We are sharing this chapter of Act, Rest, Reset, Repeat by Katie Hodgetts for members of our Hopeful Book Club. The right of Katie Hodgetts to be identified as the Author of this text has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this text may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
It was COP26, the world’s largest annual climate conference. For two weeks, delegates and leaders from nearly 200 countries gathered to hammer out global climate targets. In 2021, the conference took place in Glasgow, and I was inside the event space as a youth delegate representing the youth-led group, UK Youth Climate Coalition (UKYCC).
Our team of eight had spent the past year meticulously planning for this moment. We met online every Tuesday evening, dissecting updates, strategizing our campaigns and dreaming about how we might leave a mark on this historic event. We were young, 18 to 25, unpaid, driven entirely by the urgency of our mission. After over a year of lockdown, COP26 felt like a watershed moment for the future of climate action.
In Glasgow, our plans included demonstrations both inside and outside of the conference: calling out greenwashing, exposing how Big Oil continued to fund parts of the event and demanding accountability from those in power. But one opportunity stood out from the rest: a closed-door meeting with Miriam, a senior official in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
Secretariat – the governing body of the entire COP process. This was the woman who could influence negotiations on a global scale. If we could inspire even a flicker of ambition in her, we might – just might – be able to ripple that energy through the conference. No pressure, right?
We spent the afternoon before the meeting scrounging free coffee and preparing a long list of questions, including: “How are you preparing to act on Loss and Damage?” “What ambitions do you have for the Nationally Determined Contributions?” “Will negative emissions technologies be featured in the final text? We peppered each question with acronyms to camouflage our age, masking our anxiety with intellectualism. It was an exceptional and rare opportunity, so we wanted to feel as ready as possible.
The time came and we shimmied into a small room overlooking the pavilion. I was in my early twenties, wearing my best (and only) suit, my scraggle of hair pulled back into a tight bun. A smartly dressed woman sat down, smiling at us. After a moment of shuffling papers and clearing her throat, Miriam asked us to begin. We’d rehearsed this, we knew who was asking what, but as a youth campaigner I only wanted to scream, “WHY AREN’T WE ACTING?” and bang my fists against the wall. What came out of my mouth was in fact a timid question about the UK’s position within the climate negotiations. Did I understand the answer she gave? Not really. But I nodded with appreciation to avoid disturbing the balance of the room.
Every question we asked felt like it was bouncing off an invisible barrier of diplomacy. Her answers were polished, vague and impersonal, designed to fill the silence without offering any real substance. Were our questions as equally confusing? We asked her if the negotiations looked like we would be hitting our country’s climate targets. “Well, it’s quite difficult to say.” She barely blinked. “There are a lot of moving parts to be considered. It remains to be seen what will come out of these negotiations.” I nodded. We moved onto our next question. That’s how the next 30 minutes proceeded.
As we steamrolled through our list, it felt like the room had become a vacuum for inspiration, hope and tenacity, three things that I felt the youth movement embodied. The sterile atmosphere of the room clashed violently with the raw urgency I’d felt every single day as a youth climate campaigner. For years, we’d marched, rallied and fought to be heard. We’d faced harassment, threats of violence and burnout, yet we kept going because we believed we could make a difference. And here we were, face to face with one of the most powerful people in the process, and it felt like nothing we said could penetrate the bureaucratic wall around her. Perhaps COP26 was not the ellipsis between the youth uprising, lockdown and our new beginning … Perhaps it was the full stop.
The carefully crafted façade I had put on – the suit, the rehearsed questions, the polite demeanour – began to feel like a betrayal of what we stood for. In almost 30 years this was the only COP to take place in the UK and who knew when the next one would be. So, just like Greta Thunberg in 2019, when she skipped school to sit outside of the Swedish parliament to protest a lack of climate education, I decided it was time to go off-script.
“Miriam,” I interrupted, taking a deep breath to steady myself. “Thank you for taking the time to talk us through your answers.” I moved my hands to my lap to hide their shaking. I told myself to keep going, you’ve started now, the balance isn’t just disturbed – it’s turbulent. Don’t stop.
