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Zaragoza, June 17 (EFE).- Australian writer and journalist Sarah Wilson observes how spirituality, which “has always existed to keep us from individualism”, is “on a diet” in today’s consumer society, just like love or relations.
In his new “best-selling” book that has just been published in Spain with the Siglantana publishing house, ‘This unique, precious and wild life’, he invites us to “reconnect with nature”. As he stated in an interview with EFE on his way through the International Mindfulness Congress that is being held until this Saturday in Zaragoza, if we love our planet we will do “anything to save it.”
Question: What part of your new book?
Answer: I have walked the world trying to find my way through the climate crisis. And the complexity, despair and fear that everyone feels. The climate crisis is real, it is here. And I wanted to find an approach that could help people.
So walking around the world I realized that the answer is, essentially, to reconnect with nature: feeling that peace may be what solves the climate crisis.
When we love something or someone very much, we would do anything to save it, like a mother with her baby. So if we really love nature and our planet we will be able to save it.
Q: Why did you write it walking around the world?
A: Because it is what I have always used to manage my anxiety. When I was very young I learned that walking in nature fixed me up, and that’s how I always have. But then I realized that many artists, writers and thinkers managed to solve great problems like this, walking.
Another reason is that climate change is a scary subject. I was the editor of ‘Cosmopolitan’ magazine when I was 29 years old and I learned that to get information to people you have to make it attractive. And during the pandemic, hiking became “sexy” (laughs).
Q: This conference focuses on mindfulness, a state of mind of attention and mindfulness based on the “here and now.” How can it help us in our lives?
A: There are two things. The first is to meditate: just do it. I’m a bad meditator, my head talks and asks, and usually people get stressed about not meditating the right way, but there is no wrong way. Also, you can do it whenever you want, five or ten minutes; it just works. And then walk. Both are free!
Q: Faced with the “anxiety epidemic” you propose turning it into a “superpower.” Can we change the look towards anxiety?
A: It’s something I address in my book ‘First, We Make the Beast Beautiful’ (‘First, let’s make the beast beautiful’), which will be out in Spain in a year. First, you have to avoid feeling anxiety about having anxiety. And then we once experience anxiety and then we see that it also helps to make decisions, to warn us when something is wrong. When I wake up anxiously at three in the morning it’s because something tells me: something is happening.
So when you change your mindset to see anxiety as a gift, it becomes a superpower that you can use. But you also have to modulate it.
Q: You state that anxiety and disconnection are natural consequences of modern consumer life. Is there another way to live better in this society?
A: Yes, we have to connect and it is clear that technology has created a huge problem. Our spirituality is on a diet, and we put everything on a diet: love, relationships… We send messages and use dating apps instead of dating. It’s like the deceptive version that is denying us the full experience. So we need to be brave because the connection is hard and uncomfortable.
That’s why I talk so much about building resilience in the face of discomfort.
Q: What does this spirituality on a diet consist of?
A: All religious practices throughout history consist on the one hand in bringing us peace, but they also involve sacrifice. We donate to the most disadvantaged, we welcome strangers at home… But the consumerist society and individualism have changed spirituality, it’s as if you could only take the things you like and not adopt the ones you don’t. It’s like going for the ‘light’ version and not taking the full nutrition. That means we don’t enjoy its benefits.
But this practice has always existed because human beings are very vulnerable -we don’t have fangs, we don’t have horns, we can’t run very fast…- and the only way we survive is that we can communicate to become a collective. We can become an army and fight for things together.
Q: In 2022 you sold your international project ‘I Quit Sugar’ and donated the proceeds to charity. Why did you make that decision?
A: Because I wanted to be free. I believe that money and the obsession with money limits your life and makes you less happy. I know that if I give, my life becomes more beautiful. When I stop offering it is restrictive. It has been like an experiment, but only good things have come into my life thanks to this, much more abundance.