Your ‘Step Up’ moments: No.2: Isabela Menezes of Transition Granja Viana
By rob hopkins 5th February 2014
I was leading a life that was not making sense at all and not making me happy! I was already doing my Inner Transition and did not know! Earning lots of money, spending at the same rate , consuming without reflection and so on….. the list is long and I know my footprint is still long. I still have a lot to compensate. In 2001, I closed my architectural firm and went in a search of what would make me happier and makes more sense for me to do with my life.
I lost my business partner and my life was not making any sense at all! My search lasted 8 years and was the most fun and crazy one. But this is another story… In 2009, we had a problem of rainwater street harvesting in my neighborhood and the only possible solution was to do a great work in the street. As the Mayor told us he had no money to pay for the material and that he could only gave the machines and the manpower.
I decided to speak to the entire neighborhood to get together money to pay for all the material of the work. As I did not know everyone, every day in the afternoon I put my chair outside in the corner of my house and wait for the neighbors to pass and have a chance to speak with them. In the first day two stopped, in the second these two, plus 3 more and so on… These meetings turned into pizza parties with beer in the street and we raised the amount we needed for the work to be done and all the neighbors were becoming friends. And the best part was that I was so happy to have connected with my neighbours!!!
Then I get in touch with the Transition Towns Movement and it all made sense. I had that instant recognition that my future was to be a kind of “good virus”, which would spread and infect everyone with the Transition DNA. For me, it was clear as water. Connect to my community, begin my Transition group, having fun, creating together and spreading the “seed”, became the most cheerful and meaningful mission!
Transition Towns makes sense , brings joy and makes us more collaborative and connected persons. And it is all this and only this that our blue planet needs!
Warm and best wishes to all the Transition people around the globe.
Issa | Brazil Transition and Transition Granja Viana.
If you’d like to share your story of the moment you decided to step across into making Transition happen, we’d love to hear it. Please get in touch. Contact me at robhopkins (at) transitionnetwork.org. Thanks.