On… Our Bodies
Can caring for our bodies teach us how to care for the planet?
At the beginning of an eco-anxiety workshop I recently ran I asked a group of young people, ‘what’s your biggest barrier to tackling climate change?’
I wasn’t sure what to expect as it was my first time doing a workshop since I started my research sabbatical in March.
‘It feels like the whole thing’s a lost cause. And if it is, I wonder what the point is in missing out on living my life fully when it’s going to make virtually no difference at all?’
I watched the various heads on my screen almost unanimously nodding in agreement.
Research shows that Millennials tend to value experiences, such as travel, over owning things, but this does not necessarily make for lower carbon footprints.
‘It probably sounds really selfish to say that.’
Well, yes, and no, I thought to myself.
Yes, there’s privilege in being able to turn a blind eye.
But that wasn’t what I was hearing. What I heard was pragmatism.
Tying ourselves in knots desperately trying to live as eco-conscious a life as possible can leave us exhausted and despairing because it is incredibly hard to keep giving ourselves to something that we no longer believe can help, even if we know it’s ‘right’.
It can also distract from the larger picture of politics, big business, and wider systemic change which, according to leading climate expert Michael Mann, is exactly the latest tactic used by those with a vested interest in climate denial.
Which leaves us with a kind of ‘prisoner’s dilemma’.
If we were to all make the necessary sacrifices to avert runaway climate change, the payoff would be huge and would far outweigh the cost… but if only a few of us participates the results are minimal, the individual cost remains substantial, and on top of that any future desire to ‘seize the day’ will be thwarted by climate change.
The prisoner’s dilemma is a famous scenario that explains why two people might not cooperaite, despite it being in their best interests, due to a lack of trust in the other.
And that is why eco-conscious living is in desperate need of a rethink.
Because if to be green is to sacrifice ourselves, and if these changes are seen as something that limits us, requires us to deny ourselves, or stops us ‘living fully’, it’s no wonder that our former Prime Minister, David Cameron, could get away with calling climate policy ‘green crap’ and it is no wonder that we would be left looking at each other hoping someone will make the first move.
And so this is the aim of Climate.Emergence. To find ways of fostering emotional and ecological wellbeing as two sides of the same coin, and this week’s post seeks to do that by taking a closer look at our bodies.
On… The Body
I’m particularly excited about this post because it’s the culmination of my writing over the past few weeks on Rest, Feelings, and Diversity.
In On… Rest 1, I shared my own experiences of burnout to reflect on how our refusal to listen to the natural rhythms of the physical realm— such as our bodies and the planet— may have got us hurtling towards a kind of global burnout, and in On… Rest 2 I wondered if rest might just be our only way out.
In On… Feelings I shared Jonathan Haidt’s research about how our emotions, which reside in the realm of the body, dominate much more of our rational thinking than we realise.
And in On.. Diversity, I used this perspective to challenge the dominant view of emotion, traditionally associated with those on the underside of privilege, such as women and people of colour, as far inferior to the mind.
All of that is to say that Western Civilisation, it seems, may have drastically underestimated the influence and power of the physical realm, and to our detriment.
The attempt to secure mastery over the unpredictable domains of our bodies and the planet has been betrayed by rising levels of global ill-health and the steady unfolding of climate breakdown. And so instead of mastery, we have found ourselves contending with the prospect of even more chaos than ever before.
Which is exactly why the battlefield for the world we wish to create must take place in our bodies at least as much as it does our minds.
We Are All Activists
Most of the injustices relating to discrimination in the world have their origins in the realm of the body. In whiteness, maleness, and ability, for example.
And so activism— the act of seeking to catalyse positive change in the world— is something that takes place in the physical realm also.
Activism is something that we do with our bodies to challenge the distribution of access to power, resources, and attention in the world. Even if that simply means setting aside an hour of our time to sit down in front of a computer and type out a letter to our Member of Parliament.
Activism is something we do with our bodies, from attending a protest through to writing to our political leaders.
We are all activists, whether we think of ourselves in that way or not, because we are each of us co-creating the world we live in with every breath and movement that we take.
At times I find this sense of meaningfulness comforting and empowering, but at other times the responsibility weighs heavy with the millstones of fear, obligation, and guilt.
And in those times, I am certain I am not alone in wanting to just put down the mantle completely. To book my flight to wherever, escape to the other side of the world and pretend that none of this is happening.
It is a daily battle, and it’s a battle that, if banished purely to the realm of thoughts and ideas will deny the physicality of what needs to change in the world. It will diminish the flesh and blood reality of, say, watching floodwater creep into your home for the first time, as my parents did just a month or so ago.
It would keep us debating and discussing and stop us from becoming the agents of change that the world needs. And if it is our disregard for the physical realm that has led to this point of unraveling, then it must surely be a returning to and honouring of that realm that might help us find a way home.
And where better to start than with the vessels within which our entire lives unfold; our very own bodies.
Getting My Groove On
A couple of weeks ago I caved to Facebook advertising.
As I scrolled through my newsfeed I found myself mesmerised by a video of a woman dancing. Her movements weren’t particularly technical but as she moulded her body to the music I felt the delightful but distant memories of what it feels like to really dance like no one is watching resurfacing within me.
I had been sat at my desk for hours. My body was growing steadily number from stagnation, except for the persistent twitch of my fingers on the keyboard and the darting of my tired eyes on the screen.
So I hit the link, and before I knew it I had signed up to a thirty day Body Groove challenge.
I’ve been trying my hand at expressive dance since tier 3 lockdown began.
Body Groove’s founder, Misty Tripoli, is a former fitness mega-coach turned wellbeing guru. Over the course of my first two weeks of daily grooving I have learned that Misty became famous by living and teaching a punishing approach to ‘getting into shape’ which eventually took her to the brink of her own life.
