Dear conservationist, there is more to our lives than powerlessness.

Dear Conservationist,

I have been trying to write to you for months now, but the words just never seem to come out right. I have been on a bit of a journey, navigating my life as a conservationist, as per usual, and it never feels easy to communicate clearly when I am trying to navigate the undulations of life.

A few weeks ago, I realised I needed to change my life, because, to get real with you, it had become unbearable to live. I suddenly felt viscerally aware of how trapped I was in the perpetual cycles of feeling the same feelings and making the same decisions in reaction. I knew that to move forward and break free of these cycles, I’d need some help intercepting these trapping thoughts and behaviours. Luckily, I had my handy-dandy list of people who care for conservationists, and so I chose one of these individuals to help me out of my stuck-ness. Over the course of four weekly sessions, I quickly realised how much of my life and career has been inhibited by the feeling of powerlessness, so maybe, there is a chance that you feel it too.

Powerlessness is a common feeling for conservationists, as it always seems as if we are at the mercy of the government, funding, capitalism, and the decisions of others. We could successfully re-establish a species from the brink of extinction, and then a billionaire or natural disaster could instantly wipe out years of hard work. Sometimes governments are elected that make bad decisions, sometimes idiots light fires, and sometimes no matter how much you learn or study, there are just no conservation jobs available.

I was trapped in my powerlessness without realising that it was caging me inside. I felt as though I was constantly at the mercy of others’ decisions, and I was exhausting myself trying to find the key to let myself out. Worst escape room ever. Instead of stepping into my own power, I was desperately trying to exercise control. I found that the isolation I felt in my powerlessness followed me into my desire to independently fix and resolve every problem I encountered. This was the cycle I was trapped in, an isolating cycle of powerlessness to control, and when I couldn’t gain control, I was back to feeling powerless again. Control seems similar to power, but it’s really not at all. This difference is easier to detect if I ask you whether you’d prefer me to control or empower you.

Sometimes, to escape detrimental patterns of thought and behaviour, identifying the root cause is all you need to create change. When I sought help, it was because I knew I was having trouble identifying what the root cause of this thought pattern was. It was like I was experiencing jaundice as a result of liver failure, but attributing my yellow skin to eating too many yellow foods. No amount of cutting out yellow foods would fix my liver in this hypothetical situation. Because it is my greatest passion to help conservationists care for themselves and each other, I want to share with you how I was able to escape this cycle of isolation and powerlessness, in case this is a common pattern for you, too.

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There is one thing you should know about me, and that is I don’t dwell on the past- and trust me, this is not a brag. I am so future-oriented that I was basically living in the future, rather than in the now. I can’t condemn those of you who are playing out alternate realities in the shower, wishing you had a better comeback in that argument 6 years ago, when I was spending the exact same energy worrying about what was to come. I was always trying to foresee and mitigate any future challenges that may appear, trying to save my future self from problems. The issue with this mindset is that I am constantly fixated on perceiving and fixing problems rather than living neutrally through more relaxing times. This future dwelling kept my powerlessness alive. You see, I don’t have any agency in the future, because I don’t exist there yet. Present me can try as she might to get a handle on the future, but not a single attempt at control ever secured me the certainty I craved.

Unbeknownst to me, a few months ago, I started a habit that has been bringing me back to, and grounding me in the present. I have started finding genuine joy in taking a headphone-less lunchtime walk outside. If you want to join me in this practice, it definitely helps if you live close to a park or green space, and trust me, the no-headphones aspect is important. I don’t need to tell you the benefits of being outside in nature, dear conservationist, but slowing down and really noticing my surroundings has been life-changing.

I’m talking about stopping to actually listen properly to the birds or frogs or insects, stopping to feel the bark and temperature of trees and the shapes and texture of leaves. This is a meditative practice you can do without sitting silently with pretzel legs, desperately willing your mind to empty. If you try this, you may notice that your heart rate and thoughts slow, and your connection to reality amplifies. Suddenly, my body can experience the rare sensation of revelling in a problem-free time. A time where all that matters is listening and feeling, smelling and touching.

One lunchtime, I was standing by a billabong listening to the frogs and watching some birds flitter in and out of trees, and a woman walked up and stood next to me, gently alerting me of her presence as not to scare me, which I greatly appreciated. “This is my favourite spot to stand and soak everything in”, she said. I soon left her to her favourite spot, agreeing it was a good one. On my way back out of the park, another woman saw me stopping to listen, and so she asked me about the frogs. It turned out she had dabbled in frog-based citizen science before, but was curious about where they were hanging out to call so loudly when the ground was so dry. “Must be tree frogs”, I mused.

