Chapter 4: Internal Activation for External Action

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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.

When I first became captivated by the climate crisis, I found a different kind of fear. It wasn’t just the fear of planetary collapse or extreme weather. No, it was the fear of being exposed, of being labelled a fraud. I was consumed by imposter syndrome. I was hesitant to step into the youth climate space because I lacked a deep understanding of climate science, geography or environmental policy. I felt that my voice didn’t matter and had little to contribute. I wasn’t an “activist” in the way others at my university were – I didn’t know what Net Zero really meant or how to make homemade kimchi. The idea that I wasn’t knowledgeable enough kept me from joining a movement. When I eventually did, I was armed with my camera, to convince myself that videography was how I could meaningfully contribute. I still constantly feared being grilled by a journalist with hard-hitting questions or being challenged at family gatherings on green politics. When I heard others in my campaign group talking eloquently and knowledgeably about politics or theories, I didn’t see them for the miracle that they are, selflessly giving up their time for service, I saw them through the eyes of jealousy, competition and my own inadequacy.

Imposter syndrome remains one of the most common internal hinderances to creating external impact. While it may seem trivial against the backdrop of a global crisis, it’s a deeply human and widespread response, transcending age and borders. Imposter syndrome hinders us in several ways. If you constantly feel like you’re not “qualified enough” or “not doing enough”, you’re less likely to speak up, lead initiatives or contribute ideas, especially in activist spaces that can already feel intense or competitive. It drives us to overwork to prove we’re good enough. In changemaking, this often means taking on too much, ignoring your boundaries or tying your worth to your output. Finally, it makes perfection the enemy of progress. There may be a fear of getting things wrong, particularly around privilege, language and identity, which results in a hesitancy to speak up and letting mistakes feel like identity threats. You might fear being found to be not as virtuous or well-educated or inclusive as you’d like. All of these things stifle the gifts we possess to contribute.

How to Overcome imposter Syndrome

Imposter syndrome gives the illusion that there are entry requirements to becoming a “valid” enough changemaker. What is your benchmark for being a legitimate changemaker? Perhaps it’s an understanding of climate systems or full working knowledge of degrowth environmentalism. Perhaps it’s having the term “activist” in your Instagram bio or getting arrested in direct action. Perhaps it’s a mullet (not a requirement but definitely a bonus).

Overcoming imposter syndrome requires recognizing that there is only one requirement to being a legitimate changemaker: the courage to care. Access to knowledge and information divides us, often employed intentionally by climate sceptics to sow doubt in the climate agenda. Facts and figures have become ammunition in ideological battles. But the simple act of caring cannot be falsified. Caring can’t be disputed. What makes you a legitimate voice in your school’s newsletter? What validates you? 

Caring is not voting green? What makes the comfortable you enough by sharing your option. That’s why thoughts on social media? The it requires courage. answer is you care about life beyond yourself.

It’s easy to feel that those of us who hope for a better future are in the minority. Caring is not the comfortable option. That’s why it requires courage. You will meet discomfort time and time again. Firstly, confronting the reality of our crises is profoundly unsettling and we’ve become unaccustomed to truly facing our anxieties. Netflix, social media, Uber, Google Maps and the gig-economy are reminders that there is a huge market for comfort and wellness hacks. Secondly, many crises we face are not the product of chance encounters, but the result of decisions made by powerful people. For example, climate breakdown has seen millions of dollars funnelled into climate denial and climate scepticism in the US since the 1980s. A small collection of wealthy Western men peddled denial because climate action and systems change threatened their business interests and the Republican status quo.¹⁹ Yikes. It takes courage to consider mobilizing against such powerful and covert factions and sit in the discomfort that you might lose. Thirdly, climate breakdown highlights how inequality and injustice have shaped our world and continue to do so. If you’re reading this as a person from the Global North, particularly the UK or US, then it requires courage to sit in the discomfort of the extreme relative privilege we have. If you’re reading this as a white Eurocentric person, engaging with climate will lead you to your ancestors’ history of colonialism and Western imperialism, which has actively harmed so many for the benefit of the few. Being confronted with the reality that you may benefit from historic systems that disadvantage others, even unintentionally, is uncomfortable as it feels like it invalidates one as a “good” person. Meaningful climate justice involves unpacking “whiteness” and how white supremacy leaves its traces not only on resource allocation but on our aspirations and unconscious biases. Allyship is uncomfortable because it involves stepping back so others can lead, which can feel threatening in a culture that prizes control, visibility and authority. Fourthly, being part of a group calling for things to be different will require what some perceive as “radical” behaviour and decisions. It requires the courage to walk the road less travelled, from asking your family for vegan options at Christmas to boycotting certain events your friends are attending. To stand for something is often to stand alone.

