What does the word freedom represent to you? This is just one of the many introspective questions to contemplate before making the deliberate decision to become part of a new movement which challenges the typical American dream.

It’s known as the Small House Movement or the Tiny House Movement.

Within the Small House Movement exists a category of homes under 500 square feet, commonly identified as part of the Tiny House Movement. Both names are used interchangeably to describe the movement, as they stand for the same fundamental principles.

“It’s not a movement about people claiming to be “tinier than thou” but rather people making their own choices toward simpler and smaller living however they feel best fits their life,” explains the Small House Society. Founded in 2002, the society has embraced the movement with a mission to support the development smaller housing alternatives that are more affordable and ecologically sustainable.

Commonly known as small or tiny houses, these homes can either be purchased or personally constructed. They are all meant to be habitable, with just enough space for a minimal amount of material items needed to suit personal needs.

Although the movement is considered to be a contemporary one, its inspiration is historical. Jay Shafer, entitled as founder of the Tiny House Movement for building himself the ‘first’ tiny house in 1999, accredits the influence of the alternative housing revolution to several authors and as far back to the transcendentalist Henry Thoreau.

Shafer’s underlying principle for living in a tiny house is in many ways reminiscent of Thoreau’s mindset within his book Walden, a reflection on living simply among natural surroundings in a time of industrialization. “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived,” wrote Thoreau. Shafer exemplifies this by stating, “When you live in a tiny house you only have room for the things that truly matter… You have to choose what’s essential.”

Inherent to joining the Small House Movement is an intentional shift in lifestyle, which has attracted all walks of life. The millionaire movie director Tom Shadyac, who produced the films Liar Liar and Bruce Almighty, made the conscious decision to renounce the American dream by ditching his 17,000 square foot McMansion, boasting 17 bedrooms and 13 bathrooms, to move into a 1,000 square foot mobile home in order to find what he considered to be true happiness.

This social movement is not only limited to people advocating modest living and lowering consumeristic tendencies. Switching to smaller homes is accompanied by a variety of reasons including to reduce environmental impact by becoming self-sufficient or living off the grid, freeing more time to venture into new activities by allocating less time in the upkeep of a home, providing mobility by building tiny homes on wheels or boats, as well as saving money by living in a significantly more cost effective way than in a typical house or apartment.

The Tiny Life lists the top five barriers to the movement as land, loans, laws, social pressures, and fear. Although there are apparent obstacles within the movement, they can generally be circumvented with enough dedication.

What are your thoughts about the Small House Movement? Would you defy the American dream to live in a tiny home?

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Deemed “the world’s first internet-based live television station” by the The London Economic, The People’s Voice (TPV) permanently aired worldwide on November 25, 2013. TPV television and radio is scheduled to broadcast 24/7 with both live and prerecorded shows nonstop.

“The People’s Voice is a free global internet TV & Radio station broadcasting the information, background and opinions the mainstream media won’t touch,” states the television network’s website.

The concept to create a broadcasting network as an alternative to mainstream media was collaboratively conceived in May by David Icke and Sean Adl-Tabatabai. By the end of the month, David Icke and his team of five initiated a campaign for TPV through a global crowdfunding platform called Indiegogo. Considering The People’s Voice as an “opportunity for the people to have their say like never before,” David Icke expresses his call for TPV within the campaign’s video:

“The voice that we hear constantly is that of the authorities, the establishment, governments, and increasingly today’s corporations. The people’s voice? Silence.”

The public agreed and reacted. According to Sean Adl-Tabatabai, “large numbers of small donations from all over the world” contributed towards the campaign. Surpassing the expected goal of £100,000 GBP within 6 days by more than a threefold increase, TPV was able to raise £300,692 GBP of financial support in the 41 days that the campaign lasted. TPV was launched less than 5 months later.

The main intent of TPV is “to question the official and alternative view of everything in the spirit of real journalism and the pursuit of the truth.” The station is currently comprised of 28 programs featuring a broad range of themes including art, awakening, comedians, corruption, esotericism, health, music, phone-ins, politics, science, spirituality, and the list goes on.

David Icke also mentions the possibilities of TPV by stating, “I mean the potential once you have that amount of airtime without censorship, where you can go, what you can cover is just limited only by imagination.”

For more information, check out Luke Rudkowski’s video interview covering The People’s Voice with David Icke. To support The People’s Voice, follow TPV on Facebook and tweet #TPV on Twitter. 

The post The People’s Voice: Be Part Of The Heard Not The Herd appeared first on We Are Change.

Ever notice your ear burning after a long cell phone conversation? Welcome to the world of electromagnetic field (EMF) radiation.

Although the mainstream doesn’t like to talk about the dangers of EMF exposure, people habitually use and depend upon this wireless technology all throughout the day. This unseen electromagnetic realm may indeed be linked to many of our society’s health conditions like cancer, “ADD”, “ADHD”, anxiety, depression, etc.

