Resilience in Transition

When resilience fails... F*CK IT!...and listen...

30/11/2015

(The asterisk has been used in this article to assuage internet conservatism.)

"I think I've reached my F*CK IT! moment" I said to Joanna.
"How would you like to explore that through art?" she replied, unperturbed by my uncharacteristic language.

For several years we had been swapping arts-based supervision sessions with each other, at first to help us navigate the challenges of our working life. These monthly sessions had subsequently supported our buoyancy through the tides of Joanna's PhD and its aftermath, my unplanned "retirement", and my subsequent journey into climate change activism.

After a year of failed attempts to interest anyone in my "Active Hope" groups, and recently felled by several months of chronic pain during which I had stopped my Gratitude Journalling, I had come to this session sleep deprived and exhausted. The night before, one of my Facebook friends had posted a video in which the term "near-term human extinction" featured, with people exploring the meaning for them of the "F*CK IT!" moment. That video had found a deep resonance.(1)

Yes, I was definitely at a F*CK IT! moment.

"I don't know, Joanna," I replied to her question about how to proceed. "I don't feel like I've got any creativity left in me." After a long pause... "Perhaps drawing".

Joanna got out some paper and art materials. She apologised for the small A4 paper, but it was just right for the size of my creative impulse. I positioned the paper and its cardboard support on a stool in front of my comfy chair, and chose her crayon pencils, which were bundled with an elastic band. Joanna went to get something for a moment and I sat holding the bundled pencils vertically with both hands, tips against the page, and began a back-and-forth twisting movement, (screw it?), eventually covering the page with multicoloured zig-zags.

It looked like a forest. A F*CK IT forest! My sense of humour began to peep through my exhaustion. I wrote underneath the forest: The F*CK IT moment has come! And then around the edges, turning the paper: Have fun with it! Turn it around! Let it BEEEEEEEEEEEEE...

A path into the centre of the F*CK IT forest lead me to a place where I sat and just BEED, like a buddha.

"What do you see from the centre of the F*CK IT forest?" asked Joanna.

I looked around. "Too much for a heart to bear." I answered. My tears revealed that I had spoken my truth at that moment.

After a pregnant silence, Joanna read me two poems which she had gone to fetch while I had been drawing.

Poems that Joanna read to me

I became a strange person,
No one comprehends my state,
I chant and I alone listen to myself,
No one understands my language.

My language is the language of the birds,
My homeland is the country of the beloved,
I am a nightingale, my beloved is my rose,
To be sure, the colour of my rose never fades.
Yunus

and

Have you not seen the sunset? Watch the sun rise, too.
Can the sunset inflict any harm on the sun or on the moon?
Which seed did not grow after it was sown in the soil?
Do not worry that the human seed will not grow.
Rumi

"Do not worry that the human seed will not grow". These words reminded me of "near-term human extinction", a phrase used in the video, a phrase that I'd heard before but shut out of my mind.

I began to describe my sense that it is only a matter of time before people start forms of ecoterrorism to defend what's left, because they see other avenues for a peaceful transition failing.

"Would you like to have a dialogue about this?" suggested Joanna.

The F*CK IT dialogue

Two chairs. I chose a red scarf and a blue scarf, draped over them.
"Where do you want to start?"

I sat on the blue chair and began to speak to my other self on the red chair. "History shows us that change comes in two ways, through violence or peacefully. The trouble with violence is that it leads to backlash and then it becomes a To & Fro, Eye-for-an-Eye..."
"Make it personal" interrupted Joanna.
"Be patient." I said to my red self.

From the red chair: "Patient! They've been blah-blahing for 20-30 years and now it's too late for more blah-blah! This elephant needs a firecracker for it to budge."

Blue: "I'm exhausted. Maybe you're right. F*ck it! Maybe it is time - but I haven't the energy to start a bushfire. If you've got the energy, go ahead. But be prepared for the reaction. Your bushfire will get out of control."

Red: "Maybe that's what has to happen. The situation is explosive. Something's got to give way. Every time I learn of another species going extinct, how we're killing the oceans, birds feeding their chicks plastic and dying in agony... Don't tell me to stomach it all and be nice to politicians and try to talk them into DOING SOMETHING! F*CK IT!"

