The struggle to reconnect

[Music]

are you an activist

i remember the first time i was

introduced as an activist it took me

aback a little bit i thought

am i an activist but when i searched the

dictionaries for

meaning of the word i found one that

suited me so i’m wearing it

and this is it an activist

is an active vigorous advocate

for change and i am an

active and generally vigorous

advocate for action on climate change

i’m passionate about it is there

something

you’re passionate about

something some way that you want the

world to be better and you’re actively

working for it

if so in my book you’re an activist too

and welcome to the club the thing about

all that activity and all that vigor

is that it takes a lot of energy

this year 2020 has been a very

energy draining year am i right

i mean we started off looking for masks

to protect

ourselves from toxic bushfire smoke and

then two or three months later

we were looking for mass to protect

ourselves and others from the

coronavirus

at times i found it overwhelming

and that affected my ability to be

vigorous

and active for what i was passionate

about

but i learned something in 2020

and i’m going to talk about that today

in the hopes that maybe

it might help you too

and to tell part of my story we’re going

to have to go back

in time so i want you to go

back to roundabout

new year’s day 2020.

even before i get out of bed

i am doom-scrolling through all the bad

news

on the internet i

reload the fires near me app

about every 10 minutes

and watch that grim progress

of the fires across southeast australia

the firefighters are exhausted

and many of them don’t have proper

protection equipment

some of them die

millions of hectares are burning

billions of animals are perishing

and i’m totally helpless

to do anything about it

the smoke is now inside my house for

days

my mind’s eye

replays that image of australians

trapped by the blazes right up against

the ocean

between the ocean and an orange sky

and it’s not clear who will help them

i have a friend from the coast

she’s evacuating first from one center

then to another

finally she comes to canberra to spend

one quick night with me

one quick night because even in canberra

the nation’s capital

she didn’t feel safe and she fled

again

and then i fell off the deck and broke

my leg

and as i was practicing getting to the

car

with my wheelchair and my go bag

in case i had to evacuate i thought

about

what about all those people with

permanent disabilities

who’s helping them with their evacuation

plans

now through this time i’m still working

but then kovid hit

and it slowed the work dramatically as

well as raising new struggles

struggles that now i and you

had to face in physical isolation so for

me

it was just me and my sturdy

welsh terrier

i received news from the united states

that my sister and her husband had

contracted

kovid 19 and i

am half a globe away from them

totally unable to assist in any way

and throughout all of it twitter

twitter is full of dangerous rhetoric

tearing my birth country apart into blue

states and red

states and racial hatred

is running down the streets

i collapsed

my body made the decision for me

for many days i didn’t get out of bed

i was in mourning

mourning is a form of connection

in fact you can’t mourn unless you’re

deeply connected to something something

you care

very very much about and you’ve lost

and what i needed to do was mourn

mourn for what had been lost in black

summer

some of it perhaps permanently

the psychologists have a name for it

they call it radical acceptance

which is a reconnection

to what’s real in the past

and in the present and that’s what i

needed to do i needed to

radically accept where we were

then where i was then because in order

to get where i want to go

i have to start from where i am

it’s the only way to get there

now as the fires gradually became more

and more extinguished

i found i could start again an activity

that i love doing which is going out in

nature

with my sturdy welsh terrier

and like all dogs she spends her time

in the moment

the sounds the sights and for her

especially the smells

and walking with her i began to do the

same i began to pay

attention to the little things in the

here and now

the things that gave me pleasure on the

small scale

day to day the things that were very

familiar to me

walking in nature does that for me for

you it might be different maybe

maybe listening to music or or doing

some sport

something that demands your attention

right now centers you

grounds you if i don’t

center myself i’ll be like

a lopsided piece of clay on the potter’s

wheel

and as it begins to spin and the

pressure builds i find myself

wobbling and wobbling

and centering is always the beginning of

a good pot

my teacher told me and centering

is connection to yourself reconnection

to yourself so that was my second step

in this cycle of reconnection that i

found myself on

and as i became more self-aware i asked

myself

why did your energy drain

and one reason i found is because

i was trying to do things that were not

directly related to my passion or my

expertise

they were things i cared about very

deeply

but they were things that took more

energy from me than i could give

