A friend of mine – a therapist in a halfway house – once described a harrowing incident where a burly Hell’s Angel guy barged into a group therapy session, hollering and waving his arms around like a maniac. He was was having an “episode” that would’ve scared the bejeezus out of the toughest cookie on the block.

“Use your manners, would ya?” said the group therapy leader. “Turn around and come back in quietly.”

And then – fuming and puffing – Mr. Rage just…stopped. “Oh. Okay then.” He left the room, re-opened the door, walked in and sat down in the nearest empty seat. Calmly.

Just like that.
Standards work wonders.

When we routinely accept people’s poor behavior, we block the chances for radical change to occur. Excuses repress clarity. Justifications crowd out transformation.

I once worked with someone who was bi-polar manic depressive, and we always chalked up their behavior to their illness. We let them off the hook for all sorts of crappy behavior. But nasty is nasty, and mean is mean, and my standards are higher than that.

So next time your mother is a bit well, you know. Or your grouchy neighbor is a grouch, as usual. Or your super-stressed boss loses her cool because she’s, well, super-stressed. Call it at face value. Don’t let foul manners off the hook. Bad behavior is bad behavior – all afflictions and psych 101 labels aside.

Common sense is a mighty powerful agent for change.

Editor’s Note: Danielle LaPorte is the creator of WhiteHotTruth.com, which has been called “the best place on-line for kick-ass spirituality.” She is the author of The Fire Starter Sessions: A Digital Experience for Entrepreneurs, an inspirational speaker, former think tank exec, and news show commentator. You can read all of Danielle’s EcoSalon guest articles here, and find her on Twitter @daniellelaporte.

The post Bad Behavior? Don’t Make Excuses appeared first on EcoSalon.

What are the odds of winning a green house courtesy of HGTV? And we love us some green programming, but has NBC’s big brother-ish eco-placement gone too far? We’ll answer these burning questions in this week’s installment of I Want My Green TV.

To Dream the Impossible Green Home Dream

HGTV’s Green Home Giveaway premiered Sunday night. For the next 45 days you can enter to win a brand new eco-friendly house, a GMC Terrain and $100,000 (a smart move by HGTV to help pay all the taxes!)

There’s no way to predict how many viewers will enter, but if you hope to be victorious, you might as well play the lottery while holding a lightning rod and waiting for the strike. The odds are about the same.

Still if you dare to dream, here’s what you need to know. The cozy cottage is in historic Plymouth, Massachusetts. It’s built with wood produced from sustainable forests, landscaped with native plants, and decorated with recycled furniture and local art. Plus, the rooftop solar panels feed excess power back to the grid.

Of course, the fact that the cottage is just 2,100 square feet, also plays into its low carbon foot print. The Energy Star rating of the home shows that it uses 41 percent less energy and 50 percent less water than a typical home of its size.

But if you aren’t the winner, don’t despair. There are a few Green Home features you can incorporate into your own house:

• A Serta mattress made from recycled steel and soy-infused foam that reduces CO2 emissions, but more importantly makes for a dreamy night sleep
• An induction cook top that heats only when the pan is physically on the burner
• A solar tube for your master suite’s closet that redirects sunlight to reduce the need for artificial lighting

NBC Goes Green with “Behavior Placement”

We’re all for positive reinforcement of eco-friendly issues on TV shows, but frankly, we’re still creeped out by the fact that NBC has been slipping environmental messages into its shows, and hoping viewers will follow suit. Last week when EcoSalon’s Christopher Correa discussed this subliminal advertising technique we couldn’t help but think about the upside to all of this. NBC is making sure that their shows push environmental issues, with the hope that big businesses will attach themselves to environmentally savvy series. No complaining here.

Remember Al Gore on 30 Rock last year? Yup, that was “behavior placement” in action. The movement kicked off again this week, as it does each April and November.

Tune in next time to see what’s cropping up on green TV.

Image: HGTV

The post I Want My Green TV appeared first on EcoSalon.