Cultivating Resilience

Whatever end goal you’re striving for, what freedom you desire, what beauty you pursue, you are already that. ~ Satya Colombo

Do you ever feel crushed by the weight of the world?

Those of us who dream, tinker, and paint pictures of sustainable harmony want so much – everything – peace, passion, sustainability, simplicity, love, unity, life. We want to take part in the great transformation before our eyes. Yet, the journey feels so long, arduous, steep, and the uncertainty of our work, the end result, everything can overwhelm even the strongest of us.

My journey to sustainable simplicity began with blazing inspiration. I was suddenly alive, awake, ready to explode with growth into a sustainable world of my own creation, dreamed into reality.

One person could lower their impact and that might not amount to much, but what if 100 people chose to lower their impact? That would do a lot, and I could be one of those 100 people! I could make a difference, be a part of the solution!

It was exciting. Riding the waves of inspiration, I stopped buying new things, started reusing, upcycling, DIY-ing, composting, gardening, and volunteering. I became mindful of my resource consumption, replacing synthetic products for natural, non-toxic ones. Less plastic, less packaging, less waste. The visionary beauty of zero footprint. Simplicity at its core.

I was motivated by the idea that I could inspire others to do the same, and the more of us that got on board, the less and less impact we would collectively make. Eventually, we might even reach that necessary tipping point to turn everything around. I may not personally create that movement, but at the very least I can take part and inspire a small handful of wonderful people.

It was exciting.

But as time wore on and life got in the way, it became harder and harder to maintain my sustainable lifestyle habits. I wondered how hard it must be for others, if I had to face such a challenge too. Could we really get anywhere like this?

Eventually, I found myself vulnerable and powerless. A dark curtain covering me in numbness, crying out incredible sadness for the world. Have I really accomplished something? How could I, one small little city girl just at the start of her journey, do anything to make a dent in this awful corporate machine?

There are times I want to collapse and fall back into my former life of ignorant bliss, without a thought to my impact. There is so much that needs to be done, and yet I have accomplished so little for what is necessary. The seductive saboteur whispers to me, Wouldn’t your life be smoother if you just lived like everyone else?

The logic inside me knows this thought is totally counterproductive. But when an emotional thunderstorm strikes, control is but an illusion. It is only after the storm has coursed through, that I am left with clarity:

You could stay in this place, this hamster wheel of stuck.

Or you can try to make peace and move forward. Love and soothe your insecurity like a fearful child.

You are one person, one conscious being. You have one life to live, a finite time. You can only do one thing in one moment. Thus, you cannot ask yourself to do more than one person’s work in a lifetime. You cannot ask yourself to be everywhere at once, to be every Bill McKibben and Vandana Shiva in this world. You must forgive the limits of your humanity, and learn to flourish within them.

To have impact, you must be fully present. You must want to keep living in this world, to enrich it with beautiful meaning. You can’t be depressed all the time, drowning in the face of overwhelm. You have your lifetime to work for social progress. Whether or not you will live to see the great transformation is up to fate. You have no control over the future; the future is reliably uncertain. You can only choose to act for this moment.

If you want to thrive as an agent of change, you must adopt a sustainable mindset.

A sustainable mindset requires resilience, the ability to bounce back from defeat. Obstacles, disappointments, and failures are inevitable. So how can you develop resilience to carry you through these tough times?

Cultivating positivity, belief, and letting go of attachment are essential ingredients to a resilient mindset. And remember, when you have nothing else, hold onto hope. Hope is omnipresent, always.

SIMPLY BE

Simply being your authentic self is transformational. You are like a magnificent tree, branches sprawling out, eager to fill the space with life. Perhaps one of your branches is devoted to transformational activism, but that does not define your entire being. You are a whole soul, larger than any one piece of you.

A healthy tree needs healthy roots for its branches to grow tall. Have you cared for your roots, so that your branches can grow wild and lush? What roots do you need to nourish, so that you can continue to grow to who you were meant to become?