“I need you to level with me, honestly.” I could feel the silence changing shape in the room, becoming tense and fraught. Half of my team stared in disbelief, the others masking encouraging smiles.
“I have spent the last two years in the youth strike movement. Our small team has spent weekends and evenings designing marches for tens of thousands of people. We’ve lost sleep over the violent threats we’ve received. In Bristol, we received Facebook messages that men were going to drive their diesel cars through the marches to hit people. We’ve had to learn about safe crowd management, installing safety barriers to manage stampedes, navigating accessibility, PR, media conduct and interviews, when all we ever wanted was a safe future. We’ve been told that we’re inspiring, yet we’ve seen absolutely no action we’ve inspired. We’ve been told that we’re the future, but we seem unable to impact the present. We’ve been told that we are public heroes – unless we cause traffic problems and then we are public nuisances. We are all between the ages of 13 and 23. Most of us are medicated for anxiety. All we ever wanted was to be young and safe. We called on adults to protect us and you failed.”
For a moment, I braced myself for dismissal – for a curt, calculated response that would shut me down. But instead, something shifted in Miriam’s demeanour. The polished veneer melted away, replaced by something I hadn’t expected. Sorrow. It seemed like she’d moved from an intellectual space to an emotional understanding. She could see and relate to the care buried within my words. And she cared too. Somehow my shift to emotions broke down the difference in our ages and the cost of our suits. It brought us all together in this room under one banner and into a dialogue rather than an interrogation. At that moment we knew we were on the same team.
“You must tell me,” I went on. “Because I’m exhausted. Have we made any impact outside of the streets we shout into? Has this all been in vain?”
She shuffled in her seat, looking at her hands. She was taking a pause, clearly deciding how much of the professional veil to peel back and how much to stick to the organizational line. I am so grateful, to this day, for her courage in lifting the mask.
“Thank you for your comments.” She paused. “I can’t really put into words the impact the youth strikes have had on the COP negotiations. A few years back, the negotiation room had one wall that was entirely glass. People could see in, but importantly we could see out. We had a direct view outside of the building to the street down below. It so happened that down below on an integral day of negotiating, thousands of young people were marching outside.” Her tone softened.
“We saw young people calling us in on their future and it changed the nature of those negotiations. It grounded us, reminded us of the possibility of our work. You were a thousand-person reminder of why we made choices in our lives to be sat here, doing what we are doing. You reminded us of the ambitions we held in our youth for justice and equity that may have been lost along the way. I can’t really find the words, but if I had to choose them, I would say that youth climate action has raised ambition in a way I’ve never seen before in my career.”
In a way she’d never seen before. All because we went outside and did something. Because we took a stand. The power of youth marching together is more than the policy change we’re calling for. It’s a statement. A reminder to adults of what they’d once believed in – or still do. The youth strikers not only stamped their feet on the floor but their mark in history.
That experience is something I think about often, almost half a decade later. Firstly, it taught me that “winning” is not always about policy change or campaign goals but about shifting hearts and minds. It may be harder to distil into an infographic, but it has been the seed of historic change. It influences cultural norms, consumer habits and it is the crucial precondition for wider legislative shift. Being unable to see, hold or quantify your efforts does not make them obsolete. They may be contributing to a greater, wider stirring.
Secondly, real dialogue was unlocked in that boardroom not through facts or figures, but from a candid retelling of my own experience. Showcasing this vulnerability did not hamper discussions as traditional negotiation handbooks may suggest but furthered them. Sarah Jaquette Ray, author of A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety, touches on this idea with “climate wisdom”, defined as “the understanding that our ability to respond to climate change and to work on climate justice issues is shaped more by our emotional selves than by our rational selves. The sooner we make that connection, the more effective we’ll be”.7
Climate change is, at its core, an unfolding story of collective vulnerability: from the fragility of ecosystems to the uprooting of accustomed ways of life to the futures we dare to imagine. If the crisis itself is so human, so tender in its stakes, then why is it met with cold rationality or sterile debate? To speak openly about our fears, our grief, our desires, is not a barrier to meaningful discussion but a bridge. Vulnerability is the bridge between facts and feelings, data and hearts. Like my meeting with Miriam, vulnerability reveals what is true and raw within us, inviting others to care and act. This remarkable experience planted an important seed in my mind. If civil society momentum was waning, in part due to the toll of screaming into the void, perhaps this moment was a calling for a paradigm shift in how we “do” changemaking. A calling to again go off-script.