In an epiphany that took place on a bathroom floor (as many epiphanies do) Misty came to realise that her approach to fitness had lead her further and further away from real health, and that her healing was to be found in learning to listen again to her body.
And so Body Groove was born. A fitness programme that promotes ‘delicious dance’ to get bodies moving naturally and to have a great deal of fun doing so.
My own experience of Body Groove so far has involved a lot more silliness and ungainly experimentation than the elegant display I had originally envisaged for myself, but it’s been a real joy.
I started the day after it was announced my area would be moving to tier 3 lockdown, and it has done me a lot of good in coping with that news. And I’ve been pleasantly surprised to discover that I’ve felt the benefits throughout the day in not just my body, but also in my mind.
Why Our Brains Love to Dance
I have tended to think that the purpose of my brain is to help me think, but according to recent breakthroughs in neuroscience, the vast majority of our brain functioning is devoted to coordinating our movements.
To our walking, talking, and yes, to our dancing.
Which might help to explain why levels of depression have continued to rise in direct correlation to industrialisation. Because the sedentary lifestyle that industrialisation heralds leaves our brains without the activation they were evolved to experience.
So the parts of our brain designed for rational thinking have become overly stimulated and more exhausted, whilst those designed for movement have become deactivated and stagnated.
And this, according to Dr. Kelly Lambert, is what is responsible for some of the chemical imbalances that cause mental ill-health. (You can watch Dr. Lambert’s 20 minute TED talk on neuroplasticity here)
So movement is very good for us, even if it is something as small as preparing some food, knitting a scarf, or simply rolling our shoulders. And getting ourselves moving more can also be very good for the planet as we favour a walk or cycle ride over our cars.
Active travel, like so many of the necessary environmental changes, is good for us and it’s good for the planet.
But more than that practices such as regular movement enable us to unlock the full potential of our minds and bodies, and can form a fundamental part of our personal climate mitigation and adaptation strategy.
The Body Keeps the Score
The dawning reality of looming ecological collapse is indeed a heavy burden to bear. It’s a slow and unfolding trauma that we are each of us trying to learn to live and engage with every day.
Which leads me to this week’s book recommendation, ‘The Body Keeps the Score’. The author, Bessel Van Der Kolk, is a world-famous trauma specialist who has made ground-breaking discoveries into how to recognise and heal from trauma.
‘The Body Keeps the Score’, by trauma specialist , Bessel Van de Kolk.
According to Van Der Kolk, trauma is what happens when we encounter a threat that we cannot fight or flee from.
This is when our bodies enter the ‘freeze’ response, which can keep those suffering from the long-term effects of trauma stuck both mentally and physiologically. At this point parts of the brain and body shut down in self-defence and can remain in this frozen state until appropriate intervention, leading to a whole host of challenges functioning healthily in the world.
Under this definition of trauma, the prospect and current impacts of climate change certainly qualifies as a trauma, or at the very least a pre-traumatic condition, meaning a point at which we have become exceptionally vulnerable to trauma (for more on pre-traumatic conditions you can listen to Van Der Kolk’s talk on the current pandemic and trauma).
And so in allowing ourselves to confront the reality of the environmental emergency, we therefore risk exposing ourselves to environmental trauma.
Which is why it is natural and even healthy that we would want to protect ourselves from the damage that this entails, even if in the longer term the inaction this causes poses a greater threat to our wellbeing.
When Words Are Not Enough
Trauma is, by nature, inexplicable.
There are some things in life that simply escape language. Such as what it feels like to contemplate global ecological collapse.
Most of us can cope with a worrying thought. But it is what that thought does to our bodies, such as a clamping in our chest, churning in our stomachs, or the exhaustion in our limbs, that is unbearable.
And because the impacts of trauma are stored primarily in the body— in the altered wiring of our brains and the subsequent changes experienced throughout our bodies— it is through our bodies that we might find some relief.
Van Der Kolk’s advice for building our resilience to and recovering from trauma include; breathing techniques, allowing ourselves to cry, taking more exercise, physical touch, cultivating daily rhythms, rest, taking some kind of tangible action, and attempting to find language for our experiences.
So these are just some of the steps we can take to honour our bodies. These are some of the steps we can take to reconnect with the physical realm we are so dependent on. And these are some of the steps we can take to encourage a lifestyle that is more active, connected, simpler, and perhaps subsequently naturally lower in carbon.
Boulders as Balloons
So perhaps, as you go about your days this week, the reality of climate change might crash in on you afresh. Perhaps you will see the images online, read the statistics, feel the increasingly familiar sense of Armageddon uncurling in the pit of your stomach, and then maybe you will find yourself compelled to return to the business of the day.
And if that is the case, my hope for you is that those moments may become a prompt to show some love to your body. To appreciate the toll that such recognition takes on your body, and to attend to that in whatever way is right for you.
Because there is no escaping that climate change is happening, but we are able at least to manage the impacts of that knowledge on our minds and our bodies, and in doing so cultivate a resilience within ourselves that can help us to keep engaging now, and prepare us for what is to come.
This week I’ll finish this post as I did in my previous post, with a poem that I wrote when I felt particularly weighed down by the weight of the world. It was a weight that I came to realise I must learn to release if I was to be able to keep turning up every day to the challenge of climate change.
Enjoy, and thanks for reading 🙏
About Me I’m Jo,
formerly the founder Director of national climate change charity, Hope for the Future. I am currently researching eco-anxiety and how we can build emotional resilience in our response to the climate emergency.
Welcome to Climate.Emergence- a place to emotionally process what on earth is happening to us and our planet.