Activist mental health and managing burnout

This page was created following a question received by a person from the HUB community: "How can we take care of ourselves as activists, when the resources and support available reinforce the systems we want to dismantle?" The following are covered: capitalist approaches to mental health, eco-anxiety, eco-whitewashing, individual empowerment, burnout, community care and individual practices within communities. This page will be continuously added to.

Mental Health

In capitalist society

In our capitalist society, mental health is presented as an individual matter and for us to work on or it is treated as a matter to be medicated. We live in interdependence with the people and situations around us. Individual mental health and the window of tolerance one has to manage stress is affected by, for example:

• the oppression the individual experiences; includes things like environmental factors in our upbringing or present (e.g. living conditions, access to opportunities, microaggressions etc).
• the difficulties faced by people around them
• the variety of ways our brains function
• our parents upbringing and the influence this had on the parenting we received

Mental health is a collective issue.

Facing the climate crisis

Why seek psychological services if the person I see does not understand what I am going through and is not also trying to dismantle the system in place?

Will going to see a therapist will just make me even more angry? I don't want to educate him on the systems of oppression and the seriousness of the crisis...

The multiple crises that surround us, exacerbated by the climate crisis, awaken emotions that are also influenced by:

Dominant discourses on the climate crisis	Greenwashing. Green technologies. Green growth. A focus on fear. Carbon footprint and individual actions. On the discourse of individual gestures - The discourse saying that we must reduce our ecological impact, or our "carbon footprint" associates individual behavior with the climate crisis. It says a person who consumes is an enemy of nature. Individuals feel guilty and helpless. It also says all of humanity is something that harms nature. In truth, it is the capitalist economic model and it's exploitative mentality that destroy nature; not individuals who are born and socialized into this system. While we are talking about individual gestures, business leaders continue to make profits by selling “reduced impact” items and exploiting people and the planet.
Dominant discourses on eco-anxiety	Be careful not to describe young people or marginalized groups as “victims” that need to be helped. It creates a saviour narrative. Saviourism draws autonomy away from these groups, and describes them as powerless. Focus on the people, groups and systems who are perpetrating the climate crisis and that need to be held accountable.
Individual responsibility for care	“People talk a lot about taking care of yourself, but that means doing what you individually can outside of your job while the big structures that reproduce inequality remain firmly in place."- Janey Starling & Seyi Falodun-Liburd

Countering the dominant discourse

Faced with this reality and these discourses that feed distress, it is important to nurture a counter-discourse that centers the real causes of the climate crisis and the collective action necessary for climate justice. These counter-discourses speak of social movements, popular organization and collective power.

• To learn more about the different components of social movements, see movement ecology .
• To better understand how what you feel is related to the climate crisis, see @environmentalist.affirmations who popularized the content of the book, A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety by Sarah Jaquette Ray
• See also our page on eco-anxiety.

In activism

Burnout

Burnout is physical or emotional exhaustion caused by overwork or stress according to the Chambers Dictionary. This is a lived reality in almost all militant circles. It can be the result of an imbalance between aspects of our activism and our life.

Here are some causes of activist burnout mentioned by Sophy Banks of Transition Network

The stakes are high, urgent and very important	“…in a society where a portion of the population is causing the problems, the people who feel responsible for solving them may be a small minority with few resources.."
Doing is more good than feeling	If we don't realize how we feel, it's possible that our feelings... push us to act beyond our limits solidify as numbness or illness
Giving more value to actions than to the state of people	Only giving value to what is “productive”. This is a form of internalized ableism and it is damaging to our mental health.
Act according to “heroism”	Overdoing and not letting other people do important tasks, i.e. not sharing leadership
Succumb to time pressure	“What do we lose when we go too fast and do too much?"' We lose: Time to fix communication issues. Time to listen to the points of view and needs of groups and people who are not part of the dominant group. Time for evaluation and reflection: an inability to adjust strategic direction, (activities can become more risky and/or less relevant. Time for learning, personal development and deepening.

Collective support

Systems of oppression create great hardships for each person to go through. If we collectivize care, we include the most precarious people and we learn to use our greatest tool in building a world without violence.

"Prioritising care is a refusal to abandon oneself and the others around us."

In the face of the climate crisis and the many social crises we face, we can support each other collectively through community care and a regenerative culture.

Community care

Community care is the shared responsibility to offer and receive the emotional, physical and structural support we need in order to live more lovingly and liberatedly. It's also the way we improve our groups to meet our aspirations.

Communal care within a group includes...

• Space to arrive as a human person with personal challenges.
• Building a culture in our spaces and relationships rooted in trust and mutual compassion

Community care is not opposed to discipline or rigor. Instead, we use our energy more strategically because “our battles are too important for any one of us to burn out." Thus, community care is integral to team functioning so we can carry out our fights with more ease.

Patriarcheal systems today suggest care is largely assumed by women in our societies. If we wish to develop community care in our spaces, this work must be done and organized in an explicit way so that the mental load is not assumed by women and femmes, or by those experiencign other forms of oppression (ableism, racism etc). 

