We Each Maintain Three Homes

Three homes? Everyone?

Maybe you are maintaining three beautiful homes, maybe you can barely afford the mortgage and taxes on one home or maybe you rent and the landlord maintains your home. If each and every one of us maintains three homes, what three homes am I talking about?

If we think of homes as physical containers that support life, each person does in fact maintain three homes: our body, shelter and earth. Maintaining these homes in a healthy way supports a peaceful, beautiful and joyful life.

Our Body

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A healthy body allows us to breath/exist, think, move, connect with others and experience joy . Bodies around the world that live the longest have these common traits:

1. Moving frequently throughout the day… walking or biking to the store, gardening, house cleaning, taking walks
2. Stress reduction rituals… nap, reading, meditation, visiting friends, bath, etc.
3. Live with purpose… knowing your reason for waking up each day (career, family, service, etc)
4. Eat nutrient dense food… more fruits, vegetables, beans and seeds and less meat
5. Stop eating before too full… eating nutrient dense food with lots of fiber and water long with lots of chewing makes it easier to stop eating before becoming overly full.
6. Proximity to loved ones… being close to family and/or friends and spending time with them.
7. Spirituality… connection with God or the energy of the universe and attending services once a week
8. Friends that share your values… social behaviors rub off on us from smoking to exercise to skipping dessert.
   

Our Shelter

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Shelters can vary widely from a tent to a mansion and everything between. It provides a buffer between ourselves and the elements, a place to sleep, relax, eat and connect. The common factors in a healthy shelter:

1. Dry… no leaks from outside, no leaks from pipes on the inside, prevent flooding from natural disasters
2. Clean… control dust/dirt/contaminates, free of clutter
3. Safe… reduce exposure to chemicals, protection and warning from fire and gas, prevent intruders and allow escape, gfci and tamper resistant outlets, features to prevent damage during natural disasters
4. Ventilated… bathroom and cooktop vents, whole house ventilation, openable windows to improve indoor air quality
5. Pest-free… seal cracks/holes to prevent entry, clean up food from counters and floors, seal food and use non-toxic traps
6. Contaminate-free… reduce and eliminate lead, radon, VOCs, choose non-toxic home products
7. Well maintained… inspect, repair, paint, replace, clean as soon as possible the exterior, interior, HVAC, plumbing, etc
8. Energy efficient… reduce consumption of water/energy, seal and insulate, and choose energy efficient appliances, choose Water Sense fixtures, replace gas appliances with electric (induction cooktops, air source heat pump water heater)
   

Our Earth

We are created from elements available on the earth. It is the ONLY place in the universe that has everything we need to exist… the exact right kind of air, water, temperatures, land and food. We NEED the earth to be healthy in these ways for humanity to be healthy and survive:

1. Clean air… dirty air is tough to breath and increases the risk of asthma, cancers
2. Enough oxygen… too much CO2 can reduce our ability to think
3. Clean water… free of dirt, microbes, pollutants and and hormone disrupters
4. Enough water… drinking, food production, cleaning
5. Nutrient soil… free from chemicals and toxins, dense with appropriate nutrients created by nature
6. Enough nutrient soil… we are depleting our nutrient soil.
7. Waste management… the earth has many ways to manage waste but we have maxed it out.
8. Reduction of waste… The commercial production of food and tangible products has created more waste that now pollutes our air, water and soil.
9. Biodiversity… humans have evolved concurrently with wide variety of plants, animals, fungus, viruses, bacteria and we need these to survive.
10. Space… we need room for nature to be nature, animals to live in nature, people to live and be able to social distance to prevent spread of pests, land for food to grow

To maintain our three homes is to create healthy bodies, shelters and earth which work together to support not just the existence of humans, but the thriving of humans. What we make healthy, makes us healthy.