A Mindful Kind of Sustainability

Recently, I read Timothy Morton’s Humankind: Solidarity with Nonhuman People. In it, Morton challenges the conventional boundaries between organic and inorganic, between human and non-human, and in doing so, he makes a rather compelling case that becoming human actually means cultivating a network of kindness with a world we’ve thus far considered separate from ourselves. He argues that we shouldn’t approach sustainability with the intent of self-preservation, but rather, we should seek to protect the non-human world around us for its own sake. He’s talking about compassion.

This lens is often totally absent in discussions about climate change and sustainability. How will our actions impact the human world? Is civilization nearing its end? Will our societies be able to withstand environmental collapse? Perhaps Morton is right—perhaps this is actually the wrong approach. In the end, it centers ourselves as the motivating factor that should spur us to sustainable action. A bit selfish, no?

We desperately need a sustainability driven by mindfulness – by compassion. Climate change is as much a relationship crisis as it is a scientific one. This starts with recognizing the way that living in an unsustainable world impairs our mental health. We’re experiencing unprecedented levels of anxiety, undoubtedly aggravated by an ever-faster-paced culture of consumption and waste. Powerlessness, denial, guilt, dread – the mind is the victim of environmental degradation as much as the forest.

Following that, and perhaps most importantly, we must recognize that this leaves us in a place where our minds present one of the greatest challenges to meaningful sustainability. We’ve collectively settled into a headspace that assumes individuals separate from one another and from the environments that sustain us. Climate change itself is, in many ways, just a manifestation of the disconnect without thoughts, bodies, emotions, and surroundings.

This understanding is integral to the mission of Shifting Gaia, which, if nothing else, aims to educate people about the intersections of mind, body, and earth. If we are to heal one, we must aspire to heal all. Stillness and mindfulness can help uncover many of the entrenched thought patterns we’ve inherited and rethink our consumption habits. A deeper consideration of our relationship with others can inspire us to participate in community programs and initiatives that help heal local environments. Knowledge about how the food we consume affects our physical bodies can help foster a benevolent understanding of how agriculture affects the world we inhabit and share.

We possess within ourselves the capacity for limitless compassion. The trick to living more sustainably lies in cultivating that capacity in our everyday lives. So be still with your body and consider how it feels. Sit down for a meal without distraction. Think twice before you purchase something you may not actually need or even want. Ask yourself without judgment how it is that you’ve acquired these habits in the first place. And go for that walk in the woods – listen a little closer to what it's trying to tell you.