What an amazing conference this weekend! I learned so much as a new volunteer and intern and I feel so inspired.
I've been reflecting a lot on resilience and how I practice it in my activism. I went to the Resilient Climateering workshop on Sunday, and I was struck by changes to the wording of the 5 Steps to Climate Resilience (the new training linked here gives more context.)
The last step after notice, accept, seek help, and practice used to be rinse and repeat - at the workshop, it was introduced as rest and repeat.
I'm lucky that ever since I entered the climate movement a few years ago, I was always taught the importance of rest, especially for preventing burnout. One of my favorite things to do is go on walks outside and take pictures of plants or cool wildlife that I see. I also love listening to comedy podcasts. I find these things incredibly important in keeping me steady in my climate work.
I've heard from a lot of people in the climate space that it feels hard to rest when the work we're doing is so important and urgent. They feel guilty taking breaks and enjoying time outside of the climate space. I've found this a few times myself as well.
Do you find it hard to rest and take breaks in your work with and beyond CCL? Do you find that rest is an important part of your climate work? How do you incorporate rest as part of staying resilient in climate action?
P.S. If you'd like to learn one way to practice rest, the Resilience Action team has a great event today at 8pm Eastern/5pm Pacific! It's called “Non-Sleep Deep Rest (NSDR)/Yoga Nidra for Climate Activists.” You will get to learn some mindfulness techniques and have time to practice them. In order to have access to the event, you'll need to join the Resilience Action Team.
Thank you for sharing your experience and speaking to this, Tupelo. I used to find it really hard to rest, with the deep concern that if I didn't do it, it wouldn't get done - at all, or well enough to make a difference. That made it really hard to relax and take breaks.
Sometimes I struggle on a daily basis with rest, actually, if I really consider this concept. I try really hard to exercise every day before I start work, but sometimes, especially if I don't get enough sleep the night before and wake up late or groggy, I am tempted to just start working. I try to tell myself that I'll work out later, that getting more work done right now is more important. But then, it ends up impacting the rest of my day quite severely…I have a harder time focusing, and I feel more antsy - and less productive overall.
It's the same way with sleep lately, too. I love staying up late. I love the stillness of my house after my family has gone to bed. But that love, and this tendency to procrastinate bedtime, keeps me from getting as much sleep as I know I need. It's especially bad - or harder for me to go to bed at a decent hour - when I'm feeling stressed. I tell myself that this time alone is important too, and that it feels so good to be doing the thing that I'm doing late at night (watching a show, playing a game, working on a photo album, etc).
Anyway, thanks for highlighting this Tupelo. It's a great reminder of the difference our actions (and non-actions in this case!) can make - I'm really looking forward to that workshop later, too.
Tamara
@Tamara Staton I resonate with everything you said. When I have a lot of things to do in a day, I also find it really hard to take breaks because feel like everything won't get done. I have been trying to exercise in the mornings when it's cooler, but usually I'm just tired and put it off, and then I find myself staring off into space at my computer and not getting anything done. I love staying up late because it's so quiet, but then I don't sleep enough and the whole cycle repeats. It's such a weird paradox where you think taking time to do something else will make you less productive when it's actually the opposite. Thanks for your thoughts!
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