Our One Degree Shift

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A friend once told me a story about the illusion of change. She said we all think it takes huge shifts to make big change, but imagine this, what if we changed our current direction by just one degree.

If we did, and followed that trajectory, we would end up in an entirely different place than if we had stayed on the same path. Just one degree and our end point is very different. That’s a big lesson.

So here we find ourselves in a place where we have huge tumultuous change. 180 degree change for many. Change that is overwhelming and scary. How do we begin to cope with that? I think the answer lies in making sure we find our one degree of change and we work hard to create that path and stay on it. There are gazillions of changes we can make but to stay sane maybe our one degree is enough for right now. Focusing on that can give us resilience and power and still get us to an entirely different place.

At Ganesh Himal Trading, our one degree of shift is to focus even more intently on nurturing our community and the amazing relationships of care and kindness that reside there.

From our producer groups in Nepal, to our staff, to our customers and this amazing planet, our community literally is our focus right now. Our one degree shift is to always know and behave like we belong to an amazing web of relationships, of people and beings that rely on us and upon whom we heavily rely for our well-being.

So, as you will read below, we’ve spent most of our time this past month creating & providing  trainings for retail store owners through our Fair Trade Retail Support Facebook group. It’s our desire to provide tools to help you survive and thrive through these difficult times. This week we launched our newest creation, the Conscious Consumer Network (CCN).  We hope this network will help customers locate, learn about and purchase from your retail fair trade stores through this Facebook group platform.

Luckily the producers in Nepal we work with are doing ok through their own intense lockdown.

Each of them received a big payment right before the pandemic struck, which we are so grateful for.  It is inspiring to see some of them, with funding from our foundation CCF, reach out to those less fortunate to distribute emergency food and needed menstrual supplies.

Our incredible staff in Spokane are still luckily employed and all at home for the moment. Just this week we received a PPP loan and that gave us a sigh of relief since our sales in April were down 91.5% from 2019! To try to create a little normal, the staff rotates and one of them comes in a couple of times a week to do some bookkeeping or send the occasional order. And luckily Ric and I live just 500 feet from the warehouse so even when they can’t come in we are always open for business!

We hope you are well and staying safe. We are lucky to have our community and to be able to share hope.

We hope you can find your one degree of change and follow it vigilantly, if we all do that, with great clarity and kindness, perhaps, just perhaps, we will find the courage to continue on that path far into the future and create a “new normal” that allows all beings to thrive, including our amazing planet.

Be well and be safe and if you need us, we are here.

Namaste,

Denise (and the Ganesh Himal mini universe!)

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