By Alex Smith — 2021
The environmental movement is doing more to address the psychological toll on activists and volunteers, encouraging resilience and self-care to counteract anxiety and grief over planetary damage.
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CLEAR ALL
Embodied practice creates the potential for a unifying perspective and it can inspire new ways for activists to participate in community outreach, sisterhood, and self-care.
The American Psychiatric Association describes eco-anxiety as “a chronic fear of environmental doom.” Sound familiar? You or your loved ones experiencing eco-anxiety are not alone! Keep reading for our tips on combating eco-anxiety through acts of self-care and climate action.
It can be easy to dismiss the importance of caring for ourselves amid pressing threats to people and planet, but prioritising self-care is actually an investment in your activism.
I learned very early that to survive in this broken world there is a never-ending need to “support, nurture, and protect what we hold dear” to keep it from being damaged, hurt, or destroyed ……which also includes myself.
The world is experiencing the dawn of a revolutionary transformation to becoming an ecologically literate and socially just civilization.
Taking care of nature means taking care of people, and taking care of people means taking care of nature.
Thinking more explicitly about cultural catalysis can help to accomplish in years what otherwise would require decades or not take place at all. As we experiment with cultural catalysis, we need to make it fast and benign rather than fast and pathological for the common good.
“Even with these health consequences, we can see the benefits of taking a stand because people are fighting for what they believe in and protecting people’s lives,” Sumner said. “I don’t think the answer is to stop altogether. It speaks to how critical it is to engage in self-care.
Providing ways for people to share their perspectives through storytelling initiatives can contribute to bigger changes in society and even help reduce prejudice.
We tend to “believe” in the woke-ness that is “performed” for us. “The more vocal you are, the more confident you appear. And because you appear more confident, you seem to have more influence on other people, who believe you’ll be great at practicing what you claim too,” she says.