My blog Simply Conscious celebrates its fourth birthday today. In the last four years I have written numerous articles about minimalism and sustainability, the two pillars of a simply conscious life.
To mark the birthday, I asked a few of my favorite bloggers what they mean by simply living consciously or. How they put it into practice. These are very different thoughts. Suggestions gathered. Thank you all for sharing.
Gilbert of Spirit and Presence
"Rich is he who has much of what is important to him. I don't know when or where I picked this up, but this phrase has been with me for quite some time now because, as I understand it, it hits the nail on the head. It's not just about material things, but about everything that can be important to you: lots of friends, lots of time, lots of books, lots of space, lots of nature, lots of exercise and yes, lots of money, too, if that's important to you. I don't want to judge that at all, but my point is that you have to understand what's important to you. Otherwise, you can't live a life of contentment. This realization enables me to concentrate and to distance myself from the desire to always have or achieve everything at once. Reducing yourself to what matters to you makes you rich in the end."
Gilbert Dietrich edits the online magazine Geist und Gegenwart (Spirit and Presence). There it is about applied philosophy, which offers a quite practical interpretation and life assistance, without giving in to the typical self-help mantras or even esotericism.
Johanna from Simply Mindful
"For me, minimalism means simplifying my highly complex, paced life, willingly limiting the infinite possibilities, and being available for a time only to be unavailable. I manage to do this by not consuming much in the first place and by regularly decluttering, turning off my cell phone, and even saying no sometimes. You always think you can't. But it goes! You just have to do it. Get out of the flow and sit on the shore. Watch from there as everyone swims for their lives, even though the calm shore is so incredibly near. Minimalism is bare life, a gift to us. We think way too much about how to decorate and fill life, instead of just enjoying that it is. And that we are. We are! Mostly pretty healthy, mostly pretty at peace. And that we've actually come along with everything we need in life. And can't take anything with us anyway, other than our experiences and the love we've given and been allowed to receive. All the junk will stay here one day. So we can already reduce, focus on the essentials and clean up our lives. The homes, the closets, the minds and the thoughts. And maybe the calendar, so that there is time again – for us, or the next one or for doing nothing."
Johanna Wagner's passions are holistic health, photography and writing. She is fascinated by foreign cultures, distant countries and other languages. But in the meantime it is less about traveling, but about arriving. And about keeping my own life simple in the highly complex, over-accelerated, always accessible Germany. On Simply Conscious, Johanna has posted excerpts from her books Traveling Between the Lines. Sleepless in the rainy season published as guest post.
Daniel from beVegt
"For several years, Katrin and I have stuck to a motto that has made our lives simpler and more intentional. Her motto is: creativity instead of consumption. It means that we want to spend as much time as possible being creative and creating something – be it a text, a video or a podcast for our blog, or just a nice experience like a hike here with us in the Taunus Mountains. When we do these things, we are usually happier and more satisfied than when we just passively consume what others have created. The motto creativity instead of consumption makes our lives easier because it makes us aware of what is important and what is less important. And it makes our lives more conscious, because creativity, unlike consumption, always requires our full attention."
Daniel and Katrin show on beVegt, how a stress-free vegan nutrition functions and how one runs with the correct training fit and healthy by the life. On Simply Conscious Daniel has published the guest post Why vegan nutrition is not complicated.
Florian from Being Sustainable
"Less is more. I can't hear this sentence anymore! From what less. What is more then? For me, the best things in life are not things we can buy. And it's these best things that I want more of in order to be (more) happy: Spending more time with family and friends, observing more animals in nature, doing more sports, reading more books, and having more beautiful days. For the environment, less is too little to be (more) sustainable. The environment, instead of 'less', much prefers 'better nothing'. And when nothing works, we should ask ourselves this question: If everyone lived like me, would the world be sustainable?"
Florian Schreckenbach is co-founder of sustainable being.info. Flo& Co. Don't want to look for reasons not to do something, just do it. They want to show that sustainability can be implemented. They believe that conscious consumption and an appropriate lifestyle can make a difference and, moreover, make people happy. The online magazine is also the basis for the book Dein Weg zur Nachhaltigkeit – 350 praktische Tipps fur den Alltag (Your Path to Sustainability – 350 Practical Tips for Everyday Life).