Choosing a life of courage over comfort is not easy, but it’s necessary. For the world, for future generations, and for our own growth and actualization. It means confronting loneliness, uncertainty and the quiet inner voices that tell us we’re not good enough or a Choosing a life of killjoy. There are no shortcuts courage over comfort to transforming the world or is not easy, but  ourselves – no hacks. Both it’s necessary. require depth, discomfort and a willingness to stay with what feels hard. Another reminder of why innertersectional changemaking is so crucial moving forward.

The easiest way to overcome imposter syndrome? Retreat. Disengage. Shrink yourself until the risk disappears. Stop showing up. It’s an alluring option, because hiding offers instant relief. But where is the life in that? Where is the connection, the expansion, the learning? Retreat, in this sense, becomes the deadening of our response. It’s the quiet reinforcement of the belief that we do not belong, and worse, that we never did. The real work lies not in perfecting ourselves before we participate, but in choosing to show up as we are: authenticity. It lies in taking up space even while your voice trembles. It’s in being tender with yourself when the doubt sets in, and still saying: I am here, and I matter. Grace, not grit, is what we need most in these moments. Grace to try, to get it wrong, to learn out loud and to stay in the room anyway. In the hall of world-shakers and movemakers, you have your place because you care. Now that’s some powerful internal activation.

External activism is the work of altering systems, structures, culture and policies. It includes campaigns, policy advocacy, community organizing, mutual aid, direct action, discourse analysis, art and more. Internal activation is the journey of consistently switching on to the fact again and again Internal activation is that you aren’t just changing the inhale, external systems and structures but are action is the exhale. part of them, moulded by them. 

You have inherited beliefs, narratives, emotional patterns and ways of relating to yourself, which may even mirror the injustices we seek to change in the world. Internal activation is the deliberate process of transforming and tending to your inner landscape so you can show up in the world with greater clarity, resilience and integrity. Importantly, it begins to dissolve the boundary between you as a person and your identity as an activist. For example, internal activation may illuminate patterns of “not-enoughness” you may have learned as a child, which you carry into your changemaking settings. Hence, anything internal observation which arises through external activism will likely be a pattern you express in your personal life. Taking action without burning out requires balancing our internal activation with our external activism. Internal activation is the inhale, the drawing in; external action is the exhale, the offering out. That’s how we sustain life.

Stepping into the Arena

What has aided me on my enquiry into internal activation has been the idea of the Arena: the Colosseum in Rome. Paul Mescal. You get the drift. It’s an imaginary Gladiatoresque set-up in my mind of captor versus foe, voracious applause and dramatic sequences. To look at the world and think “that’s not right and I want to do something about it” is to step into the Arena. It’s a place that the courageous step into when they decide to stand against the oppressor. In true Gladiator style, this would usually be citizen or an enslaved person against a trained soldier, which mirrors the power asymmetry exhibited in changemaking.

Historically, striving for change has placed grassroots and marginalized groups against a well-funded, well-connected and well-organized opponent. Take LGBTQ+ activists. They have stood – and still stand – against historic religious tenants and teachings that invalidate their existence, alongside an ideological battle driven by right-wing political factions. Or Indigenous peoples, who are having their land grabbed and seized by giant corporations for production, who are armed with legal expertise and the money to match. To step into the Arena is to knowingly stand in a space against power. To be on the side of change rather than the status quo is to be the whistle-blower, the dissident voice and the compassionate agitator. This means you begin on the back foot. Stepping into the Arena requires an understanding that, guess what, you’re going to get your butt kicked. I need that to sink in: getting your butted kicked is an inevitability – but it’s not the whole story.

In countries like Columbia, Brazil, Mexico and Honduras, stepping into the Arena can be a life-or-death decision. Between 2012 and 2022, almost 2,000 environmental defenders have been killed, with their families never receiving justice. In 2022, the killing rate equated to one defender death every other day. I often feel the weight of exhaustion as I step into the Arena, but it’s a privilege to do so without fear of extreme physical harm. We owe a debt of gratitude to those environmental defenders whose lives have been taken and those who continue to fight in such countries for truth and change. You can read their names through the Global Witness database and honour their legacy by connecting the dots between our struggles.²⁰

For many like me, our proximity to persecution has been intensifying in the last few years. The Public Order Act 2023 introduced stricter laws targeting protest tactics in England and Wales, including criminalizing the “locking on” tactic and allowing stop-and-search powers without suspicion. Prison sentences for activists have become longer, including an eye-watering three-year sentence for two climate activists who scaled a bridge and displayed a movement flag. Though we rarely risk threat to life, entering the Arena comes with an increasing psychological toll. Because to bring “change” is to disturb giant structures of historic power, centuries of stories being understood as “truths” and active and covert campaigns backed by millions of dollars to continue “business-as-usual”.