These interactions made me realise that by slowing down, I was inadvertently curating the future I wanted to see through my present actions, and noticing the good that already exists in the world. Suddenly, I lived in a world where those around me valued nature as much as I did, and explored their own connections to Country and natural curiosities. For the first time in my life, I found that slowness seemed to get me to where I wanted to go faster than hastily and relentlessly trying to solve problems. I don’t need to educate everyone about the benefits of natural spaces, so many people are already connected in.

This realisation led me to my next big one. Being the change we want to see in the world doesn’t always take climbing mountains, but often it takes standing in the grass. We curate the future with what we do now instead of waiting for things to change. Instead of trying to fix everything and everyone, all this time, I just needed to exist as the person I want my future self to be, embodying her right now. This led me to approach situations and people with more compassion, trying to show up as the people I wish I saw in the world. Suddenly, I saw shifts that I had never been able to make happen with the forceful hand of control or the fear-induced desperation of urgency.

Stopping to observe, I have even been able to detect instances where the world has improved in other ways. With my mind in the future, I would have missed how amazing it is that there are now working groups, events, and discussions about conservationist wellbeing that exist outside of my creation. I would have missed the gravity of the conversations I have had with influential conservation leaders about the need to un-silo our efforts and collaborate more broadly with other industries. I may have even missed the important conversations about frogs and favourite places to be still, forgetting that these weren’t around for me as a teenager, isolated and misunderstood in my passion for nature appreciation.

Unfortunately, we can’t know the gravity of our impacts either, and often it’s hard to believe what you can’t see. We don’t know how much worse the world would be without all of our collective conservation projects and efforts, how many species wouldn’t be there, how fast the temperatures would be rising, or how many ecosystems just wouldn’t exist. It’s hard to see or understand all the ways that ripples expand out from our ideas, education, and implementation to reach many others around the world. The thing is, though, these ripples keep rippling whether we know about them or not.

My dear conservationist, you may feel powerless right now, but you are not. Take a step back and take a look at all that you have done. The people you have educated, the projects you have contributed to, and the time and effort that you have invested in minimising your impact on our planet. You may not realise the impact of even your smallest contributions and how they may be rippling out across the world as we speak.

Let’s take it even further than that, just looking insularly at our own impact is still isolating, and we may still feel powerless in our abilities as a single person. We must remember that we are all a part of communities and ecosystems, and it’s not what we can do as individuals that is important, but what we can do together. The most powerful magnet in the world is not powerful at all without a magnetic surface to attract. Tapping into the reciprocity of our communities and environments means that you have the power to use your skills, knowledge, and ideas to complement and amplify those of others when working together. Sometimes, helping someone to do something they otherwise couldn’t do alone is the most effective way to realise the power you have to create goodness in the world.

In time-travelling movies, the simplest action done in the past can change the course of history into the future. Transitioning from powerlessness into your power is realising the importance of these small actions, and treating every present moment as an opportunity to create the world you want to live in. So today I choose to use my agency to remind you, my dear conservationist, that you are not alone, and you have the ability to be the change you want to see right now. Imagine the person you’d like to have in your life, and embody them. Imagine the place you want to be in, and curate that environment for yourself. We don’t need to wait for the world to get better; we can create that better world together, right now.

Dear conservationist, there are so many powers that be in the world who benefit from your perceived powerlessness. Governments want you to feel apathetic so you don’t have the energy to fight back. Advertisers want you to feel empty so their products can help you fill the void. From schooling to working, headmasters and bosses absolutely love it if we sit down, shut up and get on with it. But change never happens when we do that, does it?

Each new day is another opportunity to tap into your power and decide the world that you want to live in. Often we think that the big people making big decisions are the ones who get to decide what the world is like, but actually, all of us making small choices every day have a say in what the world is like too. Do you wish that more people advocated for you in your career? Well, you can advocate for those around you and be that person. Do you wish you had someone who would genuinely listen to you when you were struggling? I bet that you wouldn’t mind being that listening ear for others. When I run my workshops and ask what individuals can do to help others in their conservation careers, they pull blanks. What could they ever offer to someone else? But when I ask what help they wish they had, individuals just mostly appreciate others listening and supporting them, that’s all. I feel like that is something very tangible that we can all do that will help to make this industry a more supportive, connected and powerful place to be.

So today, I choose to write to you and continue to craft a world where there are people out there who care deeply for conservationists like you. You’re not powerless, you just need to reclaim all the ways that you make our world a better place.

With care, always,

Jessie