Cell phones, WiFi, laptops, tablets, cordless phones, microwave ovens, digital radios, power lines, and even wireless baby monitors are among the devices that expose people to these dangerous EMFs.

The Russian National Committee on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection raised concerns about the marketing of cell phones to children and likened the risk of children using mobile phones to be “not much lower than the risk to children’s health from tobacco or alcohol.” The committee enacted a precautionary approach urging that it is not recommended for children under the age of 18 to use cell phones.

From the early 1990’s up until today, governments and organizations worldwide have warned of the impending dangers of wireless technology due to the potential for excessive levels of radiation exposure. An assessment of these studies has encouraged a variety of agencies to propose appeals and resolutions asking for lower EMF safety limits.

There are several preventative ways you can reduce the usage and exposure of EMF radiation in your own life.

Useful Tips

Use speakerphone to keep your phone further away from your head, since exposure levels drop dramatically with distance.

Keep your calls short.

Use text messaging instead of making phone calls on your cell phone.

If you have a smartphone, switch it to airplane mode as much as possible.

Avoid putting your phone in your pocket near your leg.

Avoid sleeping with your phone near your head.

Avoid making calls in the car, bus, train, or elevator since the phone increases it’s EMF output to get a signal through metal surfaces.

Avoid placing your laptop on your lap.

Ground yourself (get your bare feet on the earth for at least 20 minutes)

Make an effort to place the WiFi modem in a remote area of your home, or as far away from where you spend most of your time.

Unplug your WiFi when you’re not using it, especially when you go to sleep.

Turn off all electronic devices when you’re not using them, especially at nighttime.

Get rid of your microwave or at least unplug it permanently.

Buy an EMF detector or find someone who has one so you can get a proper evaluation of the different rooms of your home.

Throw out all swirly aka “Compact Flouresent Lightbulbs” (CFL) in your home. These are especially popular in California. Replace these cancerous bulbs with normal soft white light bulbs.

Below is a list of things you can purchase to reinforce your body’s natural EMFs and protect yourself from the artificial ones:

Useful Products

Q-Link sells products that you can wear or attach to your electronic devices

Groundology sells grounding products such as computer mats, mouse pads, and bedding that claim to have numerous health benefits.

Earthing – also sells grounding bands, computer mats, pillows, mats, etc.

Belly Armor sells products such as blankets or tees for pregnant women.

Orgonite is sold (or you can make it yourself) by vendors all around the world and can be placed inside your home to convert harmful EMFs into positive energy.

ZyXEL PLA407 is a WiFi adapter that runs internet through your wall outlets so you don’t have to use wifi anymore or only when you need it.

Cornet ED78S is an EMF detector which will detect both RF / LF frequencies. This includes nearby cell phone towers.

To learn more about EMFs and limiting your exposure, visit www.emfs.info  as well as check out this radio interview with retired British military intelligence scientist Barrie Trower. LLoyd Burrell over at ElectricSense.com is also very educational and a good person to follow on EMFs.

Stephanie Marie

We Are Change

The post What Your Cell Phone Is Not Telling You appeared first on We Are Change.

Although the concept of 3D printing has been around since the late 1970s, only recently have 3D printers become more affordable and accessible. An increased interest in 3D printing has ensued over the years, and the technology now reaches industrial and consumer markets alike.

For those who are just learning about this technology, 3D printing is the process of making a three-dimensional structure from a digital model. Components required for printing a 3D object include a computer, 3D design software, a 3D printer, and 3D materials.

The typical process of 3D printing begins by designing a 3D blueprint of an object through the computer software. The next step is sending that file to a 3D printer, which proceeds to print the item. This is executed by making consecutive layers with the selected material from the bottom-up, until the object is completed.

3D printing has a wide array of applications. Two brothers started Pixel 3D to create and manufacture their own 3D printed objects sold at their Etsy shop. The world’s first 3D printed metal handgun was made and successfully tested by Solid Concepts in Austin, TX. In the fashion industry, 3D printed lingerie made its debut down the runway for Victoria’s Secret. In terms of renewable energy, the company Printrbot donated their own 3D printers to Village Energy in Uganda to help create solar products that power a lamp and charge a cell phone. In the medical industry, an 83-year-old woman is the first to have a custom 3D printed jaw transplant. In terms of biotechnology, 3D printing becomes ‘bio-printing’ whereas the 3D material is not artificial but actual living human cells.

In politics, hype surrounding 3D printing is on the rise. According to The Economist, the emergence of 3D printing technology is at the forefront of “a third industrial revolution.” President Obama has supported the industrial advancement of 3D printing by establishing the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership in 2011 as a “national effort to secure US leadership in the emerging technologies that will create high-quality manufacturing jobs and enhance America’s global competitiveness.”

