Individual Agency: You can do it yourself
The second pillar of "A Climate Activist Guide for Regular People"
Welcome back to week three in our four week mini series.
As a follow up to my recent post, A Climate Activist Guide for Regular People: 3 Pillars of Participation, I offer the second Tree Pillar, Individual Agency: You can do it yourself. My hope is that you use this practical framework in daily life as we — regular people — become advocates and activists for Nature.
Individuals and The Collective
When you achieve the just right ratio of stress and safety and your body/brain is in a state to take action, there are two ways of being to embody simultaneously: individual agency and collective action. Sometimes these are suggested to be either separate or that one is more important than the other. From my perspective, neither assertion is true. Instead, I see these as two ends of one infinity sign — both entirely necessary and inherently connected.
With this infinity sign in mind, we’ll first zoom into Individual Agency starting with a story about feta cheese.
Empire vs Individuals
Before we get into it, let me state something very clearly. Corporations have successfully brainwashed the general population to believe that we, the individuals, are to blame for their destruction of Nature. Among many, shining examples include BP’s “Your Carbon Footprint” messaging in the early 2000’s, as well as plastic giants like Coca-Cola funding the 1970s nonprofit, “Keep America Beautiful” as they themselves made it rain plastic.
So, when I speak about Individual Agency, I’m not insinuating that our individual actions are solely responsible for saving or destroying Nature. Instead, I hope to make the case about fostering greater vitality within ourselves by living in alignment with Universal Values inherent in Nature like Life, Love, Relationship and Reciprocity. In doing so, we intentionally rebel against corporations, industries and empire who actively profit from perpetrating abuse.
It’s also crucial to recognize that rebelling against empire often requires systemic privilege. Additionally, some of the practical ways we may want to live in alignment with Universal Values have been made financially inaccessible by the very corporations and industries we wish to rebel against.
In response to this reality, I submit that the impact of our Individual Agency isn’t solely determined by the action itself, but also the Coherence of our intent and alignment. To that end, the goal isn’t perfection. Instead it is strategic, sustainable, and Loving actions done on purpose and on behalf of Nature.
For a deeper read on this concept, see You Matter More Than You Think: Quantum Social Change for a Thriving World by Karen O’Brien.
A Personal Story
Okay, back to the cheese story.
About five months ago while grocery shopping, I unconsciously put a container of feta cheese in the cart. My husband then reminded me of the change we were focusing on integrating: intentionally minimizing our plastic consumption.
I looked down at the feta nestled in its big plastic container and felt a twinge of Nature’s Values in direct conflict with my desires.
So what did I do? I took a big breath and used my individual agency to put the feta cheese back on the shelf. And guess what? As a result, I walked out of that grocery store with more Life than feta cheese could ever give because I used my individual agency to align with Universal Values.
The Why of Individual Agency
How often do we get stuck in the rut of unconscious doing? Doing out of habit. Doing because ‘that’s just the way it’s done.’ Doing because others are doing it. Doing because it’s simply what we want in the moment.
I’ll tell you what, I find myself living this way often. And the more aware of it I become, the more I realize how out of alignment many of my ‘normals’ are with Universal Values that Nature abides by. Universal Values like Life, Love, Relationship and Reciprocity. Though sometimes buried deep below conditioning, pain and trauma, I believe these Values are also at the core of our Original Blueprint.
It’s not that my norm of buying feta cheese in a big plastic container is evil or solely responsible for the destruction of Nature. It’s that the horrific maltreatment of the living being who provided the milk for the cheese in a factory farm setting and the finite resource of oil extracted from the earth required to create the plastic that then is likely to sit in a landfill or in the ocean, is out of alignment with the Universal Value of Life.
But corporations, industry and empire have normalized this misalignment out of our awareness. They’ve spent billions and billions of dollars to make extractive death seem normal. But it’s not. It’s directly contradictory to the Values embedded in Nature.
And when we live out of alignment with these Values, the dissonance between what we’re doing and what we’re made for sucks our life force and energy. We are actually less alive than we’re meant to be. Then we wonder why we feel so tired! And the more tired we feel, the more unconscious we become, the more our actions support the empire profiting off destruction and abuse. A vicious, malicious cycle.
