}
I recently followed a collective connected worldwide course, Tools for a Regenerative Renaissance, a new 6-week better-than-free scalable course funded by SEEDS, the regenerative currency, to help onboard civil society onto open-source, decentralised platforms and practices.
Here is the – very personal - story that led me to that discovery, that I do believe needed to be shared.
The name behind my pseudo is Anne-Laure. I’m French (pardon my unperfect English, not too bad for a French though ;p), about to turn 40’s, and even though one could think it’s more of a middle age crisis than a true thing (hi Mum), I am mutating.
Everything begun in my early 30’s (see Mum, no link to any cliché). At that time I was living a very “unconscious” life. I had had the “chance” to grow up with “everything I needed” – in a material way, as everyone seemed to believe that was the key to happiness. I remember telling myself again and again “I have everything (faithful partner, lovely flat, job, money to enjoy life,…) to be happy, but I’m not”.
I know now that I was in that gilded cage, an illusion of comfort, but when you look at it with more attention, you realise you are nothing but imprisoned into a non-virtuous life.
Embrace change, risks included
So I took a crazy leap of faith, I changed parts of the equation, bit by bit.
First, my since-I-was-a-teenager relationship. As he was not willing to take the risks to make some changes in our life, to open it to something greater, more connected to reality, more curious to others and other ways of living. I had always dreamt to travel, he thought it was too dangerous – but the famous quote is so right guys, “adventure might be dangerous, but routine is lethal”. I was dying inside, I freed myself, then I little by little got myself to reborn. It was the first time of my life to be single and live alone, and that was not a piece of cake at all, but every year spent since then gave me so much to grow and enjoy!
From then, pieces of the puzzle begun to come together. First strong awareness: in the middle of Cambodia, I felt that what was truly important to me was to live sharing and exciting moments, far more important than looking good and dressing up super classy - even though I still love to dress up, I just do it in a different way.
How did I got to turn into a conscious consumer?
Spoiler alert: I am still not perfect, but I am truly far on the path of being a Mother Earth caretaker.
Fact is a very sad event happened to make me begin my journey to consciousness: in 2013, Rana Plaza, a Bangladeshi clothes factory collapsed. 1135 deaths, and many more injured. I don’t remember how I got informed of that (I’ve never been into TV news), but I saw brands I was buying were running away from their responsibilities, and that made me do my first step into boycott, thus into being a conscious consumer, not thinking about my only pleasure but about a whole.
For a long time, I kept buying too many new clothes, but every time I had a new unaligned with my values info, I decided to adapt and find better solutions. Meanwhile, I begun to sort my waste but I must confess that was thanks to the boyfriend I had then. When I think about it now, I still don’t get why I needed someone else to make me do that, but I also forgive myself and accept that everyone has his way and time to do things. And I do think that boyfriend was a part of the puzzle to help me become a better version of myself, and I am thankful for that (even though that didn’t end up well :p).
Now, I buy (almost) only second hand, check material to ensure degradability or ensure myself to buy durable objects. I avoid packaging as much as possible, have always with me a foldable grocery bag, and live with less and still feel no lack of anything (thank you internet! even though we all know internet is not clean, it’s still a better solution to reduce waste.)
Trying to become a regenerative producer
Back to 2013, I’m 32. At that stage of my life, I decided to quit the bullshit job I had to create my own business. I bet you already guessed the field: fashion, but made in France one, to preserve local craftmanship. My country forgot about the richness and importance of such knowledge, my culture says it’s not succeeding in life to make such jobs, encouraging intellectual only careers. Such a stupid belief. (Good news is that since then, France is little by little making industry to come back on its territory – bad news is people are still not a majority to be ready to pay for it but let’s focus on the fact that things are transforming into better ways.)
I didn’t manage to make my made in France brand work then. Had to take a new job, focusing on my inner growth for years, experimenting good and less pleasant moments, that took 4 years.
I quit again the “good job”, to go once more into fashion, but this time trying to make sustainable fashion get bigger in France, to help people having the true good information to help them decide consciously.
But this was still not working: trying to make sense into a system still completely woven into the capitalistic system was just exhausting. And that hit me: living in Paris was an issue.
I was struggling to pay the bills (same reason I had to stop my brand), forcing me to work into dull companies (but making enough money to pay me). I had to create the proper space and time to plant good seeds into my life.
Experimenting alternative ways of living
I had always lived into big cities, where you don’t even need a car because you have public transportation (at least that was a good thing for the environment), and where you have everything you need but so much more you really don’t need too.
My first experiment was to live in the suburbs, but as I expected that was not at all a solution. More space for less money, but still not enough nature, at least a local organic vegetable producer but still not that life balance that feels right. Without speaking about the difficulty to get a social life as people there often share the mindset to stick to their personal circle only.
