Yoga of Sustainability (False Evidence Appearing Real)

Most conversations around sustainability come from a place of fear.

When I was 19, studying Environmental Sustainability and Social Justice at San Francisco State University, one of my professors started organizing a monthly gathering in Stern Grove for everyone in the department to connect. Our department had the highest rate of depression, and the professors were concerned. The monthly gathering was an attempt to lift everyone’s spirits.

One day at the end of a lecture, I asked my professor what implications the depression had on our department. She said the more depressed the students were, the more difficult it was for us to approach environmental issues from a positive, solution-based perspective. Instead we were approaching our assignments from a place of fear, appearing as merely us spewing facts rather than offering sustainable solutions to complex problems.

The conversation got me thinking-- maybe we weren’t approaching the conversation of sustainability in the best way. I reflected on the impactful articles, documentaries and books I had read over the years, and how each came from the place of motivating the individual to make behavioral changes using fear provoking facts and statistics.

In the book Hivemind, Sarah Rose Cavanagh says, “Fear can easily be manipulated and turned into a weapon of distraction and diversion” and expands on the idea that fear impedes progress. 

If my goal is to create solutions to the issues of sustainability, I have to stay positive. There must be a moment where I stop absorbing sad facts and start creating sustainable solutions. I know why we’re experiencing environmental collapse, and I know I can’t change the world alone, so how can I use positive perspectives to motivate other people to shift their behaviors for the good?

In the book, Cavanagh also references author and philosopher Martha Nussbaum, “She believes that we have succumbed totally to fear…. Fear leads to an inward focus and an embrace of sameness and comfort. We cling to our ingroups and shun outgroups and narrow our behavior and the options we consider—which is the opposite of what we should be doing. The solutions to the complex problems we face are likely outward and require creativity and collaboration across different perspectives. Embracing fear in the face of challenge leads us to a shutting down of options when what we need is open possibilities and action.”

I’ve often wondered: Is the reason we haven’t developed meaningful behavioral change around the issue of sustainability because we approach the issue from the wrong perspective?

The more I’m told the world is burning, the more scared I become. This humanistic survival instinct arises telling me to only focus on myself and my family. It’s the same as approaching environmentalism from the perspective of fear, this only inspires narcissism rather than a desire to come together. Cavanagh validates this by saying, “..fear encourages self-focus, a narcissistic narrowing of attention away from the collective and toward the individual self…. fear marks much of infancy, when the unknow is everywhere and separation from caregivers’ spells death. Maturation into adulthood involves learning to inhibit fear, to stop worrying about enemies above, below, within and without, to embrace the full spectrum of other emotions, and to consider the perspective of others different from us.” 

Within Yoga of Sustainability: The Healing Power of Synchronicity I want to break away from old conversations about sustainability. I want to approach the issue in a light, mature, positive, and engaging way, where people who don’t care about the environment still have an opportunity to live harmoniously with and within it. I want the concept of sustainability to evoke positive sensations in the body, and not feelings of dread and confusion.

Approaching sustainability from a place of fear is unproductive, isolating and gets us all tangled up in false evidence appearing real. Moving forward, I choose to approach sustainability from a place of positivity, so I can motivate creative thinking, collaboration, and a Yoga of Sustainability.