“There’s so much waste and no one is getting happier.”

(Said the-mother-in-my-inbox who inspired this post.)

You don't need to buy a single thing this Friday. Or the following Monday. You could, probably -- very likely -- delete every incoming email, shut down your computer and phone, and go offline to soak in what it is you are seeking.

Peace. Joy. Connection.

I promise to spare you a sermon on unconscious consumerism x materialism, but I do want to say this:

You can retain your ethics while participating in the exchange of goods and services. That's called commerce. And it has been happening since the beginning of time.

Commerce isn't inherently exploitative like capitalism. But commerce and capitalism are so intertwined and frankly -- confused -- that we miss the forest for the trees.

We think we need to eschew business (or opt out) altogether to maintain integrity (if, of course, we're the kind of folk that abhor exploitation and oppression and the profit-over-people mentality that has destroyed our earth and her inhabitants).

But we don't have to live off the land in a yurt off-grid (we could do that, too, of course) to live in integrity. We can actually RESIST the machine while operating inside of its seemingly inescapable grip. 

Generative, conscious commerce is the way up and out, in my not-so-humble opinion.  

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But let’s go a little deeper.

My brain is bored and woefully unimpressed with all the headlines in my inbox cajoling me into a space of scarcity, ensuring me that I’ll “miss out” and “go without” if I don’t click “BUY NOW”. 

It would be so easy – so automatic – to fall into the unconscious consumption trap. There’s an entire formula and field of science – an entire season of work – behind the marketing mastery of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. AI-driven copy, endless analytics, automations, ads, targeting tracking, more, more, more. 

It’s designed to stir feelings of scarcity to drive you to action. It’s designed to give you FOMO. It’s designed to drive you to consume. Even when true need doesn’t exist. 

Hunting. You’re being hunted. Do you feel it? I do. My nervous system is on high-alert. Hypervigilant. From all the hunting. I’m like a buck in the winter in Upstate New York, trying mightily to merely exist in the forest amongst hungry men in camo jackets and neon orange beanies. 

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I sent an email out on Sunday (not through Substack, you can get on that secret list here if you’d like) with a little “perspective” on this season of excessive consumption and materialism. 

In it, I talked about why I can’t put together a gift guide. You know, the red-and-green, thoughtfully curated kitschy-snowman-decorated gift guides of every influencer’s November and December’s dreams.

I outlined how I think the last thing most of us need are more ads for more "things".

Unconscious consumerism and materialism just don't fit in the story of a healing earth. Of a healing collective.

And then I offered to round up a list of intentional business owners who VOWED to do things differently inside the crowded confines of capitalism. 

Companies who won't generate excessive waste just to sell more stock during the "busiest buying season of the year". Companies who won't push and endlessly promote. Companies who won’t lurk in the woods hunting you.

Conscious companies who actually give a sh*it. 

At the end of my email, I invited folks to respond with how they orient themselves to the consumption and consumerism this time of year. 

And a few days later, a mother of two wrote back to me with these words: “There’s so much waste and no one is getting happier.”

I hung on every word. I read the body of her email five more times. 

I’ll paste it here so you can drink in her medicine, too:

“I feel the judgment about being a stay at home mom from my extended family because it means we can’t afford to match their excessive spending on gifts.  Like I am dragging my family down financially.  I hate the idea of someone else raising my kids. I trust my presence has value to my sons, but it hurts.

Thank you for reminding me that I CAN get off the consumerist treadmill and focus on what’s most important- my sons, my husband, staying rooted in love.”

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There’s a funny thing about “truth”: it usually bites a little bit. Like a cute kitten. Not a tiger, necessarily. But enough to draw blood. Enough to rouse a reaction. Enough for you to say “ouch”.

That’s not always the case, of course. If you’re already awake to the essence of existence instead of asleep at the wheel, truths like the one written to me by the-mother-in-my-inbox probably will just land like a sweet, familiar song. They’ll resonate and reverberate throughout your body. They’ll make your head nod in agreement.

