I have been gradually and slightly changing my lifestyle for the last three years. At first I decreased the number of home appliances. Currently, I use electricity for lights, a refrigerator, a PC, an iPhone and a washing machine. This winter I am going to switch off my refrigerator. And I know that I cannot switch off my washing machine.

When I look back to this year, I see two tipping points that changed my lifestyle. The first one is, I stopped using a dish rack in my kitchen. Not using this irritated me. It took one month to adjust myself in my daily life without it. But after one month, I felt that I could get a new perspective in my daily life. After that, I started to decrease the number of plastic products. That made me open my eyes to traditional Japanese things which I wrote about in September. I was able to decrease a half of the plastic products which I had. I welcomed ceramic vessels and pottery instead of plastics. At the same time, since I live in a humid place throughout the year, I accepted that I needed support from plastic products too.

Plastic products brought me a new perspective, and I started to be aware of the backgrounds of products. I started to check the products’ company’s history and each company’s money stream. For example, if I use Amazon, that money will flow into the U.S. Because they don’t pay much taxes. I started to see my impact through my consumption. My consumption ripples into the world, even if I am not aware of it. I started to be aware of each ripple in each moment. I boycotted many companies. I threw away many reward cards. I erased many accounts for my online shopping or SNS.

Then for a while, I was in a perfect balance. But one day I found some inharmonious tones in my life. I always thought that I didn’t need so many clothes pegs. I decided on an appropriate number of clothes pegs and decreased them. Then that small space which was filled with clothes pegs brought to me a new stage. That was the second tipping point.

I realized that my apartment was too much spacious for me. Because of shamanic training, my body was taken back subtly into my body. So I really needed to clean up my room thoroughly. I mean that I needed to tune my room energy every day for myself. Now, the room energy directly influences my body. Then I was able to recognize the appropriate size that I needed for a living space and started to give away my chairs and tables to whomever needed them. And I realized that I should rent at least two places to survive global warming. Therefore, I am going to see some places for next summer in Nagano this week.

I never imagined that a dish rack and clothes pegs would be tipping points that changed my lifestyle. And that’s my true story in 2013. I don’t know if doing what I did suits you or not. But it is worth a shot.