Littering

With lockdown easing people have been rushing to local beauty stops, getting out more, picnicking more but they seem to be leaving more litter/trash/rubbish (depending on which country you are from). But the question is why?

I was going to put a newspaper headline on here but there are too many and all of them repeat a similar message – that there has been an increase in people leaving their behind. Why?

I was chatting with a friend who does Quantum Energy counselling and she believes it has a lot to do with us all being in trauma of some kind. And I think that’s correct. Many of us can identify incidents through our lives where there has been a trauma of some kind that we have not dealt with and so we live in a fight or flight mode for too long. But for the last few years we have been encouraged to live with fear. I believe one of the key reasons people voted for Brexit was because of fear. The media throws fear and anxiety in our faces continuously and now we have the “joy” of 24 hour news channels that have to say something! And it isn’t good.

Just off the top of my head the anxieties I can identify our land with are – global warming, immigration, brexit, fear of not having job, a holiday, not having enough of what will make us loved and cared for, and then we’ve now got a pandemic to worry about.

A friend wrote a piece about her issues with PTSD If you read it as well as it being personal to her it could relate to the whole world especaially this first paragraph

” Flashbacks, intense emotions, hypervigilence, outbursts of anger, panic attacks, tense muscles, relationship problems, nightmares, exhaustion, amnesia, withdrawal and fear.

https://httpgraceisenough.wordpress.com/2020/07/03/how-to-support-someone-with-post-traumatic-stress-disorder/

Look at how people have been reacting over the last few months, or even few years. Huge bursts of anger and emotions, increase in relationship issues, fears, tiredness, and also withdrawing. I would add to that a increase in the need to use alcohol, substances, shop, indulge in high adeneline activities, and an increase in labeling of mental illness and special needs behaviours.

So take all the above, then add three months of being told not to go out, go to work or school, or being in fear of going to a “key” work place, not being able to see friends and family, not being able to grieve a death because of not being able to attend a funeral, or to celebrate the end of school, a birthday, a wedding, and then seeing government leaders and others who are seen as “authority figures” seemingly doing as they pleased. Is this any wonder that people not longer care enough to take their litter home?

My friend goes on to list ways of being able to help someone with PTSD which include providing social support, being a good listener and building trust and safety. Go back to what I’m saying and people don’t want to listen. They are desperate to talk about themselves and also to ignore the situation. I believe a lot of people do not know how to build up a place a trust and safety because the world feels like such a scary place.

So if people are seeing the world as unsafe, of not giving them support, and are not listening to the deep needs of the land, then they will not care for it. No longer wil they be able to do the small things that in a calmer, safer world would have been taken for granted – like clearing up litter.

It is easy to be angry with people who don’t do these things but again one has to ask why am I getting angry? Is it because of the anxiety and stress I am feeling? And is the spirit/energy in my town, household, country, one that resembles the key componants of PTSD?

In looking at this subject I have seeing things that I believe we could work on that will help to bring about changes, but will save that for my next post. .