Early on, my dad taught me to have a love for the outdoors and to appreciate everything around me — especially the planet we live on. Taking his advice further and receiving a B.S. in Environmental Science, I learned even more the importance of our impact upon the earth and the importance of taking care of our beautiful planet.

And, what does that exactly mean, taking care of our planet? Many of us think green living means recycling and although that is a big part of it, there is so much more.

A minor in psychology taught me how crucial it is to take care of the mind. Your mind is masterful, and what you feed it manifests physically.

Everything is connected, even you and me, on a collective global level. What I do affects you and what you do affects me. We constantly put ripples into the Universe and those ripples — good or bad, positive or negative — affect all those around us.

So what does this have to do with green living? Green living is a state of mind, a way of being — a state of consciousness. Down to the very cells of our bodies, we are affected by what we ingest, what we read, what we think and what actions we take.

It starts with us. So if we are going to take care of our planet then we must take care of ourselves. We can’t have a green planet if we don’t first have green minds.

Green living means feeding my mind with healthy thoughts, feeding my body with healthy foods and doing my part caring for this planet. It means correcting all of the emotional and energetic imbalances inside myself, correcting my past, living in the present so that I can become a higher version of myself.

I hear this statement a lot: “Carolyn, I’m only one person, what can I possibly do?” I always respond by saying, just do your part. When I get overwhelmed with everything that is happening in our world today, I pause and say to myself, “Just do your part.”

We live on a beautiful planet, a planet that supports us daily. We are in these beautiful physical forms that allow us to experience everything around us and we have beautiful creative minds that allow us to imagine all sorts of things. Can you imagine a world where we all just did our part? I know I can.

So just start with one thing today. Eat healthier, think healthier thoughts and, yes, please recycle 🙂 Most importantly, do your part.

Carolyn A. Jones and Jana Kadovitz are the founders of The Holistic Institute of Wellness.  They can be reached at 865-712-9754 or office@holisticinstituteofwellness.com.