When the marches End
There is enormous power and potential in the first part of this book’s title – Act. The mobilization of ordinary people has resulted in boycotts, legislative change and shifting cultural norms. Independence movements, civil rights campaigns and human rights defenders have remapped nations and pulled entire demographics into conversations about justice. It was the very mobilization of the Suffragettes in the early 20th century and the rise of rights for women that paved the way for me to be able to write this book. In the climate space, contemporary action from ordinary individuals can be tracked back to the 1960s. Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior was heavily involved in anti-nuclear protests, particularly against US and French nuclear testing in the Pacific Ocean, through sailing into test zones to disrupt detonations. The ship also took part in antiwhaling campaigns, confronting Soviet and Japanese whaling fleets to expose and hinder their operations. Additionally, it was used in anti-sealing protests, opposing the commercial hunting of seals, particularly in Canada, by placing activists between hunters and their prey. In the proceeding half century, extraordinary moments of civil mobilization have elevated attention onto our natural world. Most powerful to me would be 2018 to 2020, when a wave of citizens demanding climate action erupted across cities in the UK. Extinction Rebellion, with its national and local groups, began orchestrating mass marches and public occupations, calling on the government to demand a national “climate emergency”. In fact, you’ll find me there on the front cover of the Guardian coverage holding my “frack this” banner. Meanwhile, Greta Thunberg was striking school each Friday, protesting outside the Swedish parliament. Her statement was clear: why go to school when her future was in jeopardy due to climate change? Inspiring others, Greta’s small action evolved into the Youth Strike for Climate movement, its effects ricocheting around the world in the early months of 2019. This so-called “youthquake” and the increased number of youth-led campaigns resulted in the announcement of the European Green New Deal, the delay of airport expansions and the halting of several new oil and gas licences.8 On 20 September, the Global Day of Action mobilized four million people, leading to the declaration of a “climate emergency” in several countries. Simply by young people skipping school we have seen the machine of “business as usual” slow.
But I know it’s not that simple and that all the above has come at a cost. I’m not talking about the cost and effort of individual habit change – recycling, consuming less, growing our own vegetables, not taking flights and a thousand other small and large acts; I’m not talking about the cost of corporate divestment in fossil fuels, switching to sustainable farming practices and electrifying our vehicles; I’m not even talking about the millions spent on research into green alternatives from biofuel to negative emissions technologies.
I’m talking here about the psychological cost. The energy drain, the burnout, the feelings of loneliness, the in-fighting, despair, grief, rage and resignation. So many young people are driven to act, to do something to help, to march, to stand up and fight, to be a part of this change-making generation, but they’re stepping back from the movement as the cost of entry becomes their spirit. It’s not just the climate movement, it’s racial justice campaigners, gender campaigners and humanitarians. Others feel so overwhelmed by misinformation that they don’t know where to begin. And a third category of us feels like for all our trying, there is no point. The surge of far right and anti-immigrant sentiment seems to have unleashed a suffocating hopelessness across borders. Danger is increasing for People of Colour, trans folk, immigrants, refugees and other historically oppressed groups. We are seeing more hostility for those seeking asylum, more protectionist policies, more anti-trans legislation and financial violence to the working class. Across all movements, we watch the scales of power tip further away from collective flourishing. Where does it leave us when we cannot give up, yet we cannot carry on?
