Dear Conservationist, I take it back- we do need to prioritise our own resilience.

Dear conservationist,

As an ever-evolving human, I will happily admit that I have absolutely poo-pooed resilience as a priority for conservationists. However, recently, my tides are changing. If I am being honest with myself and you too, dear conservationist, I don’t think I truly grasped the concept of resilience before, seeing it as endurance or survival rather than for what it is.

As a formerly beaten-down conservationist, I was deeply angry at the notion that conservationists are expected to show infinite levels of resilience to survive in the conservation industry. I felt exhausted from enduring challenge after challenge, and trying everything I possibly could just to make a career for myself whilst also battling the all-encompassing demands of caring about our environment. I was angry that so many blogs on Lonely Conservationists demonstrated individuals being proud of their resilience, instead of stories detailing how they’d been cared for in their field. One story in particular of a conservationist who could have died rescuing a camera trap in unsafe weather conditions haunts my memories. But mere survival isn’t resilience, and this was my biggest misconception.

Recently I have realised that true resilience doesn’t feel like struggling. Resilience doesn’t feel like overcoming obstacle after obstacle with a little bit of your soul deteriorating each time you face a bump in the road. Resilience and survival are two different kettles of fish, so to speak. Survival is a female shark after a particularly feisty mating session- bruised, battered and with little energy to swim away. Resilience is a coconut crab, armoured to oblivion and ready to take on anything. Coconut crabs walk away scar-free, they are impenetrable and unbothered.

I don’t know why it took so long for me to realise the distinction between resilience and survival, but I knew that I finally understood the difference when I felt it viscerally. It is no secret that last year I felt like a husk of a human, a shell of my former self if you will. I was battling a severe bout of eco-grief and I was well aware that survival was my main goal to get through it. This year is different though. I can tangibly feel and measure my response to the same triggers that took me down mere months ago. In the words of Chumbawamba, I get knocked down, and I get up again- you’re never going to keep me down.

In April last year, I read a book about the deep ocean that broke me into a million pieces. I couldn’t bear the thought of plastic touching places of our precious Earth that humans have never even seen. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back and sent me into a spiral of “what’s even the point anymore?!” In contrast to that harrowing experience, this year, I read Humanity’s Moment, a book detailing IPCC reports and the depression of a climate scientist. The facts were more abundant, more jarring, and more relevant to the current political state of the world- and you know what? Afterwards, I was fine.

After reading the book, I took myself on a walk to check in with my mind and soul and see how I was feeling. It was an interesting time for introspection because I realised at that moment that I was wrong about resilience. Resilience was the feeling I was experiencing in that moment where I was able to digest challenging information, but not succumb to it. I had learnt enough and developed enough strategies to use the information from the book as knowledge to use, rather than as a catalyst for despair. From my experiences last year, I also knew that going back to that place of hopelessness would make me less able to act and create the positive change I want to see in the world. I was taken aback by how stark the difference was in how I handled both books just a year apart.

I now realise how important being resilient is, because even if the world miraculously changed overnight and the conservation industry was the most supportive, well-funded, and regulated place to work, we would still have capitalism, politicians, climate change, ignorant people, billionaires, polluting industries, corrupt businesses and eco-terrorism. Being resilient is important to tackle all the challenges that our world brings, not in a survival way, but in a thriving-despite-everything way.

I need to thank you, dear conservationist, because the lessons that I detail to you in these letters have been extremely transformative for me. Having thoughts and experiences is one thing, but being able to unpack them with you has allowed the lessons to flow out of my words and into my mind where they have built a cozy nest and stayed. I can only hope that these letters are helping you too, even if in a small way.

Recent letters such as the one where I realise that I don’t need to be angry to care, have been monumental in shaping my newfound resilience. Dropping this anger has increased my energy bucket by stark amounts, energy which I have instead used for creativity, connection, and emotional resilience. Replacing anger with curiosity, compassion, and a solutions mindset has allowed me to understand how I can best tackle issues in the capacity I have, and know that others will do the same.

The concept of nocebos has also been game-changing. How often have I been restricting myself from opportunities just because I have put a no in someone else’s mouth before they have had a chance to say it themselves? Treating everyone with the assumption that they care about issues or curiosities without assuming that they don’t, has allowed me to walk through the world assuming the best in people. Ultimately, this helps reduce my anger, too, especially the all too common thought, “Nobodycares but me.” Assuming the best in everyone also helps to reduce isolation, feeling now as if there are many people walking alongside me with a shared mission to make the world a better place.

Maybe the biggest resilience booster was the acknowledgement that I already am, and am already doing enough. There is something freeing about being okay with the output that you are having and acknowledging it for what it is. Often, the biggest fight we have is with our impostor syndrome and the little voice in our head that screams that the planet will burn if we don’t do everything and more. Shushing that voice, wrapping it in a blanket and tenderly kissing it on the forehead is another way to free up some energy that otherwise would be spent relentlessly fighting it. Acknowledging that there are others doing amazing work for our planet, and trusting in the power of their work helps to free you up to really focus on your niche and succeed in it the best you can.

Resilience for me has meant shedding individualistic, colonial, and Western ideals. Of course, we feel burnt-out and exhausted when we believe we are fighting for our planet on our own. Reconnecting with the reciprocity of nature and our communities allows us to be taken care of as much as we take care of others. Remembering that I too, am a planetary lifeform, means that I need to be included in protective efforts. We are an integral part of nature, as are every biotic and some abiotic elements of our environments too.

It’s crazy how different my life is now that I’m no longer angry, in touch with the goodness of others, connecting reciprocally with others and my surroundings, and being gentle with myself. Each of these acts that I do turns me into the coconut crab I desire to be, with a new piece of armour building with each strategy practised. Now that I feel this armour, I see how true resilience is a valuable attribute, one that conservationists would surely benefit from.

I always write these letters with the voice of a devil’s advocate on my shoulder asking me if forgoing anger is to stop standing up to the current people in power, the wars, and the evils of the world. To this devil, I say that a world full of angry people is not a world in which I wish to live. I don’t think we can use hostility and claim that it is good because we are using it differently than others are. In my life, I have been more inspired by the stories of people standing up and making change where they see it’s needed. Anger might be able to spark some action, even multiple actions, however, it is a fuse that will inevitably burn out. Love and compassion are not fuses, they are ever-enduring lights that burn bright indefinitely. Love breeds love, kindness breeds kindness, and the world needs more togetherness, support, and encouragement than ever.

And with that, I admit that I was wrong. The relentless burn-out cycle is what I see an issue with, not resilience. I feel like now, more than ever, we need to channel our inner coconut crabs. Why are crabs the ultimate solution in every letter I write? Well, they didn’t independently evolve five different times for nothing.

If you’re crabby and you know it clap your hands,

Jessie