Blue: "If you start a "bushfire", be aware that the "backburn" force far outweighs your might. They will clamp down with martial laws, drones, missiles, walls... (An image comes)... It's like the difference between a bushfire and a solar panel - the former brings nothing but chaos; the latter can channel all that energy into productive outcomes. (gently) I'm not suggesting you relinquish your rage, just try to put it to work in the most productive ways, using our knowledge of human psychology, politics, economics, the way the beast works - you've got to be smart with your rage."

Red: (after a long pause) "I hear you."

Joanna indicated it was time to wind up the conversation and thank each other.

Blue: "Thank you for your energy and passion."
Red: "Thank you for your wisdom."

I felt an inner coming together of these two part of myself, and it felt good to have them reconciled to working together. I wondered if the chronic pain and sleep deprivation was the only way I could have been brought to the F*CK IT moment, since normally I'm such a doer and control freak. Had my unexpressed rage been so seething that it had been eating me up from the inside?

Whatever...the F*CK IT forest had yielded its message. Thank you Joanna.

(1) Link to the Fu*k It! @ The Fuki! video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNAIyNLQPWM&feature=share

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Supporting resilient and effective activists: the layers of Citizens' Climate Lobby

20/5/2015

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The Urgent need for ACTION!
To those of us who are familiar with, and convinced by, the scientific evidence on human-caused climate change, the need for urgency of global action couldn't be clearer. And climate change being a "wicked" problem, there are many complementary forms of action to be taken. Once we've made the (often difficult) decision of what kind of action best suits our skills and resources, the temptation is to become very task-outcomes oriented, spending every available moment thinking, planning and acting on our agenda.

Unfortunately, this approach, though perhaps effective at first, is the recipe for activist burnout. This is appreciated by activist groups that encourage some recreational "down-time" for individual activists and local groups. I'd like to describe my take on one climate change focused organization in which time spent on self-care and building of relationships is endemic to the structure of their model of activism.

Citizens' Climate Lobby
Citizens' Climate Lobby has come on the climate change activism scene in the last decade, mostly in the USA, but now spreading internationally. Its focus is to empower citizens, through group lobbying of local representatives, to create the political will for governments to support climate change mitigation by enacting a carbon pricing system called a "fee and dividend". (More about the details of this can be found at citizensclimatelobby.org)

Having stumbled upon CCL while enrolled in a Climate Change MOOC, and with a background in deep ecology-based activist support, I was impressed by its human-centred flavour, and I now find myself involved in a fledgling local Sydney group. Aware of the urgent impulse to "go do it NOW!", I am seeking to ground myself and our group in the difference between CCL and other action-centred approaches.

What's Different about CCL?
My partner Alex and I recently participated in the CCL online training course in how to facilitate a Group-Start workshop, the initial start-up experience for new volunteers. Our teachers, Elli and Mark, were impressive in their heart-centred openness and the value they place on sharing of feelings as part of the Group-Start experience. On reflection, I am drawn to use a series of concentric circles to describe the CCL model:

Listening Conversations
In the outer layer, we build relationships with key people who influence the political process: we lobby our local politicians and talk to media editors, forming ongoing relationships which find common ground between their (often conservative) values and the opportunities presented by climate change; we also have non-confrontational climate change conversations with family, friends and strangers; our communication is based on inquiry, listening, being-with, and relationship development rather than presenting convincing information or applying pressure (summed up by our Group-Start teaching points: "be interested, not interesting" and "for, not against" using "power rather than force"). George Marshall's work on climate change communication, see climateoutreach.org.uk, is compatible with CCL's methods.

Community
Underpinning this is practising non-confrontational communication and relationship building within our local groups; this contributes to our ability to work as a team in lobbying contexts, and is built upon time spent getting to know and appreciate one another and what we care about, sharing our activism journeys, and having fun together (What? Activism is Serious!); we are given the space to find our emerging contributions as volunteers and our team lobbying roles in the group, so that activism can be personally satisfying, on our growing edge, rather than taking us into scary territory; through CCL's emphasis on nurturing breakthroughs in personal power, we may find that, given time, we grow into more challenging roles.

Inner Resilience
And at the core of these relationships is our ongoing time devoted to self-awareness, savouring what we love about life, and engaging in feelings-based reflection in order to build our inner resilience and sustainability as citizen activists; the "despair and empowerment" and "work that reconnects" processes from Joanna Macy, brought into a climate change focus in her recent book (with Chris Johnstone) called Active Hope, can serve to guide your inner activist journey.

