Happiness Comes When You Deepen Your Identity
The Earth Is Not Well-aligned When You Are Not Well-aligned.
Along the Heartwood Path, one can experience the kinds of changes in perspective that will enable one to reconnect with the “whole” or the “Greater Self” (a self that includes the whole environment, as opposed to just your more narrow individual self), to improve relationships, to foster happiness, and to help preserve the planet. These changes are essential to the future success of the environmental movement because to remake the world a significant number of people will need to upgrade (convert) their perspectives.
“Before you can have a change of heart, you (have to) step outside yourself to get a larger perspective. The Ego (by which I mean one’s everyday conscious self or personality) tries to narrow every issue down to ‘What will I get out of this?’ When you reframe the question as . . . What will everyone get out of this?’ your heart will immediately feel less confused and constricted” (Chopra, 2004, p. 221).
Uproot your unhappiness.
A better earth requires a better you. Said in a way that removes the onus on you alone—a way that also probably originates from my upbringing in the Bible Belt: For God’s Nature to be respected human nature has to be perfected. Conversion from individual self alienation to Greater Self integrity has to precede successful global conservation.
Actually, neither of these phrases suitably represents what I am trying to say. Notions of being “better” and being “perfect” require the kinds of judgments not well suited to one’s advancement to GladandGreen Junction—the metaphorical end of the Heartwood Path. Here’s a fitting phrase:
For God’s Nature to be respected human nature has to be perfected.