But if you’re hiding from Truth, it might make you feel uncomfortable. Like the kind of discomfort that comes when you cut someone off in traffic and then just-so-happen to walk in the same direction after parking next to each-other at the same destination (oops).

I’m really bummed that the L.A. wellness influencer scene co-opted the term “awake” somewhere along the way and unknowingly morphed it into a walking woke-bro meme, because being “awake in the dream” – aka being aware, conscious, introspective, thoughtful, deliberate, etc. – is a central thread of almost every single ancient wisdom tradition humans have leveraged for self-discovery and growth. 

Since the beginning of time we’ve been aware that there’s the very-human dramas we coexist with every day – the trappings of the ego, the unhelpful thought patterns, the hoarding, the jealousy, the self-destructive behaviors, the shared suffering of us all – and then there’s something ~bigger~. 

Truth. It’s truth that’s bigger.

And truth, well…she’s everywhere. She’s always swirling around us with her buoyant, gentle omnipresence waiting for us to snap out of our smallness and remember that we don’t need more “things” for happiness. We don’t need to buy our way to peace, joy, or happiness.

Because those states of being already exist within. They’re our birthright.

(If you forget this, please reference a newborn baby).

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“There’s so much waste and no one is getting happier.”

I read her words for the sixth time and switched my “task list” for the whole day. I hopped on Substack to try and untangle the eons of wisdom packed in the-mother-in-my-inbox’s wisdom.  And here I am.

Our Earth can’t hold anymore garbage. We have overconsumed and overproduced our way into oblivion. Most of us have no clue just how destructive our normalized behavior is to Mother Earth. 

I learned from the nonprofit Remake Our World that returns alone created 9.6 Billion pounds of landfill waste in just one year.

The transportation required of these returns resulted in 27 Million metric tons of CO2 emitted into our atmosphere.

In Europe, Amazon (don’t get me started on Amazon) routinely sent a BILLION items to the landfill each year, leading France to outlaw the destruction of unsold consumer goods.

Is your jaw on the ground yet? Do you feel the discomfort? Or are you aware? Are you awake?

The very last thing your kids need – barring serious situations of scarcity – is more sh*t. 

As the mother-in-my-inbox so aptly reflected, our kids just need us. They just need our presence. Our attunement.

They most definitely don’t need you to disconnect, rush back to work, and disassociate just to accumulate in excess. Where choice exists — in the absence of economic oppression and serious financial instability — our babies benefit biologically, emotionally, socially, and spiritually from our togetherness.

And yet, as the mother-in-my-inbox pointed out, we’re mothering in the confines of patriarchal capitalism. A system that values production and consumption over all else. A system that screams separation in an attempt to get you back on the treadmill: back to work, back to buying, back to not-enough-ness.

A system that spellbinds us into spending $15.7 million per second during Black Friday. Even though there’s already enough in production for no one on Earth to experience lack.

A system that keeps us endlessly chasing our tail. A system that keeps us…sad.

So if you also feel like a deer in the woods during hunting season, dare to go dark. Shut it all down. Get offline. Bake bread. Build blocks. Wander in the winter weather. 

The peace, joy, and connection you’re seeking already exists. It’s just buried in the landfill alongside our billions (trillions) of pounds of waste.

Calm, conscious, generative commerce is possible. Capitalism is built on exploitation. It’s predicated on your not-enough-ness. 

Divest. I dare you. 

Give gifts that you make with your hands. Write a card. Give fruit grown from your local farmer. Give flowers who grew wild just to make you smile. 

Give nothing but your company. 

Give your truth. Give gratitude for our remarkable, resilient Earth who holds it all for us without asking for anything in return every single day of our lives.

Give hope, ritual, tradition.

Give love.

And tell the mothers who are so often invisible inside the confines of capitalism that you see their unpaid labor. That you honor their brain-building, heart-filling, society-shaping work even if no one else does.

May we all remember. May we remember and give thanks to the mothers.