We face an enormous number of existential challenges, with the climate and ecological emergency being the most interrelated, yet conversations about its impact on collective mental health are only just beginning. The term “eco-anxiety” is appearing in more and more news articles. Parents and adults report feeling ill-equipped to advise the younger generation about their fear, stress and uncertainty. Globally, nearly 60 per cent of young people report feeling very or extremely worried about climate change.9 Almost 50 per cent report that their feelings about climate change negatively affect their daily life and functioning. And 75 per cent agree with the statement “the future is frightening”.10 It’s also impacting our life decisions, with 48 per cent of young people in the UK and 46 per cent in the US now considering not having children. For countries like India, that figure is much higher at 75 per cent, and 64 per cent for the UEA. Burnout has become common place, now considered a key risk factor to young people taking action for the climate.11 All of this is having an impact on mental health, which itself has become a crisis. Since the COVID-19 pandemic there has been a 25 per cent increase in depression and anxiety worldwide.12
The picture is complex. What I have learned from working with young people from all over the world is that this buzz word “climate anxiety” doesn’t capture the full picture. It doesn’t include the rage, feelings of betrayal and frustration because politicians and those in power are acknowledging the crisis on one hand, and then actively approving oil and gas fields with another. Nor does it capture the dizzying sense of urgency beyond climate, as polarization continues, genocide happens in plain sight and the refugee crisis intensifies. What I have seen consistently, from region to region, is that beyond “climate anxiety” lives loneliness. Feeling like you’re the only one who cares. Feeling like it’s all on you to change things. Feeling hopeless and helpless and alienated. Feeling like in vouching for kindness to people and planet, you’re on the losing team.
My Story: Burnout
These feelings are familiar to me. I almost withdrew entirely from activism in my twenties. I had never conceived that climate activism or how I was doing it back then could lead to an eating disorder. Yet here I was, pinned to the bathroom floor as if the sheer weight of shame forbade me to move. I was 23, a voice in the youth climate movement, speaking on panels and at events, responsible for mobilizing thousands of young people to protest on the streets each month. I was told time and again by adults that I was awe-inspiring, a role model and I must keep going. I was told that my generation were going to “fix” this. I am thankful for these words, but the neighbour to pride is shame – and I felt shame that this supposed leader was concealing a dark secret.
I had started taking climate action with a UKYCC two years prior. We met online weekly to organize various campaigns, from attending the COP to halting fracking. It was empowering but speaking weekly about the urgency of the climate crisis led me to want to do more, and fast. A year later I established and coordinated a youth team around fossil fuels. We blockaded a fracking site for three days, joined anti-fracking mobilizations, marched with thousands of others in different UK cities, kicked-off a 500-personstrong mass-petition and hand delivered this to Westminster, where we sat in silent protest with duct tape over our mouths. Our mantra was “youth will not be silenced” and we spent a year calling out for change. While we were loud, they were quiet. The ensuing silence from government officials and corporations that followed led to splintered energy and bitter disappointment within the group. Alongside this there was in-fighting, bitching and an unspoken expectation to be the “perfect” activists. I decided to set up and hold the position of wellbeing officer, illuminating from my new vantage point what I could now see was a complex picture beyond the campaign slogans: emerging urgency, fear, burnout and depression.
Then the youth-strike movement began, whereby, inspired by Greta Thunberg, young folk started to strike school on Friday to protest government inaction. Alongside Zoe, a spirited 13-year-old, I started building the Bristol Youth Strike 4 Climate movement, which expanded from a team of 2 to 50 in the first few months. Bristol became a hub for youth climate activism, culminating with us hosting Greta Thunberg – with just five days’ notice – to organize a strike event for 30,000 people. By age 23, I had led, designed and coordinated protests, marches and campaigns that mobilized over 80,000 people to demand action on climate. I became a finalist for the Global Youth Awards in 2018 in the “empowerment” category for holding a team together on banning fracking in the UK. Meanwhile I was juggling work, my studies, living with friends and the general crises of being in my early twenties. I was trying to model and guide people, some now as young as 13, through a positive, empowering and sustainable way of taking action for climate. I was trying to protect tender hearts from hopelessness and – as one of the only voices talking about wellbeing within my movements – I believed that I needed to be positive, strong and infallible at all times. My understanding of resilience at that point was that it meant being a constant support for others without collapse, holding space for everyone else’s pain, fear or frustration, while at the same time somehow pretending that I was unaffected myself. It meant believing that to be strong I had to keep showing up, never waver and never admit when I was exhausted or overwhelmed. I carried the quiet expectation that I’d always be available, even when my own reserves were running dry.
