HEALING: the process of making or becoming more sound or healthy (again).
PROCESS was developed from a personal means to heal my own consumer habits and change my material impact on the world. It has become the crux to how I live my values, the most important value being “sustainability”. We are all on a healing journey. Whether we are healing from what our ancestors endured, healing from our own past or healing for future generations, each healing journey is intricate to unravel.
Looking around at objects and my environment I contemplate their impact on my health. This isn’t just my physical health but also my emotional wellbeing. When I started on a low waste journey I took stock of what I was buying and whether it was contributing to or hindering a sense of wellness. Each time I went to shop or consume I would have to ask: Was an object made to last generations? Did it have multiple purposes? What was the life cycle, footprint or end story of an object? What lasting impacts does an object have? In asking these questions my relationship with buying became stressful and disheartening. All these small choices in what I consumed made lasting impacts on my health.
Little steps. There is always something being offered to make our lives “better”. Whether we find help through social media, self help industry and consumerism as a whole, there’s always this suggestion we should step towards something. As I see it, life is about making small moves closer to who we want to be, where we want to see ourselves. Before I started PROCESS it felt overwhelming, daunting and futile. There was always somewhere else I needed to be on this journey of self-discovery, zero waste living, simple living or generally living more sustainably.
I woke up in the middle of the night, as I often do, with rambling thoughts. As I wandered between dream and reality, a soft and clear epiphany came to me: “PROCESS has always been about healing”. Every choice I have made for PROCESS can be reduced to making little moves towards a more sustainable lifestyle, that means healing consumer habits, investing in quality products that I use each day, following the lifecycle of the goods we consume, and most importantly making choices that bring me closer to family, friends and caring for our community.
When we heal, it feels like we have to leave something behind to get closer to something new. I don’t think this is the most sustainable sentiment. That is such a capitalist, colonial way to process change. Do we ever leave ourselves behind… no matter how much we change? Shouldn’t we be mending, finding new uses, recycling habits, reinventing versus throwing older versions of ourselves away?
PROCESS is a get off the internet and interact in person kind of place. It’s about discovering new ideas and having fun trying new things. It’s about indulging and investing in products and ideas that make us enjoy our life while not destroying the planet. Most importantly it’s about reducing our stress, reexamining our habits, recycling choices we make, rethinking our lifestyle, and refusing to be complacent.
I invite you to think about your own healing journey and how the process has changed you.