Fifteen years ago Captain Liz Clark set off on the adventure of a lifetime on her 40-foot sailboat, Swell, leaving behind the familiarity of the Californian shore for the sake of finding a simpler life in harmony with the Earth. More than 20,000 nautical miles later, she remains a brave seafarer and surfer committed to a greener world, clean oceans, and a healthier planet.
Together with Captain Liz we have designed the Swell Necklace, a joyful picture of what it looks like to "STEER WITH YOUR HEART". Let Liz's courageous and humble spirit inspire you to breathe, take the different path, and cherish the natural world. 100% of the net profits from each purchase will go to Changing Tides Foundation, empowering women all over the globe to protect the planet. Learn more: www.changingtidesfoundation.org.
Captain Liz believes that every individual can make a difference: reducing our impact by the choices we make, personal awareness and positivity to collectively love and save the planet. Here are her top 10 Ways to Contribute to a Better World:
1. Spread Good Vibes
Positivity is contagious, healing, and unifying. A peaceful world starts in our own hearts, so our job as individuals is to check ourselves when negative emotions arise and take another direction. In a better world, we must treat each other and ourselves with kindness, compassion, and integrity!
2. Buy Organic, Local, Non-toxic and Mindfully
Your dollars are your voice. Let your purchases speak to your values. We can make a positive impact everyday by supporting brands and people who care about people and the environment as much as we do. By doing so, we tip the demand toward sustainable, fair trade, socially-responsible goods.
Buying local offsets carbon. Supporting organic farmers helps reduce degradation and pollution of our soils, waterways, and oceans not to mention our bodies. Opting for recycled, sustainably-sourced wood and paper products can help preserve biodiversity and the Earth’s remaining forests. Refusing to buy chemical-based sunscreen, shampoos & body wash, laundry & dish soaps, toothpaste & cleaning products means fewer toxic chemicals end up in our bodies and waterways. Do a little research, read ingredients and labels, and look for minimal and recycleable packaging!
3. REFUSE Single Use Plastics
Our oceans are becoming plastic soup. I find plastic debris lining the beaches of tropical islands thousands away from any trash source. This plastic never biodegrades, only breaks down into tiny toxic piecesthat pollute our ocean ecosystems and enter the food chain–killing wildlife ranging from plankton to seabirds to whales–and rendering our seafood toxic.
Let’s stop our single-use plastic addiction and lead the way toward a world of biodegradable plastic alternatives. Get a reusable water bottle, bring your own reusable cutlery, install a water filter in your home, bring your own shopping bags, dine-in, refuse plastic straws, avoid brands using excess plastic packaging, and speak up with friends and merchants about this important issue!
4. Eat Less or No Meat
Why do they keep telling us to ‘turn off the lights’ and ‘carpool’ to help save the planet when eating less meat & dairy for a week could decrease your personal eco-impact more than carpooling for a whole year? Animal agriculture is a leading cause of the greenhouse gases responsible for climate change, soil degradation, water pollution due to animal waste runoff, ocean acidification, rainforest clearing, and extinction due to habitat loss and destruction.
Despite that the meat and dairy industries have us thinking animal protein is necessary for our health, studies prove we can get every essential nutrient and amino acid we need from plant foods. After switching to a plant-based diet in 2012, I can assure you that I feel SO good that the thought never enters my mind to go back!! If you’re not ready to give up meat entirely, try to choose wild, sustainably-caught, or humanely-raised meat, poultry, and seafood.
5. Support Alternative & Free Energy Solutions
It’s time to demand a shift away from petrochemicals and support alternative energy whenever possible. Wherever where we can, let’s go off-grid, use solar and wind-power, drive more fuel-efficient cars, demand better public transportation, walk, ride a bike, and support alternative energy systems and free energy solutions!
In the US, Arcadia power offers residents a seamless way to support clean energy without having to change your utilities provider or put solar panels on your home, it only takes a few clicks to find out if your residence or rental is eligible, check it out!
6. Dedicate Yourself to Personal Growth & Self-Awareness
A better you makes a better world, and I believe we cannot truly be fulfilled without growing and evolving into better versions of ourselves. Going within takes courage, but the rewards are unlimited. Even small positive changes can improve our lives and relationships drastically, and inspire others around us to do the same.
Don’t wait for someone else to change, change yourself. Find where you can be more open, kind, loving, positive, flexible, courteous, patient, forgiving, honest, humble, etc. We all have our issues, our struggles, our hardships. Let's use them as stepping-stones to our greatness and opportunities to grow, learn, and move closer to the Light!
7. Get Outside and Connect with Mother Earth!
Whether you just stop & take a deep breath and look up at the sky, or smell a flower, go for a nature walk, surf, hike, swim, or the likes–doing something everyday to acknowledge our connection and dependence upon the Earth helps keep the important things in perspective. We often forget that we depend on a healthy Earth for every meal we eat, each drop of water we use, and every breath we take. A life acknowledging this connection to the Source of our existence cultivates gratitude, balance, respect, and a feeling of Oneness with Nature and the Universe. Get off the beaten path and go fall in love with this magnificent planet in your own beautiful way!
8. Plant a Garden or Create a Permaculture Yard.
It’s amazing what we consider ‘food’ these days. Growing a veggie garden and planting edible plants in your yard is not only the best way to ensure that your food is chemical & GMO-free, and charged with love, but you automatically reduce your carbon footprint, contribute to local biodiversity, save yourself some cash, and put the power to feed yourself highly nutritious food back in your own hands!
9. Buy Less, Waste Less, Upcycle and Get Creative with What You Have
Nature knows no ‘waste’—matter and energy are always reused and transformed. Our current economy is based on the impossible premise of infinite growth on a finite planet, encouraging us to blindly consume and throw away. We must reject the unsustainable ‘buy & toss’ model by refusing to buy things we don’t really need or that don't enhance our well being or happiness. We must find a way to be as clever as nature at utilizing, recycling, and transforming our resources by reusing and reinventing things that we would normally throw away, or giving them to someone who will.
10. Do what you Love!!
We are all here for a unique and beautiful calling. Each of us contributes to the diversity and evolution of humanity when allowed to develop into our fully blossomed selves. Take a risk! Follow your dreams and live up to your potential, so that you may be happier and more inclined to want to give back to the world. Abundance follows people who live in their true calling or joy-space. We must leap with relentless positivity and energy toward living a life we dream of.
Once you go for it, you’ll look back and see how your hardships were part of your path to fulfillment, and a deep Trust may be born in the Greatness and Perfection of it All. Compassion flourishes, competition melts away, and we come to see and feel the interconnectedness of all our stories and struggles. Understanding and feeling this Oneness, we realize that we cannot truly rise unless we rise together.
Read more from Captain Liz's blog on her website www.swellvoyage.com.