and so i found them draining

if in order to make room make space

for my own passion i had to declutter

and so what that meant for me was that

some requests that came in through

email were declined and i simplified my

calendar

and i’m committed to myself

that i was going to spend my energy

where my passion was

and so that led me to the third step

which i call decluttering and this is

also reconnecting it’s reconnecting to

your passion

reconnecting with focus to your cause

now it happens that i have a little

voice a little internal voice that only

i can hear

um that i call unhelpful guilt

and unhelpful guilt was whispering to me

in my ear saying oh

you could do more you could do more

penny

you should do more i mean there’s so

many ways that the world could be better

so

many things you could be working on and

indeed there are

indeed there are it could be

overwhelming

again a sort of

realization came to me

that all of these things all of your

passions my passions

all of the ills and the struggles of the

world

are likely rooted in this same

false belief

the false belief that we are separate

that we are apart from what is just

outside just outside

us ourselves just outside our

culture our country

or outside our own species

climate change for example

is caused by the false belief that what

we do

our actions are disconnected separate

from the earth’s biophysical and

chemical

systems that control the climate

prejudice

is based on the false belief that

somehow

we are separate from people that look

different than we do or have

speak a different language despite the

fact that our histories

have intertwined and we are

interdependent on one another

despite the fact that frankly our dna is

the same

and extreme wealth disparity

thrives on the false belief

that the extreme wealth of few

is separate from disconnected from

the labor and the sacrifices of many

now if this is true

and if all those struggles and all those

ills are somehow rooted in this false

belief of disconnection

then we can heal by radically accepting

that we’re connected and every little

reconnection

anywhere starts to heal in a

small way the whole and what that means

is

that i don’t have to work on every

struggle

that i could think of because some of

you

are doing that for me and you

can count on me to be passionately

advocating for action on climate change

that’s what i’ll be doing

so this cycle

of reconnection

i call it a cycle because if my

experience is any guide you may find

yourself

traveling this more than once i’m not

standing here

talking to you because i’m good at this

i’m not standing here because i’ve found

the enlightenment

i’m standing here because i have been

through this cycle more than once

many times but each time i find myself

just a little bit stronger than i was

the time before

because of my previous experience i now

know that i need to take time to grieve

when i need to grieve

to radically accept something that i may

not want to believe is true but in my

heart i know it is

and i now know that even in times of

isolation

i can do valuable work by centering

myself

which is probably my most valuable asset

and i’ve seen how my work can be more

effective when i declutter

i can see that i know it has power i

know that’s something i need to do

and opening out becomes easier and

easier

each time i go through the cycle each

time i connect with

others trusting their work seeing how my

work

can build on theirs and theirs can build

on mine

opening out is the fourth stage

of reconnection it’s when you realize

that your work is connected to others

so when i realized that climate change

is connected to environmental

destruction it

is connected to the plight of refugees

that makes me more determined more

energetic

it makes me realize the value of my work

and when i reach out to other activists

i can learn from them

i can learn how climate action can help

create fairer work and pay for everyone

how can help those that are the most

vulnerable

how it can use and respect the knowledge

of first nation peoples my struggle

is connected to all those struggles

opening out is about reconnecting

with the whole now

if you found that there were times

during this year when

your energy was draining and maybe

you felt the weight on your shoulders

was just a little bit

more than you could bear

then i invite you now to just take a

moment

and think about where you might sit at

this moment

on that cycle of reconnection

you know as

wicked and horrendous as the effects of

covet 19 have been

that it has been a vivid reminder to us

that each of our lives is intimately

interconnected with every other life

on the planet now that interconnectivity

might

make the virus spread faster

but it can also make ideas spread faster

and so what i’d like to do is leave you

with this

idea to take with you

and use in your activism or in your life

as you see fit and the idea

is this

reconnecting is the very best thing

that an activist an activist like me can

do

the best thing for me the best thing for

my cause

and the best thing for all the causes

and

all the struggles of the world

why because in fact

they’re all the same struggle

the same struggle to reconnect

and connection makes us stronger

you