You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
Mahatma Gandhi
Happy is the one who is content with their place of residence. But many people dislike something: their surroundings, nature, the climate.
Most people live with the thought: “what difference does it make where I am — I can’t change anything anyway…”.
With the development of transportation mobility and the internet, people more and more often think about changing their place of residence.
Beautiful pictures beckon, stories from seasoned travelers turn into a dream, but it often happens that moving doesn’t help find harmony in life.
In a new place, it turns out there are also flaws, complexities, and difficulties.
What to do?
- Accept it or look for a new place to live?
- Spend your life searching for an ideal or create that ideal for yourself?
- Can you make the place where you live a source of life force? And how to do it?
Today, let’s talk about this.
As it happened, I chose to live in a small village. The village is beautiful, life is wonderful, but very different from life in the Big City, where I spent most of my life.
At first, I was torn between the village and the city, getting inspiration in the city. But then trips became difficult, and I grew nostalgic for old friends and the opportunities the Big City offered.
I realized I had two paths — either I fall into a victim state and start slowly hating the place I myself chose to live, or I take the other path.
I understood that the first path would lead me to find flaws in any corner of the world and never be happy.
So, for fulfillment, only the second option remained for me.
I got to know the people around me, the Land, its cycles and gifts. I started thinking about how I could be of service to it, what I could do to make life here better and more harmonious.
What facets I needed to discover within myself to love and accept it unconditionally.
From that moment, a different life began. I gave my attention and energy to helping the Place where I live.
I scoured Google and Facebook looking for local communities. I found several interesting resources dedicated to nature, animals, plants, and ecological initiatives.
I met caring, proactive people, and finally started to feel “in my element.”
I stepped onto the path of a Guardian of the Place, deeply in love and at peace, giving and receiving energy, support, and care from the Place where I live.
And I want to share some steps of this path.
How to turn your place of living into a source of life force
Step 1. Discover the place where you live
The first thing to do is to understand that we live here and now.
There are seven billion people on Earth. Someone is in a huge city, someone in a small village. Someone spends their whole life where they were born, someone travels, moves, and searches for their place in the sun.
Someone never leaves their home country, while someone changes countries and cities.
Perhaps someday we will have another home in another place, but right now we are where we are.
And it depends only on us — whether we will feel that we live in a boring village or in a place filled with smells, sounds, and energy.
Whether we spend our lives in a metropolis overcrowded with people and cars, or rejoice that it is a point of cultural and historical heritage.
Only we can decide — whether a place will drain all our energy in response to our dislike and indifference, or whether we will allow ourselves to be filled with its energy and power by loving it with all our heart.
If you have recently changed your country of residence, this article will be useful for you: “How to adapt to a new place of living.”
Step 2. Learn to see the beauty of a place
Beauty manifests in different ways: in natural phenomena, in people, in architectural monuments, in the variety of fruits on trees, in the power of rivers and mountains, in a funny pattern formed on a crack in the asphalt.
You just have to want to see it and bring it into your life. Even an industrial view at sunset can be beautiful.
I suggest not only seeing the beauty but also generously sharing it with those around you. Celebrating it in any way — with words, poems, photographs, paints.
Through social networks, through your own creativity, through conversations with neighbors not about world problems, but about the migratory birds you saw the other day.
If you have seen or felt something beautiful or amazing, something you want to share or remember, anchor these sensations using the practice Anchoring Multidimensional Experience in the Heart of the Planet.
Step 3. Observe and connect with nature
You can only see beauty by observing, only by lifting your head to the sky and lowering it to the earth.
If you stop and listen, then you can notice a butterfly or a snowflake, a sparrow with a crumb in its beak, or an unusual pebble.
When you allow yourself to slow down and look around, you can feel the energy present in that place.
The more such connections happen, the more of this energy you let flow through you, the more you connect with the place where you are.
You can do this in different ways, choose what feels right for you:
- Grow flowers or tend a garden;
- Grow vegetables or adopt a flowerbed by the entrance;
- Observe local flora and fauna, study migratory birds or the living world beneath your feet;
- Get to know wild plants — herbs and vegetation, including edible ones;
- Learn about crystals and stones that are found nearby;
- Follow the planets and stars, the changes of the moon, and shifts in weather and seasons.
