Why I Consider Environmentalism The Ultimate Act Of Emotional Awareness & Self-Love

"When we restore the internal ecosystem, the fullness of our capacity to feel and love, only then will there be hope of restoring the outer." —Charles Eisenstein

When we speak about the environmental crisis, the conversation is often centered on facts, science, and logic. As a design researcher, strategist, and eco-entrepreneur, my work has taught me that this is only a piece of the puzzle. Awakening to the grief of what is happening to the earth is deeply emotional, and it will require creating space for feelings alongside logical thoughts.

Reframing our climate conversations to be more inclusive of difficult emotions could be a way to get through this crisis together.

Our breath comes from the oceans; we too are made of water; we need the nutrients of healthy soil to live. As we begin to recognize the depths of our interconnection to every human and nonhuman being on this planet, we reconnect with our own humanity.

We also wake up to the fact that how we treat the earth is a reflection of how we treat ourselves. The toiling, the pillaging, the damage...but also the care, the nourishment, the regeneration. We realize that fundamentally, loving the earth means loving ourselves. Doing inner work, then, is inseparable from doing the outer work.

My version of activism is rooted in showing up for the earth, and for myself, every day. Loving the earth (and ourselves) is not an idea, it is a decision—or rather, a series of the hundreds of decisions that we make over the course of a day: Whether to get that to-go coffee cup, what toothbrush to buy, how to act in a way that interweaves your success with mine and that of everything else on this planet. 

So, how does one practice environmentalism as self-love? The answer is both simple and complex. Transformation is a slow process that requires time, attention, and intention. It takes being committed to looking at the mundane with a beginner's mind—with an insatiable curiosity for the "what ifs?"—and questioning how we might begin to reprogram beliefs and habits that we perceived as absolutes to create space for something new.

It is from this place that we can really begin to create solutions that address the problem from the root instead of putting a Band-Aid on the symptoms or remaining in a state of paralysis. The great news is that this is also a process of reclaiming our creativity and our power.