Rest is Resistance: Coping with Activist Burn Out
Activism Burnout and Prioritizing Self Care Over Productivity
In light of having both Black History Month and Valentine’s Day fall during a global pandemic this year, I find it especially important to talk about self love, especially for BIPOC. As we saw last year, social justice movements, especially in America, became much more of a mainstream phenomenon on social media with many climate justice activists stepping up to speak out on pressing issues. Nonetheless, being a trailblazer in our society is certainly not for the faint of heart and many activists tend to experience severe exhaustion and, inevitably, burn out.
What burn out looks like
Activist burnout is something I’ve seriously struggled with for the past few months, especially as the weight of school and extracurriculars fell right back on to my shoulders. Although climate action and education are causes that I feel extremely passionate about, I found myself distancing from social media or any form of change-making because I was exhausted.
I began to feel utterly uninspired and retreated into myself. The Eco Gal, a platform that served as my safe space and saving grace during quarantine, began to feel like a chore. My family and friends noticed this shift in my mental health, and when I explained to my dad that I felt tired and burnt out, he reminded me that I can’t do this work and fill up others if my own glass is empty.
The saddest part about this burn out, however, is that it is a common experience for many activists in this space. There is a certain pressure for those who work towards dismantling oppressive systems to be ceaselessly productive because if systemic racism isn’t taking a break then how can we? Even further, although a vast majority of the work that I and my fellow climate activists do seeks to create a world beyond capitalism, we still find ourselves falling victim to it by reinforcing capitalistic definitions of success and productivity.
One of the biggest faults of capitalism is that slowing down and having stagnant moments are perceived as a character flaw. We are conditioned to believe that tangible progress and visible change are the only metrics of success. However, from my experience, this work truly is a marathon and not a sprint. The impacts we make are incremental, and in a world that is so fast-paced, it’s easy to slip into feelings of inadequacy and self-loathing.
Eventually, many activists begin to feel like they are screaming into a void and we aim higher, dream bigger, and push ourselves harder because we are desperate to believe that our efforts are making a difference. We are terrified of what the state of the world would become if we paused to catch our breath.
The danger zone
So, we keep going. We drown ourselves in meetings, content creation, and to-do lists, sacrificing our personal time, our rest, and our mental health to advance our cause. We continue to give relentlessly until we realize that we lost little pieces of ourselves along the way and that we have given up a large part of our present lives by being so impatiently hyper focused on crafting a better future.
As changemakers, resistance is our area of expertise, however, we often don’t think about listening to our bodies and our minds as a form of resistance in and of itself. Whilst it’s definitely easy to get in the habit of commodifying ourselves in order to be the most “productive” possible, always remember that protecting the planet begins with protecting yourself. In my burnout recovery over the past few months, I greatly recognize the necessity to set boundaries.
Stop. It’s self care time.
This may look like declining a meeting or interview when my schedule is too full. It can also look like being brutally honest with myself about my current capacity, even if that means dropping projects that I love. If I’m not at the top of my own priority list, everything else will collapse.
Even further, I find a great amount of solace in finding healthy outlets outside of my activism work. At times, social and climate justice can become overwhelming, especially when you’re bombarded with heart wrenching updates on social media. It’s critical to find ways to experience joy outside of the work you do and to talk about your feelings! It can be hard to open up sometimes and be vulnerable when you’re struggling but you shouldn’t feel like you have failed anyone if you need to pause and rest. The people around you who love you are here to help and your followers and community will understand.
Sometimes pushing yourself to your breaking point feels like the only solution but always remember that we are not outputs and our value to a movement is not contingent on how much we can produce. At the end of the day, we can’t fix everything and even when we give it our best shot, sometimes issues are bigger than us as individuals. We may not “win” all of the time but that is never our fault. Pausing to take some rest and time for yourself doesn’t mean that you’re weak or that you have failed, it just means that you’re human.
Lauren Ritchie is a Bahamian student, and avid animal lover, at Columbia University studying Sustainable Development and Political Science. She wants to increase representation of people of color in the climate conversation, particularly the Caribbean community.
