Who are you NOT to do something? A loving pep talk

It’s tough love time. In case you need a pep talk, here’s one:

I have met so many amazing, passionate, brilliant humans (mostly women) through my coaching — each of them desperate to help heal the world, yearning for community and support, yet riddled with doubts.

It never ceases to amaze me how many truly gifted, insightful, sensitive people, who are deeply intuitive, able to see the invisible threads connecting all the aspects of our world, have been conditioned by the harsh world that we live in to hide away, keep their heads down, and do nothing.

So many of them are terrified of failure. As if trying something once, getting it wrong, and being embarrassed is worse than turning a blind eye to the way the Global South is suffering from the worst excesses of the climate crisis. Yes, failure is painful — but a quick search of “successful people who failed” will show you that nobody succeeds the first time. Well, almost nobody. Besides, what does it mean to “succeed”? What’s the real goal here — your ego, wealth and power and glory, or the healing of our world?

In my coaching, one of the questions I hear time and time again is “who am I to do something?” As if making changes in the world is only permitted by special, powerful people. As if the rest of us are just spectators in this world, with no role beyond consuming and complaining and hoping that someone will swoop down from the heavens and save us all.

I know it can often feel as if we are powerless. But we are co-creating our world every day. If every single person — from the one who made your favourite ice-cream to the author that most changed your life, from those who invented the flush toilet or electricity or who fought for women to have the vote — had stayed home and thought “well, this is life, who am I to try changing anything?” then how much worse might your life be today?

Our world is suffering. We are destroying our only home. There is so much brokenness and trauma in the world, and if the latest IPCC report is anything to go by, we only have a few years (or months) to avert a massive planetary catastrophe.

Who are you to turn away from the pain? To hide in your comfort zone? To use your relative privilege to ignore what’s happening in the hope that you won’t be too affected by climate collapse?

We will all be affected. And even if you were somehow able to guarantee your own comfort and safety, while everyone around you is suffering, is that really the kind of person you want to be?

​I know there’s something you want to do — even if it’s not a fully-formed idea, there’s a yearning inside you that you’ve been ignoring. You know this way of living — isolated, staring at screens, obsessed with endless growth and profits, disconnected from our land and food and our homes, profiting from the suffering of others — is wrong. You know there’s another way to be — you might yearn for a community who truly sees and holds you, that allows you to grieve and dance and who values your unique gifts. You long to do meaningful work and to really know your actions have an impact.

You hide away because you’re worried it’ll be too hard to change the status quo.

​Stepping into your power, processing your grief for the pain of the world, relieving ancestral trauma and learning what you can do for the healing of our world, fighting systems that have been in place for centuries and are designed to keep us divided and powerless — of course that is not easy, comfortable work.
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The truth is that you will face criticism. You will fall and make mistakes. You will try things that don’t work. Climate deniers will probably troll you, maybe even send death threats. You might alienate some of the people you thought were closest to you, those who feel uncomfortable with threats to their own comfort. But this is the only work that truly matters now.

And you’re not alone. Across the globe, millions of people are waking up and demanding a fair, just, livable world. Turn away from the mainstream media and look around. Connect with activists and regenerative farmers on LinkedIn. Join webinars and have real conversations. Don’t rely on those who benefit from the status quo to tell you what’s happening.

See the full post here: Who are you not to do something? (Friend link, Medium)

An old blog post of mine: Is your Self-Doubt Stopping you from Changing the World?

Those who benefit from keeping the status quo just as it is also have a lot to gain from convincing us that we are powerless. FFS — they call us “consumers”. Can you look yourself in the eyes (in the mirror) and really tell me that’s all that you are? Someone whose identity is based on what they buy and eat?

And anyway, what is this failure that we are so afraid of? Did you give up trying to walk the first time you tumbled down as a kid? Did you give up trying to speak the first time a teacher corrected you? We’ve been so indoctrinated into fearing failure that we never even try to succeed.

And what does it mean to succeed, anyway?

“The plain fact is that the planet does not need more successful people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these qualities have little to do with success as we have defined it.”

— David Orr, Ecological Literacy: Educating Our Children for a Sustainable World

You’ve known something isn’t right for a long time. You might sense that what the world really needs, beyond carbon sequestering or climate targets, is deep healing and transformation. And you can’t quite shake the feeling that you are meant to be part of that, although your inner critic tries to keep you playing small.

Just remember —there is an entire industry out there, multiple ones actually, that make money on making you believe that you’re not pretty/intelligent/qualified/rich/thin/successful enough. Whether you realise it or not, you’ve been absorbing those messages all your life. Also, staying stuck in thinking “it’s too late” only helps to perpetuate the status quo. A new rise of young climate activists are fighting the “doomer” narrative and asking: who does it really benefit to believe we are powerless and that we can’t do anything to stop what’s coming?

So - what next? Join one of my upcoming workshops, book some 1-1 time with me, or have a look at some resources - e.g. my article Climate Collapse: I’ve just found out how bad things are. What now? - covers a few good starting points. I also recommend Britt Wray’s Resources for Dealing with Climate Emotions as a starting point. If you’re wondering what to actually DO, I won’t throw a specific resource as you as even the most attractive climate groups can be infiltrated with members of the oil industry and secret police; my recommendation is to start with the emotional work, research as much as you can, and find the particular issue that most calls to you.