I started gorging on sugary food to get quick hits of energy and keep going all day. Later I’d learn that this was known clinically as a “binge” and was a behaviour I’d repeat to provide a sense of comfort and ease during times of pressure and stress. While this was an understandable stress response, it didn’t offer any self-compassion. So much of the rhetoric around climate activism orbits perfection and restriction: zerowaste, net-zero emissions, anti-plastics, no-dairy, no-meat. I imagined who the “perfect” climate activist was and how she was always energized – the embodiment of integrity – an image that became incongruent with a young woman who couldn’t control herself enough to not buy stacks of plasticclad dairy produce. I felt the pressure to be a legitimate role model for these 13-year-olds, so I developed a huge sense of shame around my binges, which in turn led to purges, which were an effective way for me to erase my mistakes. It was a vehicle for me to retain the shiny image of perfect young leader and keep up high-octane activism. It was my secret and my superpower. But I got sick very quickly.
I was working in a field where my country has left deep wounds on the world, not only by being a large contributor to global emissions since the Industrial Revolution but also a colonizer. We have caused harm through conquer and growth and I sit with all the privileges afforded to someone like me. The least responsible people – people living on the frontlines, MAPA and in the Global South – have been the most vulnerable and devastated. Convincing myself that I was worthy of help was a challenge, because the self-destructive coping mechanism I was choosing was nothing compared to what other people were forced to face or born into. Good solidarity became synonymous with silencing my own suffering. I told myself that I didn’t have time to get help, I was making a big deal out of nothing, and I was just doing what needed to be done to execute my activism. Perspective, gratitude and empathy are crucial ingredients for solidarity, but not at the expense of your own self. Solidarity is sharing power, not bankrupting yourself in the process. In this place, nobody wins. We are all worthy of help. I know that now, but at 23 I had decided that I was going to stop climate change, and if it was at the expense of myself and my spirit, then that was a small price to pay.
Bulimia zapped me of soul and strength. I would turn up to facilitate meetings, ashen faced and with a smile painted on, because I needed to show up and be strong for everyone else. What I’d thought was my superpower was becoming my downfall, and I started to hide away from anything that wasn’t climate activism. I finally told my best friend about what was happening behind closed doors, when she asked, “Where have you been? Why is your skin peeling? Why do you look so poorly?” So, I told her the truth. I had let myself be eaten alive by pressure, all the while seeing headlines that my generation were going to fix this, my generation were the beacon of hope.
My experience is not a one-off or an anomaly. In taking on the challenge of the ages, many of us – but particularly young people – are encountering a new form of pressure, uncertainty and burden that other generations may not have known. I have worked with young people, some identifying as “activists” and others who simply want to have a say in their own future, and they have confided in me feelings ranging from guilt over plastic use to suicidal ideation. They themselves and their friends are being arrested, they feel the intergenerational rift, they are tokenised, youthwashed and ignored.* Their subconscious minds are flooded with the existential risk to life that is here and is not slowing down. It’s an oversimplification to reduce this to “climate anxiety.”
it’s Not Just me
The climate activist you are following on social media will have been sick this year. They will have shared that they are feeling exhausted and tired, and that they keep crying. They might use the phrase “burnout”. This same person, in different seasons, will talk about the fundamental importance of rest, joy and community, describing these as preventative measures to burnout. Yet the cycles of boom and bust, where we feel strong and then feel meek, seem to relentlessly continue. This person is me and maybe you.
I barely know anyone in the youth movement, particularly who came up through the 2019 youthquake, who hasn’t experienced some kind of burnout and taken a significant chunk of time off. I’ve also heard this from people not in the youth movement. I’ve heard it from investment bankers, aid workers and actors. Exhaustion seems to be seeping into my generation. Why? I’ve flirted with the idea that the term has become mainstream and consequently incorrectly used. In fact, I spoke with a psychologist on the matter, who shared her frustrations that young people were co-opting the phrase. Burnout, in her understanding, is something that occurs when an adult moves through similar behaviour patterns without adjustment, leading to cycles of the same outcomes and ultimately breakdown. Due to the cyclical nature of burnout, she suggested that young people can’t be burned out, as they haven’t been living long enough. Another burnout dismissal I’ve heard is that my generation are snowflakes, confusing tiredness with exhaustion and stress with burnout. With all due respect for the discipline of psychology, in my own work I have largely dismissed both these suggestions as I feel that neither grapple with what I am actually seeing. The volume of symptoms I see around me goes far beyond “I’m tired”. I have heard testimonials of suicidal ideation, apathy, resignation and a handful of friends have been hospitalized due to the knock-on effects of stress. “Chronic fatigue” and diagnoses of meningitis have been more frequent, and I’m not chalking this up to coincidence.