And this is just the beginning of the list!
See also How to connect to the source of strength within yourself
Step 4. Show care for the world around you
For the world to care for you, it is necessary to care for it.
It doesn’t matter where you live — in a big city or a small village, the problems of environmental pollution are acute almost everywhere.
Only in certain countries are the streets clean and orderly, with garbage collected and recycled for the benefit of the planet.
In most of the Earth, municipal authorities either cannot or will not deal with this acute problem, and the efforts of volunteers are essential.
Any activity that you are capable of will be accepted by Gaia with love and gratitude:
- Collecting trash on the street near your home, in local parks and forests, separating it into recyclables and delivering it to special collection points.
- Promoting an environmentally responsible lifestyle.
- Feeding birds and animals.
- Caring for stray animals.
- Participating in volunteer firefighting teams.
Where I live, charity shops are common practice. People bring unwanted items and books, and the volunteers working there sell them for a symbolic fee and pass the proceeds on to charity.
Various projects are emerging around the world aimed at helping the local community or nature.
For example, the “Food is free” project, where people freely share homegrown vegetables and fruits.
When there is a desire to help the planet and feel a sense of unity with it, a vast field of ideas opens up.
For a more spiritually advanced audience, we suggest attuning to the Earth’s chakras.
Step 5. Give thanks to the place where you live
One of the simplest yet very effective practices is gratitude for the place.
There is always a reason to be grateful for the place where you live. For the rain, for the snow, for the warmth, for the birdsong, for the bountiful harvest, for a ray of sunshine, or for a purring cat.
Feelings of gratitude and unconditional love raise your vibrations, and accordingly, change your life.
Go through the meditation “Anchoring the Flow of Unconditional Love,” during which a powerful flow of Unconditional Love energy was anchored into the Earth’s crystalline grid.
Step 6. Join forces
You will become a Guardian of the Place faster if you are in the company of like-minded people. Befriend your neighbors and find acquaintances who are close to you in spirit.
Create or join existing social media groups in your region.
Visit farmers’ markets and craft fairs, and perhaps even participate there with your own creations.
For me, participating in yoga classes helped a lot at one time. I immediately met many caring and interesting people.
Where I live, there was no unifying Facebook group where you could learn about events and happenings in our region or get answers to pressing questions.
We created such a group a year ago. Five hundred group members to date and daily lively communication confirmed that its creation was necessary and useful.
If you are an immigrant, learn the language for communication, study the customs and local cuisine.
You don’t necessarily have to radically change your diet and menu; find dishes that you enjoy, and through them, discover the wisdom of life from previous generations and the local nature.
Support local farmers. Buy, grow, and cook seasonal vegetables and fruits.
Take advantage of the best spiritual practices if you frequently change your place of residence: “Spiritual Practices in a New Place of Residence.”
Step 7. Get the Kids Involved
Children adapt and get used to a new place more easily and find friends. They also serve as a guide for adults into the new world through school, kindergartens, and endless walks.
Involve children in getting to know your place of residence. With them, it’s much more fun and interesting to search for edible herbs and observe wildlife.
Plus, they can make cards for neighbors and friends on holidays, or share fruits from the garden with friends and acquaintances.
Teenagers are perfectly capable of organizing a garage sale of their toys and books they’ve outgrown.
Children happily join in cleaning up areas, especially if you hand them cute gloves.
Of course, I worry a little when my two-year-old son starts picking up broken glass on the playground to throw it in the trash, but on the other hand, I hope this experience will instill in him the habit of cleaning up after himself and not littering.
In recent years, I’ve gained tremendous experience in interacting with the Earth.
I learned to identify wild edible plants and cook them. I prayed for the forest when a massive fire raged in the mountains before our eyes, and sent myriads of angels to help the people.
We enjoy chatting with neighbors and exchanging harvests and various treats, and we have no problem picking up trash in the National Park and on nearby streets.
I don’t find myself asking why the municipality or government isn’t doing this or that; I only ask myself: what do I want and what can I do?
I live here, my children live here, I love this place, and it has accepted me.
And if I want to move in the future, I can do so with a light heart, because I know for sure that another love will be waiting for me ahead!