Conscious Living- Are You Doing it for the Right Reasons?

Living consciously was first properly introduced to me via social media. To be exact, it was via Zanna Van Dijk.
Before I begin let me tell you a little bit about what the term 'Conscious Living' means to me-
When I first heard the term 'Living Consciously' I honestly wasn't sure what to think or what it stood for. I guessed that it basically meant living in a way where we think about what we use and what we do to in-turn, 'save the planet'. As I saw more and more people talking about living consciously on social media, it made me want to do a little research of my own. I watched several documentaries, read articles and joined a group on Facebook called 'The Living Consciously Crew'- funnily enough, founded by Zanna. To cut a long story short, it opened my eyes to what we are really doing to this planet. So was I right with what 'Conscious Living' meant? Pretty much yes.

(Image from Google)

Watching the documentaries and seeing what we are all doing to this planet really upset me. I remember watching a documentary on Netflix called 'A Plastic Ocean' and I actually sat and cried at the awful scenes on that documentary. It was awful and it really opened my eyes to how much we, as humans, are ruining this planet and using it as if we have another one to go to. From that day on I decided I needed to make some changes to my lifestyle- nothing drastic, just small swaps and changes to some things in my life.
I started off with the simplest of things, cutting down on the use of single-use plastic. To me this is the biggest issue on this planet so I bought a reusable water bottle, reusable coffee cup, straws, etc. I then went on to cut down on buying fruits and vegetables that are in plastic bags/wraps and if I bought anything in a plastic container I tried to make sure it was recyclable. This then led on to other things like cutting down my meat and fish consumption, thinking about what beauty products I use and so on.
Now I am nowhere near perfect and still find it challenging to swap certain things. I still do use some products that some would say aren't great but I am trying and to be honest, to me, trying is what matters. The biggest thing for me is the single-use plastic issue and I am happy that I am making a huge effort to cut this right down and succeeding 80% of the time.

i do have a fear though...

As the title to this post suggests, I want to talk to you about the reasons why you and others are trying to live consciously. As I mentioned earlier I initially learnt a lot about this topic via social media so I have one question for you all that are trying, are you doing it for the right reasons? As much as I think it's absolutely incredible that people are using less single-use plastic and making an effort in other areas too, I do worry that a lot of people just do it because they see it as another social media 'trend'. As anyone who uses social media, you know how powerful a 'trend' can be and all it takes is someone to see someone else doing it and they just jump on the band-wagon. It's great if people are making some sort of effort as it will still help towards the end goal but, will it last? As with any 'trend' it goes out of the window after a few months so does that mean that everyone that doesn't truly understand it will just give up and go back to their old ways? That's my fear. I fear that many people will just go back to their old ways as soon as it's not mentioned on social media as much. I fear that the people that genuinely want to help and genuinely understand the issues will be disappointed. And lastly, my biggest fear is that the people of this planet will continue to take it for granted and we will end up with no planet at all. I realise this won't be in my lifetime but if I have children, it may be in theirs, and I certainly don't want that.

If you are reading this and thinking 'Yeah, that's me' or 'I don't know much about it' then I URGE you to go and do some research! If it wasn't for the research I did and documentaries I watched then I would probably be completely oblivious to what is actually happening to our beautiful planet. There are so many ways that you can 'do your bit' for planet earth.

Amie xx

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the girl behind fitness forster

My name is Amie and I am the face behind Fitness Forster.
I am a freelance recipe developer, content creator and qualified personal trainer. I developed this website to share my passion for healthy recipes, fitness and travel.

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