Wow, just 2 more weeks + 2 days to go on the Sustainability Challenge. Time flies…the challenge has been great but I must admit that I’m looking forward to not having to write down the stuff that I’m doing. Some people love accountability challenges like this but I find it hugely time consuming to report back. It will be interesting to see if once it’s over I st art totally slacking off, if so maybe I’ll start a new/different challenge…
Recap of the past week
The point of this Sustainability Challenge was to, for 100 days, do something that is related to sustainability and not count in the list of 100 any actions that are repeats from something I already listed during the challenge.
How to sustain individual and collective mental health is an ongoing challenge that goes far beyond 100 days. After the mental health meltdown last week my goals this week were to, each day, (1) refrain from doing something that harms my mental health, and (2) do something that helps my mental health. All of my ideas were things that are not new, so I tried to balance these goals with still doing something that would stretch me in a new way every day.
I definitely found it easier to refrain from doing harmful things than to do the things that I know are beneficial to my mental health.
| Stuff to refrain from (things that harm my mental health) | What I learned this week |
| Spend most of day sitting on couch | Using the computer = sitting on the couch. So, if I want to sit on the couch less, I need to use the computer less.
The best way I found this week to do this was to get outside and do fall cleanup of our food garden. This is a huge task involving cleaning out the annual beds, pulling invasives from around the perennials, getting the greenhouse ready for winter, cleaning tools, etc. This is a huge task and usually in past years we just give up at some point and then have a crapload of work to do in the spring. This week I tried to just get outside and start somewhere, rather than being caught up in how much more there still is to do. Right now everything in my life kind of feels like that – big mess, start somewhere. |
| Compulsively checking email and Facebook | Using the computer for long stretches of time makes it very easy to compulsively check email and Facebook. Hey, a theme! Any guesses what a goal will be for the upcoming week? 🙂
Facebook has been fantastic for connecting with local activism, but I am back to questioning how to use it so it’s not such a constant stream of information – all very interesting stuff, but way too much. |
| Multi-tasking | When I just do one thing before doing anything else, I am way less tired and overwhelmed. Not having multiple browser tabs open at a time helps me reduce compulsively checking email and Facebook. |
| Excessive Netflix | I tend to watch excessive Netflix when I’m not doing well mentally (can’t focus enough to do stuff like read, write, etc). When I’m doing well mentally, I tend to binge on reading political stuff and talking politics on Facebook, and quickly get bored with Netflix.
So, this week I’m going to play around with finding things to do that don’t require mental focus/concentration, so when I’m not doing well mentally I can draw an activity out of a hat – making decisions is really difficult when I’m mentally not doing well, so choosing from a list will I think be unlikely to work. |
| Fear-based avoidance: not leaving house, making excessive commitments (avoiding saying no), procrastinating to put off doing an activity I’m scared of, etc. | I’m back in the shallow end of the pool and need to get stronger here before moving to deeper water.
Having already explained to people that I’ve had a mental health relapse and taking responsibility for bailing on commitments last week, it was pretty easy to say no and not take on new stuff this week. What I tried to do this week was make commitments to myself for relatively simple things to do (clean kitchen, shower, be outside in the garden for at least 2 hours, etc.) and then actually do them, so I can practice the whole process of making a commitment and then seeing that commitment through, and also test out whether I’m ready to make commitments to other people. Most of these commitments were in or near the house which was helpful in building up to a morning of errands on Friday. And…yeah. Still not able to consistently do what I say I’m going to, even small stuff like personal hygiene and basic cooking. Friday errands were in familiar locations but still had me totally twitchy and fearful about people being behind me. So, just need to be patient and keep plugging away. Actually, writing this is helping me to clarify weekend plans. Yay for journalling. |
| Eat excess processed foods, sweets, and foods low in nutrients | Food stuff is a mess for me right now on every level. So, like the fall garden cleanup, I just have to start somewhere. |
| Insufficient sleep | My body is wired to get up really early (and I am also assisted in this by cats who get bored at 5:30 and want me to get up and pat them so they can then fall back asleep for hours). So when I stay out past 8 PM I quickly get exhausted. This week I didn’t do any events in the evenings and it made a big difference. But a lot of the things I want to do – Zen sits, activist events, organizing meetings, etc. – happen at night. Am going to see if I can find a compromise by doing one evening thing a week and regretfully saying no to other stuff, no matter how wonderful it is. |
| Stuff to do (things that help my mental health) | What I learned this week |
| Get up early enough to start day off with strong self-care routine | Getting up early is not a problem, but I haven’t yet figured out a morning routine/schedule that works well for me. A bunch of things tie together here (more on those below). |
| Zazen for at least 30 min/day | Starting the day with zazen makes a huge positive difference in setting the tone for the day overall, and is one of the foundational practices for everything else – if I don’t sit zazen first thing in the day I tend to write off self-care altogether. Which is overly rigid and not at helpful, but does motivate me to do zazen first thing in the morning. |
| Walk with sweet spousey and our dog every day | Our morning walks are so lovely and wonderful to start the day together, outside in nature. We are just about at the point where we’re walking in the dark, so it’ll be interesting to see how this unfolds as we head into winter. |
| Do yoga 6x/week | Number of times I did yoga this week: zero. |
| Run 3x/week (start with run-walk intervals) | Number of times I ran this week: zero. |
| Make nutritious food and eat when hungry | Number of times I ate when hungry this week: zero.