In his 2013 State of the Union Address, Obama renewed the call to support 3D printing technology by asking Congress to authorize a $1 billion investment to assemble a network of up to 15 manufacturing innovation institutes. Five months later, Obama further proposed the creation of up to 45 new institutes over the next 10 years.

During his speech Obama declared, “3D printing has the potential to revolutionize the way we make almost everything.” The company Makerbot responded to the speech by launching Makerbot Academy with “an educational mission to put a MakerBot Desktop 3D Printer in every school in the United States of America.” At the London 3D Printshow, a digital artist responded by revealing his voice sculpture, called “Next Industrial Revolution,” that reads a 3D printed waveform to produce a 39 second audio clip of Obama supporting 3D printing.

We Are Change would like to know your response to the advancement of 3D printing technology in society. Is 3D printing destined to be the next industrial revolution? What are the potential ramifications of this technology? What do you think about having a 3D printer in every school?

Let’s get this discussion started, leave a comment below.

Stephanie Marie

We Are Change

The post 3D Printing: Manufacturing A Brighter Future appeared first on We Are Change.

As examined in my previous articles, HeartMath: The Heart Is More Powerful Than The Brain and HeartMath: Reading Between The Lines, readers hopefully have grasped the basis of the Institute of HeartMath. Let’s now take a deeper look into the Global Coherence Initiative launched by HeartMath…

Typically without realizing, individuals are constantly interacting with electromagnetic fields. Unseen to the human eye, these energy fields are not only measurable but also impact each person on a daily basis.

According to the Institute of HeartMath, the electromagnetic field of the heart radiates outwards and changes in accordance to one’s emotional state. In other words, scientific research confirms that the way an individual feels directly affects the area around them through the energy field that their heart emanates:

“Every individual’s energy contributes to the global field environment, and each person’s thoughts, emotions and intentions affects the field.”

HeartMath studies also show that the energy field of the heart can be measured up to several feet away from the body and affects other people, animals, as well as the surrounding environment. Realizing that one’s energy has the potential to influence, the Institute explains that it becomes a personal responsibility to decide what type of energy is being emitted. By striving for coherence, HeartMath infers that people have the potential to influence the global field environment in a positive way:

“Through collective heart-focused intention, we can help raise the planetary consciousness vibration, making it easier for more people to connect with their own intuitive guidance, which is one of the most important steps for shifting personal and global consciousness.”

By intentionally choosing the state of coherence, one is able to achieve heart-based living. HeartMath assumes that it is necessary to cultivate a society comprised of individuals dedicated to perceiving from the heart in order to manifest substantial positive change in the world.

HeartMath is committed to spreading the knowledge of heart-based living in the hopes of reaching global coherence. They have founded the Global Coherence Initiative to perform scientific research concerning heart-focused intention at the collective level in order to explore how humanity’s thoughts, emotions, and intentions affect the field. The Global Coherence Initiative explains:

“Science has shown that the earth’s magnetic field affects humans in profound ways, but our intention is to study how humans collectively affect the earth’s energetic field environment.”

To perform this task, the Global Coherence Initiative has created a project to strategically place 14 sensors around the world to measure the earth’s magnetic field. They believe that this monitoring system will facilitate a more comprehensive understanding of the mutual interactions between humans and the global environment.

This network of sensors, called the Global Coherence Monitoring System, will also serve to provide scientific information regarding the connection between the earth’s magnetic field and collective human emotions.

The director of research for the Institute of HeartMath and the Global Coherence Initiative, Dr. Rollin McCarthy, voices his interest in understanding exactly “how we humans, and especially the emotional fields that we create in mass, also interact with and affect the fields of the planet.”

The Global Coherence Initiative will continue to conduct research in order to prove their hypothesis. The Initiative believes that enough individuals taking the personal responsibility to increase their heart coherence can lead to a critical mass movement of cultures and nations towards increased social coherence. They presume that this can eventually develop into global coherence, finally resulting in enduring peace.

To learn more, check out their video The Heart’s Intuitive Intelligence.

Stephanie Marie

We Are Change

Part 1: The Heart Is More Powerful Than the Brain

Part 2: HeartMath: Reading Between The Lines

The post HeartMath: Heart-Based Living For Global Coherence appeared first on We Are Change.

As I briefly touched upon in my previous article, HeartMath: The Heart Is More Powerful Than The Brain, we know that the Institute of HeartMath has established over 20 years of extensive scientific research concerning the interactions between heart activity and brain function. Let’s now take a closer look into the scientific explanations that support these discoveries from HeartMath.

