Inspired by Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, and Hindu traditions, it is a beautiful modern take on the traditional fasting intended to move us from winter slumber into Easter celebration, a kind of modern-day lifestyle detox.
It involves ten guidelines to be followed as faithfully as possible for 40 days (from Ash Wednesday to Good Friday):
1. Do something for another person (in deed or financially)
2. Spend at least fifteen minutes meditating, reciting a mantra, or praying.
3. Listen with full attention to a beautiful piece of music (such as an excerpt from Bach's Mattheus Passion)
4. Refrain from killing any living creature (including flies and mosquitoes), and therefore eat vegetarian
5. Refrain from lying, gossiping, saying unkind things about another person, and cursing
6. Refrain from eating sweets, snacking, mindless eating, alcohol, cigarettes and drugs
7. Do not take anything that is not given to you
8. Refrain from watching TV
9. Limit interactions with internet to that which is strictly necessary for work and other obligations
10. Limit spending to the strictly necessary
...
For the last seven years or so (as long as i've been getting the invitation), i have done my darned best to take part every year.
I say 'my best' not because i failed (how can you fail a series of intentions?), but because taking part has required an unusual dose of will-power and inner bullying. While my degree of compliance has varied with the years, as you would expect, my basic resistance to the entire procedure has remained constant, aka MASSIVE.
The thing is that somewhere along the way, it has dawned on me that huge amounts of will-power and inner bullying are not, despite what it says in the advert, the best way to move through life... And that maybe resistance of such magnitude is to be kindly acknowledged and explored, not squashed under foot...
In the wake of which discoveries, i had kind of made up my mind to not even attempt the lifestyle fast this year.
But then something happened, something a big magical, that made me change my mind.
A few days ago, the usual invitation arrived in my mailbox. Except, it wasn't the usual invitation at all. To be specific, two words had been added to it:
It was now called '40 Days of Sobriety and Sustainability'.
and that, believe it or not, has made all the difference.
What can i say, i am a language person... words mean the wor(l)d to me.
And i find 'sobriety' remarkably unmotivating. at the risk of misusing my lapsed catholic identity here, the very word 'sobriety' has always sounded a bit too sinfully calvinistic to my ears...
Mostly, though, i find sobriety unsustainable. Something i can achieve, with the above-mentioned dose of will-power and inner bullying, for a very short period of time, before relapsing straight into all my former 'bad unconscious habits' with a vengeance (a process referred to as 'backlash').
....
But this, this made me think. What if these 40 days were an invitation to sustainability? Now that had my inner ears pricked...
What if this was an invitation to create something truly sustainable? First and foremost sustainable for 40 days. But above and beyond that, a template for a sustainable life. A life that will sustain me, and a life that i can sustain. A life that will sustain my family and one that my family can sustain. And even further beyond, what if this was an invitation to a template for a sustainable world?
What if by taking the time to precisely define and then implement this sustainable lifestyle, i would be making a real contribution (possibly the only one within my power) to a more sustainable world?
Wow.
...
So i sat with it for a while. Under a tree.
...
And considered the ten guidelines. What they point to. How they meet my life where my life is at. What sustainable means, for me, for us, in each of these. And i have come up with a template for the next 40 days, that feels sustainable to me.
i am so excited...
(very mild levels of resistance being registered on the local Richter scale)
Here it is, for inspiration, for sharing, mostly so that i remember ;-).
40 Days of Sustainability Guidelines
1. Refrain from shouting at people (children, husbands, friends, family, cashiers, etc.)
(this requires extremely high and consistent levels of self-love, for i have discovered that i only (ever) shout at people when i am being shouted at, by the bully inside)
2. Eating sort of vegetarian
(i.e. vegetarian with the exception of fatty fish once a week and bone broths whenever needed for strength and nursing)
3. Dance to, hula hoop to, or attentively listen to a beautiful song every day
4. Meditate or pray for at least 15 minutes a day
(adding a compulsory fifteen minutes of meditation to my to-do day is not sustainable. however, i do spend an inordinate amount of time in bed, from 7 pm to 7 am, and if i let go of the idea that one must 'sit' to meditate, the time in which i could potentially meditate without having to squash time goes from 'noppes/nada/niente' to two hours or so. i think i can fit in fifteen minutes...)