The antidote? Individual Agency.
Individual Agency is our ability to intentionally choose to act in alignment with Universal Values and thereby, rebel against those destroying Nature for profit.
By living in alignment with these Values, we:
Foster greater vitality. Coming into alignment with these Values creates more Coherence and we actually feel more alive. A practical example — how do you feel when you choose to go out of your way to be kind to someone else? Like giving a compliment or helping someone out. Good, right?! That’s the ‘more vital’ I’m talking about.
Make a statement with our lives: “Stop abusing Nature and align with Universal Values!”
In summary, we — you and I — have the agency to architect a life that creates Life by aligning with Universal Values. Sometimes it will take sacrificing our short term desires and it is absolutely worth it. And remember, it isn’t about doing it perfectly. It’s about strategic, sustainable, Loving actions done on purpose and on behalf of Nature.
The How of Individual Agency
There are countless ways to enact your agency in daily life to advocate for Nature by living in alignment with Universal Values but it doesn’t matter if we can’t sustain the change. So, on behalf of Nature, here is my, “Make Changes That Stick” cookbook:
Pick one thing to change and bring into alignment with Universal Values. Not two things, not 10 things. One thing. The best way to change nothing is to try to change everything at once.
Start doing that one thing until it becomes your new normal. Our entire lives are made up of what’s ‘normal’. For example, you don’t likely think “Oh gosh, where should I get my groceries this week” every week, right? Your normal is to go to the grocery store. So when making a change, we need to do the new action until it’s your normal. This may take days to weeks.
Once you don’t have to think about it, that new thing is now your normal. Yay!
Repeat.
The What of Individual Agency
Below I offer a list of ‘off the beaten path’ changes you can do to align with Universal Values and advocate for Nature. If you’re looking for more options, the internet is full of them. I also recognize the privilege that many of these actions require. I also believe it’s the responsibility of privileged folks to use it on behalf of others’ well-being, including Nature.
Swap banks — Some of the largest banks in the world proliferate Nature’s demise by investing our money into fossil fuels. The worst of the banks in America include JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America and Wells Fargo (and here’s the rest of the list which includes Royal Bank of Canada in the top 10 most guilty). If you bank with them, the best, most impactful thing you can do is switch to a bank who is at very least divested from fossil fuels like local credit unions. Even better if they invest in renewable energy and technologies like Forbright Bank and Aspiration.
Make purchasing choices that minimize plastic — Buy from your local refill store, shop in the bulk section and sacrifice things you would normally buy that produce plastic waste. A less thought of category is ‘fabric’ made out of plastic including polyester, nylon, acrylic, polypropylene, spandex, fleece, rayon and velvet.
Divorce organizations who don’t align with Universal Values — I’m looking at you, Amazon.
Compost — When food sits in a landfill, it omits CO2 as it decomposes. But that same food is meant to become soil which actually sequesters carbon from the atmosphere. Watch Kiss The Ground for a huge dose of soil inspiration!
Buy food with Nature in mind — Buy your produce from a Community Supported Agriculture (“CSA”) and, if you choose to eat meat, source it from a regenerative farm and go vegan when you don’t know how the animal products were sourced. Both CSAs and regenerative farms are easy to find on Ecosia. Speaking of which…
Swap your browser / search engine to Ecosia.org, an organization that plants trees funded by your internet activity
Embrace the Gift Economy — Download the Buy Nothing app to give and receive items as free gifts
Reorient how you shop and reject fast fashion/low quality items — Borrow before you → buy used before you → buy high quality that you’ll keep for a very long time
Read — Here are a handful of books focused on Nature I really enjoy.
Connect with Nature — Though you can do something in her (hike, walk, ski, etc.), my invitation is to quiet your body/mind, simply sit in her midst and see what happens.
And finally, our last Tree Pillar: Collective Action: Let’s do it together
P.S. If you can't feel your agency when it comes to advocating for Nature, it could be a sign of overwhelm in which case you may benefit from large doses of good news (see Pillar one, The Stress & Safety Ratio). If you still feel stuck, let’s explore working together. Find out more at clearthewayforlove.com.