mYcard: How Lifetime is meeting eco-anxiety with micro-agency
Climate change is, finally, and rightly, big news. But as individuals, the enormity of the challenge can be overwhelming, making us feel anxious and powerless.
Doing something - however small - means taking control, replacing anxiety with actions that can have powerful ripple effects.
what is eco-anxiety?
The terms eco-anxiety and climate change anxiety are used to describe the distress we experience in response to changes in the climate system that may put us in danger.
In Soil and Civilization (1946), cultural historian and author Elyne Mitchell showed how large-scale agriculture and colonisation causes people to feel painfully disconnected from natural environments
In 2019, philosopher Glenn Albrecht coined the term solastalgia, combining the words solace (that which gives comfort) and algos (pain) to argue that if we seek solace in a much-loved place that is degraded, we feel desolate - devastated, deprived or abandoned.
Solastalgia is linked to nostalgia, associated with the painful longing for home and the Hippocratic idea that human health is linked to environmental health.
eco-anxiety and me
Before becoming a counsellor, I ran a landscape gardening business in London. I worked in some wonderful locations like the Chelsea Flower Show and the Peace Garden at the Imperial War Museum. During that time my love of trees grew. I found the more I learned about trees, the more I learnt about myself and about human nature.
There are many parallels between the needs of plants and people. I believe passionately in the power of both to flourish - if they are given the right conditions.
In my lifetime, the needs of plants and people have been direly neglected. Since 1960, over half of the world’s tropical forests have been destroyed.
Like so many of us, I sometimes feel angry and sad about the violence being inflicted on the natural world. I feel anxious about its consequences and powerless to do anything much about it.
what can we do when we experience eco-anxiety?
In the face of any danger, we are hardwired to feel anxious and fearful. Anxiety keeps us out of the way of the monsters, safe in our cosy caves.
Safe, but not resting, ready to meet monsters in the morning, but fidgeting, worrying, burning up energy. As I’ve said before, anxiety is never an optimist and sometimes this means it is the monster.
Here are some ways you can respond to eco-anxiety:
Notice eco-anxiety triggers. Consider limiting these - whether it’s tv news or particular places or conversations.
Practise ecotherapy. Getting out in nature - to walk, swim, surf or climb… even to sit and listen, look, read or draw provides the solace we long for when we feel disconnected from our natural environment.
Be a microagent. Doing something small - maybe reducing the amount of meat we eat, avoiding plastic bottles, buying used books and clothes, putting up bird feeders and building bug hotels… gives us a feeling of control and achievement. Your actions will have a ripple effect. When we are microagents, doing lots of little things to improve and protect the natural world, we are powerful in our ability to inspire others to make small changes too. If you’re looking for that inspiration, there are lots of great suggestions here.
mYcard - my microagency lightbulb moment
I decided a long time ago that I would somehow plant a million trees before I die: indigenous deciduous trees that would support complex ecosystems and provide a sanctuary for people.
Then, a couple of years ago, a had an idea how I could feasibly do this.
In 2017 I founded a business: Lifetime Therapy. In 2018 I started another one: First Aid Cornwall. My businesses seemed to need business cards, but I never seemed to have them on me.
Then I had a lightbulb moment: what I always do have is my phone.
So, I founded another business - mYcard - a business card app that funds rewilding projects. It’s almost ready to launch on iOS and Android, and we’ve hooked up with Plant One Cornwall and The Leaf Charity so we can help restore canopies from Cornwall to Kenya.
If you use business cards, you might want to check mYcard out. It’s useful for personal contacts too and fun to create your own card designs.
If not, no problem! But I hope you’ll feel the ripple and do something - however small - to put yourself back in control of eco-anxiety, taking some microaction and finding a great deal of solace in nature.
Thank you for reading.
Malachy, Lifetime Therapy founder, counsellor and teacher