OK, so obviously there’s some stuff going on here. Hmm, just realized that anything relating to self-care for my body has gone totally awry in the past couple weeks (even basic personal hygiene, which is usually a total no-brainer for me as I love long hot showers). Aha, another theme for next week. |
| Communicate with my ancestors | I put this on the list last week because a strong connection to memories of my grandparents in a counselling session is when things started to turn around in a very positive way for my mental health in the summer. My mum’s parents were very different than each other but both very strong activists and also very strong in their love for me, and it is easy to feel a lot of love and gratitude for them (easy to feel that with my parents too, but they are still alive so communication with them is pretty regular and not something I need to be attentive to in the same way). This is a practice I want to continue to work on. |
In previous weeks’ posts I’ve talked a lot about interdependence and the ways in which my mental health is contingent on trying to make a positive difference in the world. So, although activism was not on the list of goals this week, in part because so many of these mental health activities are ones I’ve already talked about (so are not new things in the Challenge) and also because it helps me to be able to find things I can do instead of focusing on things I can’t do, this week I also did the following new things:
- Read The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the 21st Century by Grace Lee Boggs. She wrote this when she was 95 and is now 100 years old. AMAZING. The best activist book I’ve read in a long time. She has so much wisdom and insight and such sharp analysis, all rooted in 70 years (!) of experience as an organizer. Yay for interlibrary loans.
- Attended online Refugees Welcome direct action webinar. facilitated by Toronto migrant justice organizers Tings Chak and Syed Hussan. Such great information not only about non-violent action possibilities but also the need to emphasize transformational changes — not just opening up the borders so there is more readily exploitable labour, or to fill up prisons, etc.
- Contacted local herbalists and stores asking them to support the Medicine Drive for the Unist’ot’en Camp
- Contacted the local 40 Days for Life (an annual anti-abortion vigil) group to urge them to move their location away from the Island Women’s Health clinic. As part of the letter I shared with them my experience of giving myself an abortion when I was 19 years old, as a way of making more visible to them the consequences of actions that increase shame around accessing reproductive health services. I hesitate to post this here as it’s so personal, and so gender-weird for me as I’ve lived as a trans guy for 20 years, but think it is really important to remember that this is not just an ideological issue, it is something very real for many people.
- Transcribed a session of the One Earth Sangha EcoSattva Training, to make the content more accessible to people who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing.
- Contacted 4 Buddhist sanghas seeking advice about how to increase sangha engagement in environmental & social responsibility, and talked with a teacher from East Bay Meditation Centre on this topic (thanks so much Mushim, very happy to have connected with you and grateful for your time and insight!).
- Put up posters for the upcoming Zenwest Orientation to Zen course. I feel a lot of fondness for this course as it is the introduction to becoming part of the Zenwest sangha – taking it totally changed my life.
- Started hashing out with my Zen teacher some ideas for the new Administrative Assistant role I’ll be taking on, to help improve the human resource sustainability of my sangha and also hopefully move towards right livelihood in the future (when I’m able well enough to be able to work again).
- Did part of the Zenwest annual pilgrimage. My mental health had been rough all weekend and I also had a migraine on Saturday, so did not think I would be able to do any of the pilgrimage on Sunday, but at the last minute decided to meet up with the walkers partway along the route and just do what I could. I ended up walking around 12k of the 36k. It was very hard to be out in public but I was able to do a pace that put me a bit ahead of everyone, which helped with the fear of people being where I can’t see them. The people in Zenwest are people who for years have had my back on so many levels so it felt pretty amazing to go through the experience of having panic attacks out in public with such a strong group behind me.
Looking ahead to the next week
As I said above, I’m back in the shallow end of the pool mental health wise and need to get stronger here before moving to deeper water.
So am going to continue to practice setting commitments to myself and then doing them, and not make new commitments to other people. And for the stuff that seems overwhelming, start somewhere.
Mental health sustainability goals for this week:
- Shower every day. It is so strange to suggest this given my practices earlier in this Challenge of water conservation (including not showering every day), but mental health wise this is, I think, the right thing to do for right now. They do not have to be epic, water-wasting showers.
- Clean the kitchen and living room every day. This is where I spend most of my day, so having it be a total mess has an impact on my mental health, as well as feeling disrespectful to our home and to my sweet spousey.
- Eat when hungry and stop when full. This is a pretty big challenge for me but is so totally out of whack right now that I think it is important to try working on it.
- In addition to daily dog & spouse walks, do some other kind of exercise every day (e.g., cycling, running, strength training). Regular physical exercise is critical to my mental health.
- Make a positive contribution to someone else’s mental health on an interpersonal level – provide support to someone who is struggling, do something to encourage someone else’s mental health self-care, etc.
- Do the exercises from Active hope: How to face the mess we’re in without going crazy, by Joanna Macy & Chris Johnstone.
- Do some kind of activism around the mental health system and the need for respectful, accessible mental health services.
Other Sustainability Challenge goals for the week (consistent with the rules of the Challenge, something I have not done yet as part of the Challenge):
- Create a structured weekday schedule that balances between time on the computer and time offline, makes the most of my “more able to mentally focus” time (e.g., make sure Zenwest administrative volunteer tasks are getting done), and includes physical activity throughout the day (e.g., garden fall cleanup, running).
- Max one evening activity: Aim to go to Black Seas: How Migrant Justice has Failed African Refugees (a round-table discussion about anti-blackness in migrant justice activism), and say no to the 3 other excellent evening events happening this week.
- Work on my draft chapter for the Trans* Buddhist anthology.
- Read Lighting the Eighth Fire: The Liberation, Resurgence, and Protection of Indigenous Nations (edited by Leanne Simpson).
And no doubt there will be other opportunities that come up through the week! I am committed to seeing this Sustainability Challenge through and being creative about ways to find one new thing each day that contributes to sustainability.
And what about you?
I would love to get feedback from you. What do you think of all of this rambling? What resonates with you, and what doesn’t? Are you trying your own sustainability initiatives and if so what are you learning?
Have a great week!
stand up eko 