How Decentralization (income, geography, food source, etc..) Can Create Stability in Your Life

This essay on decentralization originally appeared on Catherine’s facebook page in March of 2017 – her family unit has shifted in soe ways, but the values still remain.

The reason we (the Blush Family) decided to #decentralize our lives can be deduced to one word: STABILITY. As you can see, our top down centralized society is crumbling. Education, food, “government”, money, housing…. Its all designed the same way – top down, bloated, subsidized, stealing from hard working people to fulfill the vision held at the top. Nope. Not for me. I don’t want all my eggs in THAT basket.

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If you work a 9 to 5 and you lose your job, what happens? Financial chaos. Stress. If your “income” (not in the IRS use of the word) is decentralized (mine is), and you loose a revenue stream, what happens? You lean into the others. We have the bookstore, our viral homesteading blog, consulting gigs, MLMS (#doTERRA), John’s podcast, and I used to write for other publications to bring in resources (now I just lean into the viral blog cause the potential for greater payout is amazing). When one stream isn’t doing well for some reason (we are working on the back end of the website instead of making content… or JB takes a break from his podcast, etc…), we can lean into the others and bridge the gap. It took us a while to get there, but now that we have fully decentralized and have our solid foundations built for each of these projects, we are really starting to BUILD and GROW these streams! We have made it out of survival mode and can start really reaching for the stars. Decentralizing our income was HARD, but in the long run I know it will have all been worth it.

If an education system is broken (as ours is here in the US), and your child is caught up inside, what happens? Do you remember what it was like to be sucked into that system? Bad teacher? Too bad. Not a morning person? Too bad. Not one who learns well in a classroom setting? Too bad. Want to spend the whole day studying physics? Too bad. Students get chewed up and spit out into a debt-based low-wage paper-pushing career with zero real life skills (generally speaking o course). They are encouraged to follow a path of study that will get them a “job” and are robbed from their power to CREATE THEIR OWN “JOB”. The path laid out by our modern education system is not a path that will make a child feel WHOLE. Any system that forces you to be in community with people your age all the time will suck the life out of you. Who do you learn from? Who do you teach? How do you grow? I personally have peers of all ages (literally) and learn from them ALL. I wish I had been exposed to all ages growing up.

If you #UNSCHOOL and something isn’t working, what happens? You lean into other activities and fulfill your entire family. You shift your life to work around how people function best. Change of interest? No problem. Homebody? No problem. Social and love to TALK all day? No problem. Super interested in one topic? Perfect opportunity to build hyper niche skills that you can monetize when you are ready. When you unschool your sources of information are UNLIMITED and you can literally learn all day every day (like me!). You can surround yourself with people of ALL AGES who have similar interests and lifestyles – OR totally different interests and lifestyles. The point is you have CHOICES unlike schools. I have noticed the unschooled kids in our community do not see adults as authority figures, they see them as a peer. They look you in the eye. They speak their mind. They are EMPOWERED and un-afraid of those “scary” grown ups. They know when something doesn’t feel right, and they do not feel obligated to stay quiet because someone is an adult. I would have THRIVED in this educational model! Our kids seem to be as well.

More by Catherine of the Homestead Guru:Food Dogmatism Has No Place in Health – Vegans and Carnivores CAN Honor Each Other

What happens when a government taxes people into slavery and destroys the currency by playing monopoly games with an entire population? Runs on the bank, inflation, poverty, debt slavery, having to work multiple jobs just to LIVE….. But when you have bitcoin, Dash, silver, barter, AND USD – you can literally gain while one system crashes, and maintain STABILITY in your financial life.

Same with food – when its all internationally shipped and sprayed with pesticides and GMO sourced? What happens? Chronic illness, digestion issues, acne, cancer, whatever way these things manifest in YOUR body. But when you decentralized your food sources what happens? You garden – your body loves the sunshine and the movement and the FRESH food. You buy from the farmers market – you meet the people who grow your food, you keep money LOCAL, you become more SOCIAL, you get to know your COMMUNITY, you save MONEY or even MAKE money. And you can even decentralize HOW you grow food. Hugelkultur beds, aquaponics, permaculture, potted plants, indoor garden, vertical garden, livestock, and on and on. One system fails? You have 10 others!

If you participate in the modern housing mortgage situation, and you owe hundreds of thousands of dollars to a bank and you lose your job, what happens? You miss payments, then you face foreclosure! For us, we rented a property owned by someone else, invested countless hours gardening, only to have the house sold out from under us after 3 years! We thought we were creating stability, but when the rug was pulled out, we realized what smoke and mirrors we were really playing with. We decided to move into an RV because we believe that a decentralized geographic location gives you SOVEREIGNTY, gives you FREEDOM, and gives you priceless EXPERIENCES. When you own one house on a piece of property and the government decides you cannot grow a front yard garden, or build a shed, or paint your house a particular color, or…………, what can you do? Spend hours and weeks and months fighting back in city council meetings? Dig your heals in? Risk being put in a cage (yes people have literally been arrested for refusing to dig up front yard gardens)? If you live in an RV and some thugs try to tell you not to garden, you can harvest and BAIL. Peace out, mofo! Landlord sucks? Peace, we can ramble on. Forest fire? Move your house.

And to be clear, you don’t need an RV to decentralized your geography, maybe you own 5 or 6 houses. Big or small. Earthquake ruins one in Cali? Good thing you have one in New Hampshire! (and how wonderfully this ties into decentralizing your income if you use airbnb!) For us, and our financial/lifestyle hustle, the converted school bus was our first move. The second is to buy small plots with RV hookups in each of our favorite locations (Galveston, Austin, New Hampshire, Asheville, San Diego, Colorado….. so many choices). Then to build tiny homes that can stay there on those properties while we travel between the others… and grow from there. Maybe you own NOTHING and travel full time like the minimalists I follow on youtube. Then it REALLY becomes easy to move like our ancestors did. Move to better food, better weather, better economy, better scenery – better ANYTHING you have a preference on! AND you don’t have to move a bunch of big furniture each time!

This is the type of security and stability I want for myself and my family.

Do you want to decentralize your life? Are you having trouble getting started? Are you already on your way? Let’s talk!

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