Burnout is an Occupational Hazard

This might be the most pertinent point of this book, so buckle up. To stand in the Arena is to accept that you will move in consistent proximity to burnout. Changemaking is extraordinarily hard, especially if you possess an identity devalued by society, or you have fewer resources or you work across multiple fronts of changemaking. Activism will leave you in constant proximity to burnout because there is no version of upheaving systems, facing consistent losses or feeling on the margins that does not involve challenge. This acceptance that burnout is built into the fabric of the Arena is not acceptance of that as a fate. It provides a balm to feelings of exhaustion because of course you are feeling tired, this work is tough. Of course you keep crying for no reason, you are stepping into a space of death, grief and anguish. Of course you’re exhausted, you’re a 22-year-old up against an oil and gas lobby valued at $4.3 trillion. Of course you’re fatigued, capitalism has devalued rest and the rent is due. Step one is an acceptance that in courageously calling for a different paradigm, the processes of creating, melting and making requires heat. You might get burned.

My framing should not be equated to defeatism. Changemaking is not a one-way street to burnout, but an invitation to understand our needs and requirements for sustained strength. In knowing and accepting that the forge of change carries heat, we can adapt and sharpen our mind, behaviours and armour. As mentioned, the definition of resilience is not the absence of storms, it is how we move through them, how we bounce back. In the case of changemaking, it is not building a life that avoids stress and tiredness and loss. If that were the case, you wouldn’t be reading this book. It’s about building a life where our relationship with stress and tiredness also creates space for aliveness. One part of me feels deeply tired, yes, but how can other parts of me feel alive?

To be in the Arena is not to be defeated. It’s to lose and win and win and win and lose again and again. You don’t need to throw in the towel and leave the Arena – you’re in the bravest, most courageous With support and love, and exciting place – a place we learn to rest, reset where heroes are born and and repeat, not to quit. odds are overturned. What you need is the resilience to get back up and go again, and a team to support and hold you. It’s about finding the person, or people, who don’t say, “You’re fighting a losing battle – what’s the point?” but rather, “What do you need to get back in or go again?” With support and love, we learn to rest, reset and repeat, not to quit.

The metaphor of the Arena provides therapeutic value to me as it places my exhaustion in the realms of the rational. How would you imagine yourself in a battle stadium facing a powerful foe? You’d be exhausted. So, stepping up for change may result in the same feelings. Re-understanding these emotions as “rational” might not get rid of them entirely, but it can ease additional feelings of shame or surprise, as the question “but why do I feel like this?!” is partially answered. What requires some thinking then is how we armour ourselves while here. This means considering how to build resilience. How can we feel better equipped for vulnerability and failure?

You Are going to Feel

Since burnout, the Arena has changed in my mind. No longer do I stand alone. The burden of the struggle is not just mine to hold. Now I see the soft sand of the Arena as my community, cushioning any falls. The stadium is filled with my ancestors, the movers and shakers who have courageously laid the groundwork for change, and those yet to come who will thank me for being courageous enough to try. My movement, ones who I know and ones who I don’t, are on the bench ready to be tapped in at any time.

To me, to be in the Arena is to feel. You’re going to feel pain and fear, triumph and glory, pride and shame. And perhaps that’s why many refrain from stepping inside, because the Arena points floodlights at some of our most uncomfortable emotions. It illuminates the human vulnerability that we might sometimes lose. But it is also a place of hope. As playwright Václav Havel stated: “Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something is worth doing no matter how it turns out.”²¹

Stepping into the Arena, though grand in its imagery, happens in both large and very small ways. Not everyone has the time and resources to affect change in big ways, and nobody should be expecting people to give up job security to become a full-time volunteer. But in the small, there is always choice. A quote I hold close comes from Viktor Frankl’s famous Man’s Search for Meaning, where he details that even though everything you possess can be taken from you at any given moment, you still have “your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation”.²² Striking up a conversation with someone who looks lost and lonely requires courage as they might reject our invitation, yet it might make their day or impact them profoundly in ways that we’ll never be able to foresee. This kind of changemaking, though seemingly small, directly resists the neoliberal ideas of “individualism” and the Age of Loneliness. When you apologize to someone for your wrongdoings, you expose yourself to the vulnerability of rejection, but you also call into practice a world of retribution, accountability and growth.

While these examples might not feel directly relevant to changemaking, I argue that they are. Because the more we express courage for the sake of kindness, compassion and connection, the nearer we move to the kind of world we are calling in. Not only do we resist the narratives that cause harm, such as individualism, scarcity and greed, but expressing courage is a muscle we strengthen. Courage is cumulative. When we engage in small acts, we expose ourselves to the practice required for larger courageous acts. Like cash in the bank, small acts contribute to our overall resources of courage, which may be required to make a big speech, pitch a campaign idea or call out hate speech. You might find that the more you practise it in your personal life, the easier you might find it to engage with a climate sceptic or post your thoughts and feelings about greenwashing online. In both the big and small ways, step into the Arena – I’ll be in the stands, cheering you on.