But life had made me meet a really nice guy, sharing my values (and even having stronger than mines!). We got organized to quit it all and go travel for an undefined time. That journey begun mid-2019, we first visited smaller cities of France but that was still cities with all the good and the disadvantages of it. In September, we left with our backpacks for South America, and that begun to be a true experiment of other ways of living.
First, all you need to live is on your back. No space for anything else, and you prove yourself that’s far enough to enjoy life 200%. Second, you discover people very far from what we call in french “metro-boulot-dodo” (subway-work-sleep), and you see you can make a living differently, mixing revenues sources, points of interests. And third, gosh those huge wild lands, that’s such a paradise! I definitely feel better among nature, true one, not the small parks in the middle of traffic jam.
We spent 10 months taking our time slow travelling through Paraguay, Argentina, a part of Urugay and Chili, and Covid happened. We waited 3 months, hoping to be able to hit the road again but that didn’t git better so we decided to go back to France.
We took that opportunity to keep experimenting volunteering in countryside places, to learn about techniques but also to check if we felt happy doing such every day work. And we did. First time of my life I felt truly useful, and had the pleasure to share my time between computer screen and building things with my hands, into nature.
The new better version of myself
We had left for South America with our laptops, with the idea to find new ways of working thanks to internet. But fact is we didn’t had enough time to make it a leaving before coming back to France.
I am into design, marketing and communication. I had begun to get small freelancing contracts on the road, but that was scarce.
Looking back then, I now understand that I needed to keep growing as a more aligned person first. Internet is a great tool to connect to the world even when you are far from everything, and I met inspiring people I felt so connected to! At last I was feeling understood by others, not being the weird lost girl anymore.
I was not alone anymore, I was feeling surrounded by good people, not judging me, all the contrary, we were helping one another to go forward to create a better world together. That brought me self-confidence.
But internet was still not enough then to earn enough money to develop our projects in France immediately. We ended up to have to go back to Paris to find well-paid jobs, and that gave me kind of a vertigo. But I was not the same girl I was before, and that made all the difference.
As I am writing those words, we are still in Paris, really busy to create savings to soon leave for south of France in a few weeks to look for lands to build our own ecological house.
I had never felt professional fulfilment in 15 years of working in Paris, but that time, in a few weeks, I met amazing clients and have never felt that happy making a leaving. Covid had the work from home thing easier, so I hope to keep those clients even hundreds of kilometers away from them, coming to see them sometimes but spending most of my life in the middle of the countryside.
Keeping learning and creating regenerative connections
While I was creating my own new "crews", my boyfriend was discovering his: Seeds. Have you ever heard about local currencies so you put value into what deserves it, generally small shops? Seeds is that kind of idea, with much power has it’s online: Seeds community is creating a regenerative money to empower humanity and heal our planet.
Money is power, and if you give more power to virtuous initiatives and don’t spend into degenerative ones, world heals finding a fairest balance between humanity and nature. Exciting, isn’t it?
Thanks to the virtuous community of Seeds, we got informed of the online course “Tools for the Regenerative Renaissance” and decided to onboard with dozens of other caring individuals from every part of the world.
From the first themed week, I saw my face smiling at my computer listening to true inspiring people: “we come from original beauty and not original sin” says Pat McCabe, a speaker of one of the first great contents I watched thanks to the huge amount of resources given in the course.
The course takes you to considerate the forgotten wisdom of indigenous people, but still there to be rediscovered and shared to the world. You also dive into regenerative agriculture – and that made me think about the permaculture we already had in mind for our future home. You learn about decentralized solutions regarding power and connectivity, and I definitely need to apply those principles for our next home. Then you go into money and innovative solutions to exchange value, but for those subjects I must confess I will need more time to get it all, however I know it’s a key solution to create the regenerated world we want. Another great key is clearly decentralized organizing and horizontal leadership, and that’s probably the one I am the most comfortable with already living it in my everyday life. All those subjects lead to questioning ownership and commons, and that’s not yet simple to sort all out but I am truly convinced that collaboration and sharing is core of the change we all await for.
Such a pleasure to (even virtually) meet conscious people, taking actions to make a change. To connect to them and creating good awareness together, participating to spread the good words and energies. Planting seeds, growing love and care, getting to reborn together and inviting always more people to join us on our journey to regeneration.
I look forward seeing what we – conscious humans- will be able to create together, and I am already super thankful for all the good my recent discoveries gave me, taking time to enjoy every step on the way.
My story tells it takes time to change, and yet I don’t want to urge anyone to begin its own journey, I can’t help saying “the sooner the better” as our so beautiful planet is just not doing super great for decades.
My story says some may begin this journey in a selfish way, just to feel better in its life, but getting aware on the way that everything is connected and that nothing else but holistic dynamics will make not only oneself better but everyone. So, as a great artist once sang, “heal the world, make it a better place” 😉.