Christin from Simple Winke
"For me, minimalism doesn't just encompass an attitude towards material possessions, but rather arriving at small moments of happiness and conscious existence. As the true greats of life, they act much more comprehensively. Deeper than the big events in life. These seemingly inconspicuous moments do not cry out for attention, which is why I search for them with all my senses. If I am open to them, for every sense there is an endless list of wonderful moments of joy in my everyday life. Of course, it is a special celebration when several or all of the senses are engaged. But even if only one sense speaks to me and I listen to it, I can discover something valuable in my everyday life. Conscious listening has become increasingly difficult. Radio, music, TV, traffic, sounds of the city and its inhabitants … And when it does become quieter around us, we often feel the need to fill the silence. Perhaps also because our thoughts in particular can be very loud within us and it is not always pleasant to hear them. At the same time, complete silence can be like a gift. Maybe you have been in a lonely place, in a desert or away from tourism in the mountains and you know what I mean. Real silence you can hear. It is so comprehensive and deep that it actually spreads like a sound inside us and fills us completely. This is a treat. A caress for the soul. Now we rarely have the opportunity to stand in a desert. But it is quite possible to let go and to let go of stressful thoughts – namely whenever we consciously hear. Even if what you hear is just street noise, because if you consciously surrender to it, assign the sounds in question or think up an explanation for the noise, it gives you a bit of relaxation and life in the now. If you listen carefully, you will not do anything else on the side. A small oasis of relaxation, which is possible everywhere and allows you to escape from your mental carousel. Even the most persistent thoughts won't get through if you keep your concentration on listening to your surroundings. These moments belong to you, always work and without a meditation cushion, yoga mat or app. And maybe you notice not only small, rarely perceived beauties in the world around you, but also in yourself."
Christin Marit is into everything that makes life less complicated, happier and healthier. In doing so, she doesn't want to bend or give up things she loves. Personal growth and the balance of give and take are important to her. She uses her skills and talents to find solutions for her clients, share ideas with her readers, support people close to her, and also simply to pursue her creative passions. She is particularly happy when she can do all this outside.
Ilona from For a better world
"Actually, you would think right away that gratitude is the consequence of happiness: the more you have and achieve, the happier you are. And the happier you are, the more grateful you feel. But this is not the case. Gratitude arises regardless of the amount of success or material prosperity. Gratitude can be practiced – and thus increase your satisfaction, your happiness and make you less dependent on material wealth. Gratitude also promotes your generosity and thus your social relationships with others – one of the most important building blocks for a happy life. How exactly you can practice gratitude, we have some ideas for exercises, experiments and actions on the website of our initiative And now WE save the world! Compiled."
Ilona Koglin and Marek Rohde report on For a better world, how we can make our planet more livable. In contributions, workshops and conferences, Ilona and Marek reveal scope for action, encourage through role models as well as trailblazers, and provide concrete support for the implementation of projects. On Einfach bewusst Ilona has published the guest post Courage for a better world.
Angelika from Freiraumfrau
"The art of living is the art of leaving out the right things. This quote comes from Coco Chanel. I like this phrase because I can apply it to anything. On recipes as well as on interior design, on drawings as well as on material possessions. What do I really need to be happy in my life. Since I've been traveling with my free space bus, I've noticed how few things I can get by with. I reduce recipes to plain taste with few ingredients because I don't like unnecessary piles of dishes. Have only clothes that I really like and wear. Surround myself with things I need and also look at relationships more consistently. All this and much more has brought significantly more freedom into my life."
Angelika Bungert-Stuttgen is the free space woman. She brings the heart ies of her clients to the point in drawings. She has been exploring her own space by RV for almost 3 years now. And she has a cooking blog where she combines her passions of drawing and cooking.
Nicole from family neat
“For me, one of the best ways to create a happy and conscious life is through a daily morning ritual. My two rules of life 'You are what you eat' and 'You become what you think of yourself' make for the best start to the day I can imagine. I get up about 40 minutes earlier than I used to and set myself up for a wonderful day with my thoughts, feelings and small actions. I meditate, practice yoga, write my gratitude diary and treat myself to my green tea ritual. I have been doing this for two years now. In that time so much has changed in my life for the better. If you focus on good, you ultimately attract good into your life. The law of resonance says no more and no less and I use this specifically for my life.”
