While I loved city living I found I had an increasingly important desire to learn self-reliance. The thought of being so reliant on people I had never met for every aspect of my life, comfort and safety really started to get to me. I realized how blind trust in the system could easily backfire during a natural disaster or other emergency. There were times when I experienced borderline paranoia. I listened to a lot of spa-type music back then. Anything to keep the anxiety away, to stuff it as deeply down inside myself as I could.
Ignoring and denying those feelings didn’t help. It lead to depression and a feeling of helplessness. I couldn’t even figure out what made me happy.
As I found myself drawn more and more to making a leap into a new life I discovered the only thing that helped alleviate my anxiety was to stop ignoring the paranoia. That paranoia turned out to be a greater call. It was my hearts desires disguised as fear. It’s hard to embrace something when life as you know it is about to change. People tend to do their best to ignore and embrace toxicity when faced with the unknown – especially when it’s the total opposite of anything you’ve ever known.
But try as hard as you like, transformation will happen. You have a choice to allow and embrace change or let the bomb explode in your face. For me, the paranoia disappeared as I followed my heart. I let it catapult me into healthy interests and learning experiences. I decided to replace nervous or bored habits with learning about anything that interested me – anything self-reliance related.
Start anywhere you can. If money is an issue YouTube has great, free tutorials. For me this process started by replacing games on my phone with knitting. I was afraid I’d be the youngest person in the class. Turns out I was the oldest and 6 year old girls were better at it than I was. I’m still terrible at it but to this day I love the tactile nature and producing something other than my previous high score on solitaire.
When I had the chance to visit an Amish community (where my cleavage and city style were unwelcome) I bought a gallon of fresh milk (for $2!) and tried my hand at making butter and beauty products.
Explore anything that interests you. Things you can try:
- Visit farmers markets and talk to area farmers. Ask about anything you’re drawn to.
- Volunteer at area farms – this is an excellent way to learn. You could do this for a few hours or commit to a work program where you get a room and food while you help and learn for a period of time.
- Learn a useful skill or art – cooking, sewing, knitting, mechanics, etc.
- Grow herbs or mini greens – even if you don’t have sunlight you can use grow lights.
- Experiment with making natural beauty products. (see my video for lip balm)
- If you have space but can’t have chickens you can try quail (females only). They lay small, beautiful and nutritious eggs almost daily. They have similar behaviors to chickens but you’re learning on a much smaller scale. I’ll write a more on this in another post.
- Start collecting a library of books and publications you’re interested in. I loved finding old veterinary books, cookbooks or any self-reliance book at sales.
There are a million things you can do to increase your self-reliance. Just start wherever you are and follow your interests from there. I’ll add more as I remember things I did previously or hear what others have done.
Taking charge and having the courage to face doubt or fears can go a long way towards alleviating them. It’s really just making the decision to be your own hero and find your authenticity – and whatever that means to you.