Putting community care into action

Bringing the ingredients of a culture of care to life

These ingredients are taken from the article We need a climate movement that addresses the trauma of fighting for a burning planet by Waging Nonviolence.

Note that the actions for the different ingredients described may be different from one group to another.

Ingredient	Examples
Ease *ingredient added by the HUB	This ingredient allows people to take action accessibly; it's less complicated, less energy-consuming, and less reserved for people who know how things work. In a context where many activists tell us that their mental health improves in action, facilitating it has its place as an ingredient of community care in the context of activism. You can contribute this ingredient to your grop by: Creating documentation answering potential questions for new joiners. Creating a meeting calendar to remove the collective burden of planning a new meeting date after each meeting Adding opportunities that makes it easier to get involved (i.e. makes certain tasks, project management, meeting organization, etc. less energy-intensive).
Space	To rest, reflect, recover and heal. Contribute to this by: Planning campaigns with low points (that is, easier lift actions or time off) Holding sharing and learning circles. Planning rest times.
Love	This might include: Regular compliments, positive feedback, and celebration of people and their work (“I separate people from their work, because we need to better celebrate the inherent value of people, regardless of their work”). Put time into the personal growth of members. Regularly check in on people's well-being. Create communities of support for people going through difficult times. Mentoring and pairing.
Diversity	Encourage diversity of perspectives and respectful feedback.
Limit	Try: Asking rather than assume that some people are able to take on more work. To have clear objectives to avoid feeling like you have to do everything. Encouraging people to set their own boundaries and communicate them.
Awareness	Create spaces to address different issues (unconscious bias, trauma, feedback and reflection, etc.).
Compassion	Encourage: Seeing mistakes as part of learning. Knowing the needs of the people around us. Avoiding judgment.
Vulnerability	Suggest: Honesty when you make mistakes. Taking time to welcome people with their strengths, fears and needs. "Demanding and striving for what is needed, not just what [one thinks] can be achieved, despite fear or outside attacks."
Joy	This includes: Taking time to play, “time without a goal”. Recurring social time and moments of celebration. Identifying the types of work that are associated with joy and find ways to incorporate them.
Fluidity	Encourage this by: Having an openness to change according to what surrounds us. Sharing and learning from others in order to “contaminate” ourselves with our knowledge.
Imagination	Try: Welcoming more art and artists to our spaces. Learning from people outside our circles.

Establish a feedback mechanism  

A work team can be mandated to conduct this process on an ongoing basis. Roles related to supporting the process should be clear and ideally, rotating to sharing the emotional load.

1. Space for receiving feedback and needs	Have spaces to take and receive feedback from members on group activities and on people's needs related to group activities.
2. Evaluation of feedback received	Discuss what the feedback means for the group.
3. Taking action	Create an appropriate care response for people in the group or community. Examples: meeting every two weeks rather than every week, creating moments for congratulations, hosting activities, organizing recurring social activities, creating a support and sharing group etc.
4. Counter resistance	At this stage, we try to go beyond the old comfort zone of the group to create a new one. Collective effort must be made to support the actions needed to respond to the feedback of the group.
5. Assess	Ask whether the action(s) were able to respond to the feedback or the needs expressed.

What sustains activists around the world

An article by Helen Cox summarizes what activists have said they do to support their activism. They shared their individual care practices (useful for people wondering what they can do here and now alongside creating community care mechanisms.

Their answers could guide reflections related to...

• commitment capacity
• exercise
• the sleep
• the food
• nature
• time management and breaks
• group dynamics
• meditation practices
• non-militant relations
• mentoring
• social networks
• long-term vision and thinking
• creativity
• Spirituality

What sustains activists in the HUB community

Here are some responses from activists in the HUB community to the question "What makes you feel good about activism?" 

" community "	"the interconnection"
“feel the influence we can have”	“more people are starting to get involved in activism”
“Perhaps it allows you to free yourself from certain frustrations or anxieties? »

Would you like to submit your response? You can write to kenzie@lehub.ca!

Other resources and external support

Zine: Sustainable Activism & Avoiding Burnout

Mental health of activists (PTSD, panic attacks, prevention, burnout, police violence, post-action, class struggle

Analysis: We need a climate movement that addresses the trauma of fighting for a burning planet

How collective care can change society | Janey Starling & Seyi Falodun-Liburd | TEDxLondonWomen

Section Well-being - Commons Change Library

Notes from the book A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety by Sarah Jaquette Ray

State Violence & Mental Health - Disruption Network Lab

Fighting for Justice in Mental Health - Disruption Network Lab

Eco-motion support community

Book: Healing Justice by Jarem Sawatsky

Book: Care work - Dreaming disability justice by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

Eco-motion resources (see bottom of page for free resources)

Sustaining ourselves as Activists - Helen Cox (The Commons)

Crisis Toolkit - Fireweed Collective

Testimonials from young people about their feelings about the climate crisis (Le temps de militer)

“10 Great Resources on Activist Wellbeing - Commons Librarian”

Tiohtià:ke (colonially known as Montreal)

Mental health support for people from BIPOC communities - Génération Lavande

Emergency and relief resources for people in BIPOC communities - Génération Lavande