SIMPLIFY

Live simply, that others may simply live
Mahatma Gandhi

In times of economic crisis, financial issues can cause widespread psychological and family stress. The news is reporting that in extreme cases money losses are leading to suicides and even suicide-murders, and so far we don’t know the full extent of the depression, anxiety and domestic violence that will result from the current downtown.

Ecotherapy can offer both clients and clinicians some time-tested and hopeful remedies for coping with challenging economic circumstances. For years both the environmental and social justice movements have worked to help people in industrial societies learn to live less destructively by lowering their environmental footprint, recovering from the addiction of consumerism and sharing the freely-given blessings of nature more equitably. As Gandhi advised, “Live simply, that others may simply live.” And as ecotherapists we interpret “others” to include not only other humans, but all living beings with whom we share this fragile planet.

Gandhi’s recommendation inspired the Voluntary Simplicity movement, now many years old. Duane Elgin’s landmark book Voluntary Simplicity is a core text and Cecile Andrews’ Circle of Simplicity taught us how to set up Simplicity Circles to assist people in making practical changes to their lifestyles. And of course the Quakers have been teaching and practicing simple living for hundreds of years.

Until recently, the Simplicity movement has been a moral and even aesthetic choice for an enlightened few concerned about the environment or social fairness. Now the change to simpler living has become a practical necessity for most of the increasingly embattled middle class and even for many in the wealthier classes who now anxiously watch as their portfolios and net worth shrink.

A lot of the illusory wealth of the seemingly prosperous American middle and upper middle classes was really based on credit and debt, fast evaporating in the cold light of day. The final proof that times have changed for middle America in the last month is the fact that our national psychotherapist Oprah has now declaring that frugality is “in”.

The poor have always struggled with “involuntary simplicity,” of course – right here in prosperous countries and towns like our own. But even the poor, who have long and bitter experience of frugality, have in the last decadent decades been conned into the overspending habit by relentless advertising. I recently spoke with a very poor woman in our community who is weighed down by mounting credit card debt and exorbitant interest rates. She said she would feel psychologically devastated and personally humiliated if she had to give up eating two meals a day at McDonalds and paying for premium cable services. She believed that cutting these “perks” would be an admission of social failure. Like the millions who were conned into taking out interest-only or variable mortgages on homes they couldn’t afford so they could feel “successful,” she bought the message that what you buy determines your worth as a person.

Almost everyone is now facing the fact that they need to make at least a few financial and lifestyle changes to adjust to altered economic circumstances. So it isn’t surprising that our clients – young people worried about jobs, retirees or would-be retirees concerned about making ends meet, families having trouble sustaining their usual lifestyles, friends who have lost jobs, couples and children fighting about finances, desperate parents worried about food and shelter -- now come to us not only for help with the usual stresses of life but also to ask our advice on how to deal with the psychological and practical strains caused by financial pressures and the necessary downshifting taking place in many Santa Barbara County homes.

My husband and I have been part of a Voluntary Simplicity circle here in Santa Barbara for ten years and have learned a lot about how to live more simply from our wonderful friends in the circle who share their collective experiences slimming down and greening up their lifestyles. The support we receive in this group has been crucial in helping us make decisions that weren’t socially popular at the time. For example, the group gave us the courage to resist the seductions of financial pushers (“Don’t you want to refinance for 125% of the value of your home like everyone else is doing so you can have a new kitchen?”) and to find the courage to explain to relatives and friends why we had decided to continue to drive our very old second-hand cars and not to replace our formica countertops with granite at a time when it seemed that everyone else was “movin’ on up” and enjoying the benefits of living on borrowed cash.

So what can we as therapists do to help those who, lacking this kind of community support, have fallen into the traps of the con artists or are the innocent victims of the general economic downturn?

Perhaps the most powerful therapeutic tool we can use is reframing. We can help clients see their personal dilemma in a larger social, environmental and even historical context and view economic challenges and required lifestyle changes less as deprivation and more as opportunity.

We can facilitate exploration of how the frenetic merry-go-round of the earn-to-spend lifestyle has had very real disadvantages and negative impacts on their lives. For a lot of folks it’s been “more stuff, less time, not much joy.” Many of us hate the frantic pace of trying to keep up with the mythical Joneses and are exhausted from meeting the merciless demands of the repetitive “Buy, buy, buy!” messages that surround us everywhere we go. Seductive and powerful ads tell us over and over again that we are inadequate human beings unless we run out and purchase their products, in the process lowering our collective self-esteem (and our children’s self-esteem). This puts us in a vulnerable psychological state where we weaken and buy things we don’t really need just to get an illusory “boost” or temporary high.

Haven’t we all been tempted to succumb to injunctions like “Send your perfectly serviceable but ‘unfashionable’ couch to the dump and order a new one or else you’re a pathetic loser”? Teams of psychologists work on coming up with these nasty but clever marketing tactics – and are probably paid much more for this kind of mental manipulation than most clinicians trying to help people recover from the devastating damage they cause!

Shopping has devolved from a necessary task to a compulsive activity, a form of entertainment or even an addiction for many. To keep up with the “need” for the latest of everything, people often work two or more jobs per family, juggling the demands of employers, children and spouses. There is less and less time to just “be” – by yourself, in nature or with loved ones.

Simplifying (even involuntary simplifying) offers the opportunity – even the permission – to resist the pushers’ demands, declutter our lives and do more of what is deeply satisfying. We can sort through our priorities, our garages and our budgets to see what really gives us deep, lasting, meaningful pleasure and what just chews up our energies, money and time. Even small changes and seemingly inconsequential cuts can bring relief and hope, lifting the worst of the anxiety and depression caused by financial pressures. Next month: helping clients getting out of debt, exploring the deeper aspects of clients’ relationships with money, overcome fear of finances and budgeting, shopping second-hand without shame, re-thinking gift giving, downsizing your lifestyle, moving in with friends or relatives etc.

RESOURCES
Andrews, Cecile. The Circle of Simplicity: Return to the Good Life.
Debtors Anonymous, a 12-Step group to help people recover from compulsive debt, addictive shopping, underearning and financial distress. www.debtorsanonymous.org There is a Tuesday evening meeting in Santa Barbara. (805) 267-4833.
Elgin, Duane. Voluntary Simplicity: Toward a Way of Life that is Outwardly Simple, Inwardly Rich
“In Debt We Trust,” documentary film by Danny Schechter
“Simple Living” with Wanda Urbanska (PBS series available on DVD)
The Simple Living Network www.simpleliving.net
Wann, David. Simple Prosperity: Finding Real Wealth in a Sustainable Lifestyle.

For more information about a Voluntary Simplicity Circle that has been meeting in Santa Barbara since 1998, e-mail Linda Buzzell at lbuzzell@aol.com

Linda Buzzell, M.A., MFT has been a marriage and family therapist since 1975. She currently practices in Woodland Hills and Santa Barbara, focusing her work on career, money and sustainable living issues. She is the founder of the International Association for Ecotherapy and is currently co-editing “Ecotherapy: Healing with Nature in Mind” for Sierra Club Books. She has also worked extensively in the entertainment industry and for two years did research for the late Capt. Jacques Cousteau on four documentaries about Antarctica. She is the author of “How to Make It in Hollywood” (HarperCollins), a career guide to the entertainment industry, and the founder of the International Documentary Association, a professional association of documentary filmmakers.