(adding a compulsory fifteen minutes of meditation to my to-do day is not sustainable. however, i do spend an inordinate amount of time in bed, from 7 pm to 7 am, and if i let go of the idea that one must 'sit' to meditate, the time in which i could potentially meditate without having to squash time goes from 'noppes/nada/niente' to two hours or so. i think i can fit in fifteen minutes...)
5. Limit media
This requires some detailed explanation: TV and Internet are easy enough (none, and limited to work and this blog, respectively), but then there are books. And books, i have noticed, can be a great thing or not such a great thing, depending on how you use them. here are some of the not very good ways i have been known to use books: to beat myself over the head and try to bully myself into changing (my life, my body, my relationship, my kids, etc...), to escape from reality, to binge, and to generally overwhelm and hurry myself.
Sustainable reading probably means limiting my reading to the following categories of books: world literature, poetry, biographies and auto-biographies of interesting people, educational books (history, anthropology, sociology, etc.) and stuff written by holy people.
Specifically, in the next forty days, i plan to keep the following on my night-table (to be read from at will): The Book of Joy (Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu), One Hundred Years of Solitude (Garcia Marquez), On the move (autobiography of Oliver Sacks) and a wonderful historical book on the peoples of Europe in Roman times, with Asterix and Obelix as guides.
(Can't wait!)
This requires some detailed explanation: TV and Internet are easy enough (none, and limited to work and this blog, respectively), but then there are books. And books, i have noticed, can be a great thing or not such a great thing, depending on how you use them. here are some of the not very good ways i have been known to use books: to beat myself over the head and try to bully myself into changing (my life, my body, my relationship, my kids, etc...), to escape from reality, to binge, and to generally overwhelm and hurry myself.
Sustainable reading probably means limiting my reading to the following categories of books: world literature, poetry, biographies and auto-biographies of interesting people, educational books (history, anthropology, sociology, etc.) and stuff written by holy people.
Specifically, in the next forty days, i plan to keep the following on my night-table (to be read from at will): The Book of Joy (Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu), One Hundred Years of Solitude (Garcia Marquez), On the move (autobiography of Oliver Sacks) and a wonderful historical book on the peoples of Europe in Roman times, with Asterix and Obelix as guides.
(Can't wait!)
6. Doing something for another person consciously
As a mother of four i spend most of my days doing things for other people. however, i often feel a martyr of this phenomenon, rather than a grateful partaker. for the next 40 days, i want to bring my attention to how i do things for others. how do i feel when i am asked to do something? when doing something for another person spontaneously? when do i say yes to requests, when do i say no? what would it take for me to be truly grateful for the fact that i can do so much for so many (little) people?
7. Turn my tongue in my mouth ten times before speaking (i expect this will greatly reduce any lying, gossiping, and other unpleasantness that makes its way into the world through my mouth)
8. No sugar and mindless snacking, but eating enough at meals instead
(i tend to eat too little at mealtimes because it's so busy, or i'm serving others or i just don't take the time to eat quietly, and then have to binge/snack to compensate for the two litres of milk i produce on a daily basis)
(i tend to eat too little at mealtimes because it's so busy, or i'm serving others or i just don't take the time to eat quietly, and then have to binge/snack to compensate for the two litres of milk i produce on a daily basis)
9. Do not take anything that is not given to you
(i think i only steal movies via pirate bay, but this is something i might have to look at in more detail...)
(i think i only steal movies via pirate bay, but this is something i might have to look at in more detail...)
10. Breathe deeply and do a body check-in before any monetary transaction
(this is more interesting and far more sustainable in the long run than simply closing my wallet for 40 days, only to re-open it, unexamined, afterwards)
(this is more interesting and far more sustainable in the long run than simply closing my wallet for 40 days, only to re-open it, unexamined, afterwards)
The 40 days start on Ash Wednesday, 1 March.
Who is joining me?
Who is joining me?
I would love to....
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