Giving it a Go
It is easy to neglect the inner two layers because they may seem, especially to "hard core" activists, like a waste of valuable time that could be spent "out there doing stuff". However, the volunteer turnover and personality issues within activist groups, and the slowness of the global response to climate change over the last twenty-five years, suggests to me that a more heart-centred, measured and inclusive stance may be worth a try.

The three-layer approach can be adapted to any climate change, environmental or social change organization, and I encourage you to consider possible adaptations you might incorporate into your world. And if your form of climate change activism could involve personal empowerment in citizen lobbying, I urge you to seek out and join, or start, your local CCL group! The more the merrier!

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You're Not Alone: Starting a Climate Change Support Group

9/4/2015

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Caring for the world, a mixed blessing
Allowing yourself to really care about climate change can be a liberating experience: suddenly all the energy used to "not think about it" becomes available for action. However, being brave enough to face the climate science facts can trigger fear, anger, sadness and even emptiness and despair. Self-care strategies need to be in place to avoid 'burning out'. Support from others can be part of your self-care, but your family and friends may not want to hear 'inconvenient truths', and counselling/psychotherapy can be expensive.

Peer Support
Have you ever considered forming a Peer Support Group? Coming together on a regular basis with a small group of others who are prepared to engage with climate change can be a good way to prevent yourself from being overwhelmed by the size of this challenge. This kind of self-care is inexpensive - meeting at one another's homes, taking pot-luck meals, and taking it in turns around a circle to check in. As trust builds in a group like this, it can be tremendously helpful to your sustainability as an engaged citizen or activist.

The Story of a Support Group
In the early 90's I attended a Council of All Beings workshop lead by Australian rainforest activist John Seed in a Buddhist retreat centre west of Sydney. Participants of the workshop were guided through a series of experiential processes that enabled us to share our deep caring in a safe community. After this experience, a small group of us, with some of our friends, decided we wanted to form a support group to keep alive the sense of empowerment that the workshop had given us.

Our group, meeting about once a month in one another's homes, became our "Earth Support Group", and it enriched our lives for nearly ten years. We did not have a leader, and the group functioned very organically. We developed an opening and closing ritual, illustrated on the T-shirt design below. To open the group, seated in a circle, we would ground our hands on the "earth", then onto our self (heart and belly), then gesture toward "spirit" and finally join hands to each other. To close the group we would perform the same four gestures in the reverse order.

In addition to our regular sharing circle, we created several group projects through the years. We designed and facilitated our own Council of All Beings workshops at various conferences, and even adapted the structure (from Joanna Macy and John Seed) to our own Towards Creative Reconciliation workshop. The group eventually came to an end after several of us left the 'big smoke', but it had enriched our lives for many years.

Support Groups using the Arts
Sharing in your support group using words can be the most comfortable way to start, but sometimes it is hard to describe feelings in words of conversation. Your support group may wish to experiment with approaches which incorporate arts modalities such as drawing, mask making, poetry, song writing, drumming, dance or drama.

You never push yourself into arts that don't feel safe (your "NO WAY" zone), but you do use arts that are on your "growing edges" - things that you've always wanted to try but aren't in your "comfort zone". You use the arts to explore themes like "my life journey", "what I care about", "my roots" and "my resources".

Sometimes an art-work that has unfolded playfully from a place of "not knowing" can give you a gift of insight beyond words alone. You can find resilience and resourcefulness in yourself when you began with overwhelm or confusion. The arts have always been a way to grapple with the big mysteries of life, and using the arts can add a rich dimension to your support group.

Help to get started
If you would like some coaching and guidance in forming your climate change support group, I can see you individually or facilitate the first few meetings of your support group to share my experience and some arts-based methods to get you going. I will ask you or your group to make a donation that feels appropriate.

I am also holding an Active Hope group through Mosman Community College in October 2015 which will introduce participants to some arts and body-based resources to support engaging with climate change, and possibly lead into an ongoing support group.

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Rosemary Faire

I am an expressive arts therapist and adult educator desiring to support climate change engagement and resilience in transition. My work-life journey has taken me through biological sciences (epigenetics), embodied education, music and movement therapies and deep ecology, and I'm keen to facilitate the formation of creativity-based support groups and peer supervision among those who are concerned about our planetary sustainability.

When resilience fails... F*CK IT!...and listen...

Supporting resilient and effective activists: the layers of Citizens' Climate Lobby

You're Not Alone: Starting a Climate Change Support Group

Rosemary Faire

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