* Youthwashing (similar to greenwashing) was first brought to my attention by Scottish climate campaigner Eilidh Robb. She describes it as the use of youth-centred marketing, imagery, language and endorsements to try to improve the public image of a company, policy or activity. This practice sprang up significantly in the aftermath of the youth climate strike movement in 2020 and was used by fossil fuel companies to try to broaden their public appeal.
These mental health impacts have different names and diagnoses, but they all speak to our relationship with stress, responsibility, social relations, visibility and burden. While my enquiry began with my own burnout in 2019, I didn’t begin to use that language until afterwards. Officially, I had developed an eating disorder. But underneath, I had developed a strategy to cope with the stress of changemaking and the constant visibility of being a so-called leader. Burnout therefore became helpful language to begin making sense of why I was struggling to regulate myself emotionally, why I felt a dullness around my life and why I felt lost. You’ll hear me refer to that time as “something which felt like burnout”, because we can debate terminology all day long, but we can’t debate our feelings and experiences. The rational mind can busy itself over language and semantics, but the body is the true litmus test for our experience. We get sick. Our digestive system gives us trouble. We can’t sleep. Our bodies carry the wisdom our minds forbid us to know. More on that in Chapter 9 and in Tori Tsui’s book It’s Not Just You.13
Burnout Prevention: Visibility and Stress
“Why are the kids all depressed? Social media!” I hear in news soundbites. It’s banal to equate burnout and social media. As with all tools, it’s how you use them. Where I see exhaustion arising is less about social media itself and more about how it gives the user the impression of constantly visibility. There has been no other time in human history when people have been reachable, cross-continent, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. As mortal beings, expecting ourselves to be ever available and indefinitely productive is a high bar to set. Cars need fuelling, trees shed their leaves and even phones need updates. With the possible exception of the sun, we have few examples of how always being “on” is conducive to thriving. No wonder we are all feeling so exhausted.
To explain my point, let’s look to the work of philosopher Michel Foucault and his concept of the Panopticon.14 His theory was based on Jeremy Bentham’s architectural design for prisons. The Panopticon is a circular prison building with a central watchtower. The guard sits in the middle watchtower with darkened windows, obscured from view, and the inmates are housed in cells around the tower against the circular wall.
Figure 1: A diagram of the Panopticon prison design, with a central guard in the middle watch tower, and inmates cells on the sides, facing inward.15
This circular design leave inmates unsure if or when they are being watched. In theory, this uncertainty creates selfregulating good behaviour among the inmates: because they are unsure of when or whether they’re being watched, they comply all the time. The idea runs that inmates will internalize the gaze of authority and begin “self-policing” their behaviour. Hence, regardless of whether authority is in the watchtower or not, good behaviour and self-policing continue. Foucault uses this metaphor to illustrate how modern society disciplines and conditions behaviour through constant surveillance, leading people to internalize norms and regulate their own behaviour.
Social media can be seen as a digital Panopticon, an omnipresent watchtower where users are perpetually observed, not by a single authority figure, but by peers, algorithms and the broader public. Gen-Z and late millennials, who have largely grown up immersed in digital culture, are subject to this ever-present visibility causing their own form of self-discipline. Likes, shares and comments serve as forms of approval, reinforcing behaviour and creating pressure to maintain a visible stance on issues. Constant visibility and fear of judgement can contribute to us feeling compelled to consistently perform our values online, even at the cost of mental anguish. At our Residentials I’ve heard from youth speaking about this candidly. They’ve shared about the pressure they feel, not from one individual, but from the elusive collective (the watchtower) to constantly post about the latest injustice, react to current events or demonstrate their commitment, even if they’re not fully educated about it. This “always-on” nature of social media leaves little room for rest, reflection or nuance and importantly it distracts from the very real and genuine material work on solidarity and justice.