A healthy tree usually thrives when in symbiosis with networks of fungi, known as mycelium. Mycelium brings the tree nutrients from afar, provides protection from bacteria and viruses, and receives tree sugars in return. Entangle your roots within a collaborative community, and you too can be propelled to new heights. A strong, interconnected community offers support, new ideas, and love, a foundation from which you can fully blossom.

SEEK INSPIRATION

Despite the ugliness we read about in the mainstream news everyday, there is incredible beauty to be found. It’s important to see both the bad and the good. Learn and understand the wrongful things that happen, but don’t dwell in it so much it prevents you from moving forward. Instead, seek beauty and inspiration. Read success stories, so that you know people like you have created real change. Here’s a few to get you started:

Eco Tipping Points

A project called Eco Tipping Points aims to study and understand how successful change takes hold. They’ve collected over 100 success stories now. For example, in New York City, Mayor Giuliani wanted to replace the newly successful community gardens with buildings so he could make more money off property taxes. But the guerilla gardening community had sunk its roots deep into the community, and they came together to fight the Mayor’s plan. In the end, they were able to establish a thriving network of permanent community gardens. This is uplifting news! A community of guerilla gardeners took on the New York City mayor and won! If it happened in one part of the world, the same can be done elsewhere.

City Mayors Fight Climate Change

Though federal governments have failed miserably to address the climate crisis, U.S. city mayors are not ignoring the weather. Over 1,000 U.S. city mayors have signed to join The U.S. Conference of Mayors’ Climate Protection Agreement, “vowing to reduce carbon emissions in their cities below 1990 levels, in line with the Kyoto Protocol.” Under this leadership, new grants for energy-efficiency projects were conceived, to be distributed across towns and cities in the U.S. Beyond the U.S., mayors of international megacities are also stepping up the plate. London is working to build an electric car infrastructure, São Paulo wants to reduce fossil fuel consumption by 10% each year, aiming for 100% renewables by 2017.

A great source of inspirational stories is Yes! Magazine. When you continually read about success, you start to believe in it yourself. It doesn’t seem so crazy anymore to think that we could be eating all-organic food for affordable prices. At the same time, it’s important to remember that just because other people are successfully working on our social problems, doesn’t mean you don’t have any more work to do. The purpose of seeking inspiration is motivation to keep moving forward.

PRACTICE GRATITUDE

When you feel overwhelmed, gratitude can ground you. It’s important to see all faces of reality: we have a lot more equality now than we did a few decades ago. We could still be talking about de-segregation, but we’ve moved beyond that and now we’re talking about same-sex marriage and solar power. We could still be using DDT, enslaving generations of women to live with reproductive disorders. We could not have a USDA Organic label whatsoever. We could have all our crops tainted with GMO’s, but the organic certification process prevents that. I am incredibly, deeply grateful for the many activists, lawmakers, and concerned citizens who worked hard through 10 years of meetings and trials to gift us a strong certification program.

You don’t have to start a gratitude journal, but you do need to think deeply and consciously about what you are grateful for. Write a list, or simply practice saying each day, “I am grateful for…”

You can start with the personal, but remember to extend your gratitude for the world that nourishes your soul.

LET GO

Let go of the need to enlighten everyone.
Let go of the anguish that comes with being one of the few who understands.
Let go of the need to be perfect.
Let go of the fact that you may not live to see the transformation you’ve dreamed of.
Let go of the desire for overnight success.
Let go of what others think.
Let go of what doesn’t work.

Let go of everything, in order to make room for your true work to shine:

Live sustainably.
Raise awareness and consciousness.
Inspire.
Share.
Learn.
Nurture and support.
Search for a better way of doing things.
Love.
Believe.
Don’t give up.
Keep moving forward, even if it’s only half a centimeter.

The rest is not for you alone to decide. When all the boxes are checked off, all the things you could do now done, there is only faith left. Faith that, no matter what happens, you will keep doing what you do. Faith that, your work has moved another soul to do the same.

*Inspiration for this post came from SherryGreens‘ brave and candid expression of her own experience with overwhelm.

*When I talk about faith, I mean it in a completely secular way. I am not religious.

Photo by seyed mostafa zamani