I love this analogy of how much influence each of us has on the consciousness of our planet:

Imagine a beautiful clear pool of water. Imagine that every time someone is negative, mean, or harmful to themselves or others, a drop of black water is dropped into the clear beautiful pool. With enough people whose energy is dark, it doesn't take too long before that clear pool starts to get darker and murky.

Now imagine that every time someone is kind and caring with themselves and others, and every time someone is joyful, a drop of crystal-clear water is dropped in the pool. With enough happy, kind, and caring people, the water begins to clear. 

Dianne asked:

How can we find happiness…and create joy, despite many parts of the population who are dragging the rest down? How to find joy while still holding onto values, ethical principles and not looking the other way? In this new shift and cycle of life on our planet, putting our heads in the sand is no longer an option. How can we find balance and still do what we need to do to take care of our planet? We do not have decades, let alone years, left to continue as we are.

Right – our planet is out of balance and so are most of the people on the planet.
 

Our planet is reflecting our individual lack of physical, emotional, and spiritual health and balance.

I love reading about health and many of the health books I’ve read say the same things concerning the recent research – that due to sugar, to processed food-like products and factory-farmed meats, and to antibiotics and other drugs, our microbiome – our gut flora – is severely out of balance. This creates toxicity in the brain, which contributes to emotional imbalance, which then contributes to planetary imbalance. Our imbalanced gut is a major cause of the imbalance of our planet, and our planetary toxicity is a reflection of our inner toxicity.

Each person who decides to practice Inner Bonding and learns to take loving care of themselves emotionally, physically, and spiritually – who learns to treat themselves and others with kindness and to feed their body well – puts a daily drop of clear water into the collective consciousness. Each person who creates their own health and joy through loving themselves, helps the entire planet. What if your drop of happiness into the dark pool that is the current state of much of the consciousness on our planet, were to be the tipping point towards the light?
 

Please don't ever downplay or judge what you can do to help our planet.

There is nothing you can contribute to our planet that is more important than your own health, happiness, and joy. The very best thing you can do is your own Inner Bonding work – stopping junk food and junk thoughts. Healing the inner physical and emotional toxicity that disrupts your ability to connect with your spiritual guidance will go a long way toward healing our planet. As within, so without. Clean up our inner toxicity and we are on the path of cleaning up our outer toxicity.

We cannot allow ourselves to be dragged down by the negativity of our planet. And we cannot change it by being do-gooders – trying to change others without first changing ourselves. So, focus within, learning to create your health and joy, and every day, intentionally drop your clear water into the murky pool. As we each do this, the consciousness of our planet will gradually clear.

Join Dr. Margaret Paul for her 30-Day at-home Course: "Love Yourself: An Inner Bonding Experience to Heal Anxiety, Depression, Shame, Addictions and Relationships."