You might identify with the familiar feeling of posting something online, either about the world or just your weekend or how you are feeling. Against all our wisest internal counsels, we range from mildly interested to obsessed with its level of engagement. We find ourselves picking up our phone more to see how it’s doing, who has liked it or, importantly, who hasn’t. Or perhaps we’ve shared or posted something and immediately deleted it, for fear of disapproval by the omnipresent watchtower. Maybe it was too cringe? Not wellinformed enough? Does anybody care? Am I coming across as a vibe-kill? Self-doubt feels ever present. This constant need to prove our engagement and values can mirror the self-regulating behaviour described by Foucault, where individuals internalize the expectations and surveillance of their peers.
Digital activism is a complex topic and I don’t have all the answers. Sharing online is fundamental for amplifying struggles and messages. For those with a platform, there is a sense of moral duty to uplift other voices. In the same breath, positive change happened before social media and digital activism isn’t the only modality for engagement. While I lack answers, I notice observations that feel important to air in the context of resilience. The expectation to continuously engage, educate others and respond to ever-evolving crises places a heavy emotional and cognitive load on young people. Our posting or not posting may have very little or even nothing to do with what campaigns we are working on, how we are spending charitable money and what makes us cry in private. In such a highly visible space, there can be a fine line between genuine advocacy and performative activism, posting not out of authentic commitment but out of fear of judgement or the desire for approval. Unlike the prisoners in Foucault’s model, who are watched by a central authority, social media users are subject to a decentralized and potentially limitless gaze. This hypervisibility increases the risk of harassment, trolling and public shaming, which further exacerbates stress and can lead to withdrawal.
How do we overcome the burden of visibility? Firstly, it’s important to consider the role each of us plays in the watchtower itself. Are we complicit in judgement and shame? Do we judge someone’s worth as a changemaker by how much they engage online? As an individual, it’s a moral imperative for our movement to unpick when you’re posting to drive change and when you are virtue signalling. What can help here is cultivating boundaries – for example, choosing when to engage and being selective with sharing, rather than rapidly reacting. Digital detoxes are also becoming more common, as are self-timer limit apps on social media. Ultimately, billions of dollars have been spent on capturing your attention and locking you into social media use. A great first step is an awareness of the Panopticon and how visibility and burden carry a cognitive load.
Looking Back and moving Forward
If I could go back in time and talk to my 23-year-old self, sitting with stress-induced bulimia, I would tell her that this battle should never have been hers to fight alone. Climate action is essential and empowering, but it’s also such a large, widespread and complex challenge that it requires a deep personal inventory of support tools and strong structures of peer support before, during and after. We need every person involved, but not all the time and not giving all of themselves. This is a team sport.
During what felt like a crisis moment, I resolved to get help. I started my recovery journey and stepped back from activism. I took some time to reflect on my experience of being young and passionate about the future. Is the methodology of change really millions of young people taking action and then feeling wiped out by burnout or resignation in six months’ time? Does change need to come at the expense of the mental health of a generation? Is that something I want to be an advocate for? I knew that as a collective we needed to keep going – we were a powerful force, but our energy was finite. So instead of quitting, I rested. I took myself away, sat and thought and thought and thought. What emerged was a realization that we needed not just funding or numbers or a new strategy, we needed each other. The solidarity, care and support we extend to ourselves and one another aren’t luxuries, but the essential foundations of all we hope to build. While collective wellbeing alone won’t save the planet, it is what strengthens the people who will.
In 2020, a year later, while the world was moving through tremendous change, I set up The Resilience Project to do right by 23-year-old Katie, to be the support that she had been crying out for. I wanted to ensure that those courageously stepping up for the planet would be rewarded with joy, community and personal growth rather than burnout, climate anxiety and despair. It sent me on a journey to breathe life into an organization that radically challenges how we are doing things. It is by youth, for youth and we’ve now worked with thousands of youths.
We’re excited to welcome our new CEO Angela Huston Gold, as our founder Katie transitions to Executive Director. In her first blog, Angela shares her vision for TRP.
