at school, from learning an instrument to our first job.
These build our beliefs about ourselves as learners. When we enter a new learning context these beliefs can trigger the same emotions, leading us to a positive or negative spiral of learning.
This is an opportunity for us to practise pattern recognition on our habits of learning. There may be one particular stage that we habitually stop at. Some people may find that they don’t want to learn new things; they do not want to have that feeling of not knowing so they stay in stage one and are averse to new skills and experiences. For others as soon as the door is opened in stage two they run in the opposite direction. For some people it can be too tiring being in stage three and they don’t want to do the practice that it would take to move them to stage four. Some people can get to stage four but then get bored and do not maintain or exercise the skills they have gained.
Awareness that these are the emotions associated with each stage of learning and not necessarily down to our own weaknesses can be the first step in breaking unhelpful patterns. Just knowing this to be a natural cycle helps to stay with the learning process.
It will normally be a mix of emotions that are stirred within us. We can now also look for the accompanying emotions that could drive us forward and not just focus on the ones that are pushing us away from the learning. We can prepare ourselves in advance and look for support to help us through a particular stage. We can accelerate the natural succession through the cycle by focusing on the positive emotions, practising and getting support. By shifting to positive learning patterns we can cultivate a healthy mind and make it fertile for new growth.
There is a further stage that not everyone will automatically progress to.
In this stage we can take in the whole cycle of learning like ‘the wise owl’. By consciously going into the stage we are able to reflect on our learning journey and empathise with others. Taking time to reflect provides us with a useful pattern for any other skill we learn, the limits we had to overcome and the helps that have supported our journey. We can show self-appreciation for our efforts.
To most effectively pass on the skill we need to go to stage five, where we can break it into components for someone else to follow. In this stage we can be creative with the skill and develop it for ourselves, not just learning from others, and maybe finding new ways to share and teach it.
We want to create a spiral of abundance learning where:
Howard Gardner4 first proposed this division and highlighting of multiple intelligences. Within each of us is more ‘intelligence’ than is measured merely by the standard intelligence tests. Intelligences are a set of abilities and skills that can be developed and improved. We each have all of these intelligences to some extent, although some may be more in use and others latent. The more stimulation, the more they develop, and increasing one intelligence helps to stimulate the others. Developing the full range will assist in our long-term learning. He uses the terms ‘intelligences’ and ‘talents’ interchangeably. Some people will have a naturally high intelligence in particular areas. What is valued and therefore encouraged and stimulated varies across human cultures and even from family to family.
Permaculture is an integrating approach that can stimulate all of the intelligences. At the end of this part we will consider how we can use them when we are designing for ourselves.
Draw your own spectrum or rating for your intelligences. Appreciate the talents you have.5
Another aspect of our health is our spiritual well-being. This is not necessarily aligning ourselves to a religion but being aware of a bigger picture, of life outside of ourselves and our control. We could think of it as our intuitional health.
Humans like to create clearly defined boundaries and this has contributed to our perceived separation from nature. We like to define our ‘self’ as something distinct from ‘the wild’ or the ‘other’. This has resulted in alienation from other people, other species and the Earth. Edges are not impermeable barriers, however they are entrance and entry points, passageways between two ‘selves’. When we eat an apple, at what point does it become a part of our ‘self’? When we connect to nature and other people, we recognise our interconnectedness.
There are environments that encourage and support us to open up to a spiritual perspective. Places of worship and retreat centres hold the space that allows us to open up to the possibilities, and we can then carry this awareness and attitude back into our daily lives. A spiritual robustness is expressed through the daily living of a spiritual path. Spending time with nature as our spiritual teacher encourages an appreciation of death and life cycles.
We need food for our soul as much as for our bodies. We may find this through music, art, sacred places, dance, walking in nature, being with animals or deep connections with people.
Realisation of ourselves beyond time, words and body provides the foundation for spiritual health. It is easy to get caught up in ‘little’ world experiences, the day to day running of our lives; expansion into ‘big’ world perception allows us to see the beauty, connection and order in the world. Giving thanks and expressing our gratitude for the lives we lead and all the gifts it presents us with opens our hearts. The appreciation anchor point incorporates this into our designs.
A spiritual perspective encourages us to be mindful of a bigger picture and timeframes beyond our human perspective. The Great Turning may take another 200 years to fully move into a life-sustaining Earth culture, but this is still a blink of an eye in planetary terms. Connecting with the bigger picture reminds us that we are just a part of this journey.
Our breath is unifying and is the connection between our internal and external worlds, and connects every living being. Each breath is as unique as every wave lapping on the shore.
Take deep breaths. With the first breath feel the air filling your lungs. With the second breath feel it in your abdomen. With the third breath feel it filling your entire body. Continue to breathe with your awareness on it filling your whole being. With each breath, as you breathe in imagine you are breathing in strength and energy; as you breathe out imagine any discomfort or tension leaving your body. With the next three breaths think about one thing in your life you are thankful for.
Focusing on our in-breath we will not find a distinct point of entry into our being; it is a continuous flow from outside the body to inside the body. Imagine your breath going out into the world, connecting with every living being.