I used to think that if we could just persuade everyone to buy sustainable products, recycle, compost, and participate in renewable energy, we would solve our environmental and human health problems.
I would try to persuade people of the dangers (to themselves, animals and nature’s systems) of chemically based body care products, air pollution, gas-guzzling cars, or processed foods. Then I would feel frustrated and alone when most people didn’t seem to care.
What I realized is that you make Earth-centered and health-centered choices when you have had a change of heart: when you have developed a heart-based connection to the natural world, you care about nature’s wellness and your own. And trying to ‘inspire’ people with fear-inducing information usually doesn’t work, and didn’t feel good to me.
My interest now is in supporting people to feel so nourishingly connected to the natural world that they feel wonderful about acting to support nature’s wellbeing and their own. I know we can heal Earth and ourselves through actions inspired by love for all life.
My guest this week on Humans & Earth, Aaron Perry, cultivates a loving connection to Earth and an array of sustainable business practices, and is an expert in discussing how our care for the natural world is also care for ourselves. Find our conversation here.
Aaron is a writer, public speaker, impact entrepreneur, consultant, and father. The author of Y on Earth: Get Smarter, Feel Better, Heal the Planet, Aaron works with the Y on Earth Community team and Impact Ambassadors, and consults to sustainably focused businesses. He has launched and owned companies in the recycling, renewable energy, and local/organic food industries.
Find him at www.yonearth.org, where you can use the discount code HUMANSANDEARTH for a 33% discount on unlimited downloads of all ebook and audiobook resources (including children’s books) at https://yonearth.org/market/
In this episode, hear Aaron discuss:
- How his lifelong nature connection merges with his business expertise to create a loving, heartfelt experience of working in the sustainability field.
- Why caring for nature is caring for yourself. In fact, gratitude releases brain chemicals that benefit mental, emotional, and physical well-being. We actually “become stewards of our neuro-biochemistry” by interacting with nature. “When we say, ‘Get Smarter, Feel Better,’ that’s literal—it’s not a joke, it’s not a metaphor, it’s literal.”
- Why he wrote his Soil Stewardship Handbook: to invite anyone and everyone to be aware that it’s with soil and the regeneration of soil that we get to help our communities and our ecosystems, AND stabilize our climate. As we’re doing more gardening, permaculture, and biodynamic soil care, we collaborate with microorganisms and plants to pull carbon out of the atmosphere. “We literally have the opportunity to take atmosphere carbon levels back to pre-Industrial levels and heal our world.”
- Suggestions of books and websites he finds inspiring…and his thoughts on why the biodynamic movement offers us one of our most wonderful sets of solutions of “medicine for the land and us” and cultivating a life of meaning, purpose, balance, joy.
- Why “envisioning may be one of the most potent superpowers we have as humans.” He shares his rich and inspiring vision of the ecologically renewed world we are creating:
- Plus, Aaron offers a discount code for book purchases at the marvelous Chelsea Green Publishers, home of inspiring books on all things sustainability!
I’ve created something to support your thriving. It’s an ebook called A Guide to Informed Optimism: Things to Know and Explore to Feel Hopeful about the Human Future with Earth.
How would you feel if you realized that we’re already healing our planet? Do you know about the numerous regenerative solutions that are already established and just need to be scaled up? Informed Optimism is being alert to the need for Earth’s restoration while also becoming excited about how much progress we’re already making.
A Guide to Informed Optimism: Things to Know and Explore to Feel Hopeful about the Human Future with Earth identifies 8 Global Movements that are regenerating Earth’s systems and creating jobs and well-being for people, and 8 initiatives with the potential to create enormous healing for people and planet. Informed Optimism Inquiry questions throughout the e-book help you consider how you feel as you learn about restorative solutions, how you would like to see them advance, and how you are attracted to participate.
Humans create what we believe we can create. If you want to join in deciding that we can heal Earth and humanity, you can discover or up-level your contribution and enjoy co-creating with humanity and nature. For only $7, you can explore Informed Optimism at www.humansandearth.com/courses
For humans and Earth,
Chara Armon