The Shifting Rhythm of the Heart

Science once assumed that the heart at rest beats similar to a metronome, which ticks at a steady rate and consistent rhythm. This is measured when visiting your physician, who takes your pulse and records your average heart rate at a certain number of beats per minute. Moment-to-moment fluctuations of the heartbeat are commonly overlooked. Utilizing electrocardiography and electromagnetic wave technology, scientists are able to evaluate the precise heart rate between each heartbeat interval called heart rate variability. HeartMath’s studies demonstrate that a healthy heart beats irregularly, even when at rest. Your heart does not beat like clockwork, but rather naturally shifts its rhythm in a remarkable way.

The Significance of Heart Rate Variability

You may now be wondering how this applies to you. Your heart is constantly responding to how you are reacting at every given moment. Consider this, someone cuts you off while driving. If this brings about feelings of outrage, then that will be represented in extreme chaotic fluctuations of your heartbeat. If you viewed this circumstance as trivial, then your heart rate variability will retain its established pattern. Heart rate variability serves to quantify the physiological resiliency and behavioral flexibility of experiences, meaning your ability to cope with stress and your adaptability in given situations. By grasping these details about how your heart is beating, you can apply this understanding to your own ability to deal with the demands of everyday life.

The Force of Emotions

Emotion is the most influential factor that affects the shifting rhythm between heartbeats. This is found to be especially accurate when the same emotion is repetitively experienced, or perpetuated over long periods of time. HeartMath research shows that when heart rate variability is plotted over time, the overall shape of the waveform is called the heart rhythm pattern. The heart rhythm pattern is a reflection of your emotional state. Negative emotions, such as aggravation, anger, stress, or anxiety, cause an irregular heart rhythm pattern. This pattern is known as incoherence, seen as a waveform sequence of erratically jagged peaks on an electrocardiogram. When your heart is responding to negative emotions, it actually causes your body to operate incompetently by depleting your energy. In contrast, positive emotions have an opposite effect on your heart rhythm pattern. Positive emotions, such as love, joy, gratitude, and compassion, are seen as a waveform sequence of harmonious heart rhythms with smoothly organized peaks. When your heart is responding to and sustaining positive emotions the heart achieves a body wide shift known as coherence, a total balance of energy. Coherence is a synchrony of mental, emotional, and physical functions.

Striving for Coherence

Coherence is not the same as relaxation, a low energy state typically disengaged from cognitive and emotional thoughts. Coherence is achieved by actively engaging your thoughts in a way that allows you to feel genuine positive emotion. Once intentionally reaching coherence, you experience a state of balance and clarity that will provide you with an acute sense of awareness. Accomplishing coherence also yields benefits in mental focus, clear emotions, and physical coordination. Simply speaking, think thoughts that make you feel good. Do whatever it takes to be happy and from that place of happiness do everything else. It is that simple to work towards a coherent state of being. Strive for coherence always, as it is the optimal state of responsiveness for everyday living and the interactions of life.

Stephanie Marie

We Are Change

The post HeartMath: Reading Between The Lines appeared first on We Are Change.

To a degree beyond belief, the heart performs the most influential role in the body.

We have been taught that it is only our brain that is in control, while the rest of our body obediently responds to its commands. Although the brain is important, this misconception is not the case and mainstream science has now revealed the full story.

The Institute of HeartMath, a nonprofit research and education organization, has uncovered these revolutionary findings and is continuing to research this significant relationship between the heart and the brain. With over two decades of scientifically validated research, their examinations serve to explain exactly to what extent the heart contributes to our daily lives.

Research from HeartMath has introduced that not only the brain, but also the heart itself is an intelligent system. These studies indicate specifically how the heart sends more information to the brain than vice versa.

HeartMath has recorded the heart to be approximately 60 times greater electrically and up to 5,000 times stronger magnetically than the brain. This awareness places the brain relatively weak in comparison to the heart.

The Institute’s scientific breakthrough has also led them to new understandings about the link between the heart and emotions, revealing the significance of the heart’s electromagnetic field that changes according to emotional states.

In terms of emotional balance and health, HeartMath’s studies support a greater necessity in paying attention to how you feel. The better you feel, the more your heart and brain are working synergistically together. According to their studies, when you are feeling negative emotions the reaction becomes the opposite. In activating this synergy, the body can function more harmoniously by reaching a state of balance and clarity.

HeartMath has pinpointed the precise measure for the heart’s optimum signal of synergy with the brain, and they are dedicated to inform us how to activate it intentionally. By holding what the Institute calls “genuine core heart feelings”, such as gratitude or compassion, the heart emits a signal that they call coherence.

In order to help individuals under difficult or negative situations, the Institute of HeartMath has developed several techniques explaining how to align into coherence in an easy and practical manner.

In my next article, I will be covering the science behind HeartMath and exploring these connections more closely!

To learn more about the Institute of HeartMath or their discoveries, visit their website and watch their video titled Mysteries of the Heart.

Stephanie Marie

We Are Change

The post HeartMath: The Heart Is More Powerful Than The Brain appeared first on We Are Change.