What do you do, where do you go … when you feel despair?
I got so many replies back to the post I sent out way back in April
I have edited them for conciseness (while trying to keep the original meaning) and selected (mostly) just responses to the question “what helps you?”.
And apologies for the delay – but I suspect their relevance remains.
Staying with the pain. Accepting that this is important to feel this and not brush it to one side.
Focusing on the minutiae – village community, family, trees, lichen …
Feeling appreciation for those involved with campaigning, holding decision makers to account.
Allowing my heart to speak, to guide my actions and my interactions.
J
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The groups I work with – full of people walking their passions and making such a difference. Knowing just how many people are out there doing positive things.
And I avoid most social media and most ‘news’. I don’t think we are really meant to take in such huge amounts of information and to worry about the whole world.
I think focusing on our little bit – our families, our communities, our gardens.
… and then I have dark days.
S
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I think making time to share our thoughts and feelings really matters. I am particularly overwhelmed when I feel isolated. So community makes all the difference.
We can’t choose the time in which we’ve been born. So I guess that living our lives in a way that makes the most sense to us, and has integrity, is the most that we can do.
S
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I don’t want to be an old lady watching the evening news with climate disasters being reported and thinking that I didn’t try to do anything at all to reduce the impact.
K
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I like and use all your ideas … except for when I forget that they work.
I see life now as a continual rollercoaster of emotion and thinking at varying levels of confusion and clarity. Repeatedly processing through the grief curve. Community, kindness and action all help.
I resonate with wanting to live amongst people who haven’t given up (and recognising most of us feel like that from time to time – but the cloud will pass over).
A wonderful Cornish, ocean activist friend said to me ‘I’m not ready to roll over and play dead.’ I think of it and her often.
L
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Nature is my balm. It calms the angry rash. It restores some sort of balance and replenishes and motivates me.
My friends and kids. They’re the fuel. They’re what keep me going!
And doing whatever I can in a practical space.
I know we have to do top-down AND bottom-up. I felt impotent with the top-down bit. Our system is so broken and so entrenched. So, I focus on what I can do.
We ran a “Rivers Assembly” a couple of weeks ago – heartening and felt as though we were really making a difference.
J
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For me, Covid lockdown impacted my motivation to fight. I’ve focused on decarbonising my own life. I’m off the gas grid now and have an EV. I’ve cut back meat and dairy. On my own micro-level, I’ve been successful.
This has bought me some peace of mind, being the only practical action I feel I can take that definitely makes a difference.
It’s cost a lot to achieve though. And few could afford to do it. And at times I think its money wasted, given my imperceptible impact.
And I’m standing for the Green Party in the local elections.
A
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Certainly meditation helps – I use Plum Village Mobile App [other Apps are available 😊 – editor].
Doing something active like planting trees or nurturing wildlife in the garden.
Walking mindfully in nature noting the birds and new spring life unfurling.
Not listening to the news. I recommend Lukas Nelson song “Turn off the news and build a garden with me” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPrPtDoaB3s
With hopefulness
L
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… a robin came and sang very close to my window and a blue tit bobbed about and fleetingly landed on my windowsill. Only one of each, but a blessing all the same. I was thankful but desperately sad at their denuded environment.
G
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I guess the biggest thing that helps me is coming back to that greater sense of who I am (of who we all are). It’s looking within and seeing the creative energy of life at play and taking form, through me.
When I notice this, it slows me down, I feel back in touch with something deeper than myself and from this space I re-engage with what is my next step.
L
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Someone forwarded my post to a group they belong to (related to XR)
My sense of loss got too much for a while and, rather than pass on that negativity, I chose to embrace my inner dormouse and have hidden away for months.
I am emerging from hibernation and am so grateful people are still holding this space of love and connection that I can step back into – there is such strength in community.
I am being careful to focus on what I am capable of doing and to step back from trying to dabble in everything.
When I compare today with 2019 (using the BBC as a barometer), awareness and understanding have grown and lots of adaptation is already underway. More is clearly needed, but I draw strength in focussing on what I can do and how I choose to see the world
… and my inner dormouse continues to roar.
S
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One thought which keeps hope alive for me is: we know a lot less than we think, we can control a lot less than we think, yet as you point out: how we think, how we live our lives day to day, hour to hour, and the values we aspire to live by (and sometimes succeed) – these things matter. Even if we are on the edge of an abyss, they still matter.
A
I am exactly like that guy and his dog, by the way 😉
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Yes, we are going to be fucked. Though some of us will be more fucked than others.
BUT it is not an ‘all or nothing’ situation.
There are degrees of fuckedness. So, every tiny fraction of a degree of fuckedness we prevent … is a win.
G
And thanks to Amanda for this selection of short quotes …
“We shan’t save all we would like to, but we shall save a great deal more than if we had never tried.” Peter Scott
“From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs” Karl Marx
“I have no optimism at all, zero optimism. But I have hope. Hope is something you choose.” Yanis Varoufakis
“Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. It is an axe you break down doors with, in an emergency.” Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark
“To hope is to give yourself to the future – and that commitment to the future is what makes the present inhabitable.” Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark
“Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good, put together, that overwhelm the world.” Desmond Tutu
The Mushroom Effect
And finally one more from me that helps me – and that I like to share sometimes …
We often see mushrooms growing on trees or dead branches. But what we are seeing is only the small fruiting body, of a much, much larger, hidden life force or mycelium – growing and spread throughout the tree.
The people and projects that we hear about are like those mushrooms – just the small, visible part of a much larger and growing mycelium of ideas, initiatives and determination – spread across the world.