Kristin Woltmann-Pahl writes on Eat Train Love about her journey to a healthy lifestyle for body, mind and spirit.
Alex from BergReif
“I have experienced minimalism through hiking. Especially through long-distance hiking. Because when you are traveling for several weeks with only a backpack on your back, consciously reducing your own luggage is essential. Only in this way is it possible to spend many hours carefree enjoying nature and one's environment. Every time, I'm amazed at how few things I can hike through the Alps for weeks at a time, completely satisfied. Without any sense of lack. I have thus spent my happiest moments detached from material possessions. Equipped only with the bare necessities, nature, mountains and interpersonal relationships gained a lot of importance. At the same time, televisions, cars, overflowing closets and material status symbols lost their importance. My happiness is no longer dependent on these things.”
Alex Duren blogs on BergReif about hiking and trekking with ultralight and minimalist gear. One crossing of the Alps and many long-distance hikes later, deceleration and minimalism have also become part of his everyday life. Because the tranquility and majesty of the mountain world never leaves him, in 2017 he planned a crossing of the Alps from east to west.
Oliver from Simply feel it
“How to live more consciously? Be willing to feel everything inside of you that wants to rise up and show up. Stay completely in the fire, no matter how painful it may be. Only then it changes and solves itself in you – and often solves also messed up situations and interpersonal problems in your life.”
Oliver Domrose is a blogger, author and lateral thinker. After a career break, he now knows how he wants to live: Free and self-determined. Oliver writes on his blog about high sensitivity, relationships, being a man, minimalism and personal development. In his book The Gentle Warrior, he interprets the themes of high sensitivity and being a man for our modern times.
Maria from Resistance is purposeful
“Everything we need is already available in this world”. This sentence, which I picked up four years ago, has turned my whole life upside down. Since then I have stopped consuming in the conventional sense. I use what I already own and what other people no longer want to have or is even destined for the garbage. Together with others I founded a Kostnix store, where other people have the possibility to give away things they don't need anymore and to find what they are looking for. Because of these changes I don't need so much money anymore, I could reduce my working hours to 15 hours per week and now have much more time for what is really important to me in my life.”
Maria blogs about waste reduction, plastic reduction, DIY, minimalism and mindfulness. She is co-founder of a Kostnix store in Austria.
Gabi from Mindful Art of Living
"It was 2010. For years I had been in a state of constant stress, mostly in multitasking mode, and was well on my way to doing social work on a piecework basis. This of course with smart goals, clocked through, quality managed, but actually it was only about money cuts in the social sector. In order to cope with all these stresses, I tried to do something good for myself in my free time. I bridged the long travel times on the train with digital distraction devices. In my free time I wanted to enjoy a lot of music and make a little music, thought about buying this and that for it – but all this distracting, experiencing and wanting to have fun at all costs only became more troublesome. And then there they were, these 10 minutes of simplicity. After a brief introduction to breathing meditation, it was a matter of doing nothing but observing your own breath for 10 minutes. An adventure of abundance that lay in the supposed nothingness: There was nothing to plan for in those 10 minutes, no goals to achieve, no phone calls to make, no crises to deal with, no delayed trains, no noise, not even successes to record. 10 minutes of just sitting and breathing. Despite the initial inner tension, I felt the relief and liberation that lay in those 10 minutes of nothingness. It did not remain with these 10 minutes. Over time it has become many minutes, hours and days. Mindfulness and meditation are now part of my everyday life. They help me to recognize what I really need. Gabi Raeggel blogs about mindfulness. Minimalism as an art of living. Less ballast and strain have led to a better quality of life in her life.
Petra from Minimalism21
"There are many ways and approaches to a minimalist and decluttered life. But every journey begins at some point with a first step. Most of the time, you first have to get rid of old values and behavior patterns. But also from the expectations of his environment. For everyone is his own yardstick and is free to decide how little is enough for him. Minimalism should not be a competition in which we fight over what is right, less or more sustainable. One should try to peel out and expose from all layers what enriches one's life, what is valuable and what does not weigh it down. Practically this means: clearing out. Letting go has to be practiced.
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