Walking Through the Discomfort

As you know, I am a Fashion Design student California College of the Arts. I chose this school for a multitude of reasons - but one of the main ones being that CCA's Fashion Design program is one of the only in the country that focuses on sustainable design. I really liked this.

So I am a Sophmore, and am taking the first class - eco seminar. I feel honored to have Lynda Grose as my professor - she started the program at CCA in 1999. The first program in the country. Lynda started the Eco Collection at Esprit almost 20 years ago ... and since then works to on so many different levels to make sustainable changes in the Fashion industry - and mostly works to educate.

Anyhow - the point is that Lynda has been feeding us with so much info about the environment and the fashion industry ... and for some reason I am passionate. Affected. So much so that I got so uncomfortable - I started feeling guilty about my decisions [and note I am not the average person - I am pretty proactive on so many levels about the choices I make for myself] -- I buy too much food that's packaged in plastic, my shampoo is harming the water, I am eating meat of an animal that had been abused/harmed/shot with drugs; I started judging others; I convinced myself that we've screwed ourselves and that the world is going to spontaneously combust. Soon. And to just save myself the time of writing an in-depth million page description of how I'm feeling + an instructional video .... I'll just say that this topic makes me feel supremely uncomfortable on so many levels. I've been given this gift of consciousness, but I am feeling helpless. I don't yet know what to do.

So I wait, and continue to walk forward. I've been taught to walk through discomfort... Through the judgment. Through my defects that have arisen (I am better than others for "knowing more than they do" ... and so on). And if I wait, if I'm open, I'll somehow know what my next step is. How I can help. How I can participate. Here I go. Waiting. ...