Dear Earth Carer, you don’t have to bend to a world prone to breaking you.

Dear Earth Carer,

In these letters to you, I have uncovered gem after gem about how to look after myself and others in times of worldly, personal, and ecological crises. Sometimes I think I have got the hang of this whole caring thing, but as soon as I do, I realise that there is so much more to learn. As geopolitics, my personal life, and the natural world continue to face relentless challenges, my recent discoveries in care have seemed so profound and life-changing that they don’t just feel like finding a few gems, but rather, uncovering the whole damn treasure chest. It’s been a while since I have written to you, my dear Earth Carer, and that is because I have experienced somewhat of a liberation from this new form of care that has opened me up to spending my time in an abundance of creative pursuits. You would know as much as I do that our brains can’t be creative in times of stress, so my newfound burst of creativity is a strong testament to just how nourished and cared-for I have been feeling. Tonight, however, I have decided to put away my paintbrushes and camera and return to the written world to rekindle our connection so that I can share my beautiful treasures with you.

In my last letter to you, dear Earth Carer, I was overcoming the burnout that had thrust itself into my psyche as soon as the year clocked over to 2026. This is the year my job contract is set to run out, a safe and delightful job contract no less, with the potential for a grand return to an unsafe work environment and harrowing work culture looming over me. To add fuel to the fire, my husband’s place of work has recently ceased to exist, and a concerning number of environmental and climate organisations are undergoing massive layoffs or closing down entirely. Considering an industry shift, I set up a hefty number of networking calls with professionals who have careers I am interested in, where, unfortunately, many of these wonderful people were also labouring away for love with scantly a cent in return, or were looking for new places of employment themselves. This is the challenge of being interested in connection, education and engagement. This work seems to be tarnished with a reputation of being non-essential, vocational, or women’s work, and as a result, the importance of these essential positions is severely undervalued. In one instance, I found a woman who was doing all of this incredible work that I foresaw would be integral to the future of a niche facet of the climate industry. It was like she took the thoughts from my brain and had executed them all already, you know, a real Darwin and Wallace situation. After revelling in her execution of all of our independently shared ideas, she unfortunately told me that she was having to do this work as a side hustle, as it wasn’t being valued in any capacity by the industry bodies. I sobbed for the ways of the world, and all the important work that needs doing that is relentlessly not being financially valued by those with the power to do so.

As a long-time problem solver, I spent the better half of this year trying to adjust my behaviour to adapt to this version of the world where many Earth Carers are being negatively impacted. If I am not thriving, surely there must be something I can do to alter my experience, through an adjustment to my behaviour, knowledge, or communication style. I carried an internalised belief that I must be the reason for my suffering. It’s useful and constructive to operate from the sphere of your control, they say, and so I have always tried to understand what I can do to improve how I feel or act about a situation to influence my circumstances.

In a particularly stressful time, I was communicating this to a leader at my work. I apologised for having so much of my brain capacity taken up with worry and concern for my immediate future, especially if it was impacting my reactions to situations at work. I told her that I needed to reflect on my actions and adjust them to be better in the future. This is when she said something groundbreaking. Get ready for this- she told me that I actually don’t have to keep changing myself to fit into a world that doesn’t align with my values. She took it further to say that if I kept trying to do so, I would never find the solace I am seeking. As a cherry on top, she encouraged me to keep pushing for the version of the world I’d like to see and that she would support me in doing so.

Mic dropped. Flabbers gasted. Gob smacked. Tears welled in my eyes at this verbal act of profound care.

I can’t tell you how much this small conversation has changed my life. Firstly, it has put me in a position of safety and support that I have never felt before in my career. If you have been reading my correspondence for a while, you, dear Earth Carer, may know just how unsupportive and uncaring many of my previous employers have been. Even in very supportive workplaces, I still felt the need to keep bending myself to the whims of the industry for the sake of security and stability. In this conversation with my leader, suddenly, I have been gifted with this profoundly important care, unlocking a cache of energy that I had previously been using to adjust and change myself, which has now become available to spend on anything I want. It turns out that physical and emotional safety is the bank of energetic wealth. Funny that.

Secondly, this conversation had an incredible influence on shaping my behaviour. Historically, my fixing of problems has been a desperate bid to get a dopamine hit from a job well done. Much to my husband’s disdain, I have been stressing us both out with my desperation to solve every problem as quickly as possible. I fill the stereotypical masculine role in our relationship, trying to solve his qualms without just being there to listen and console. This often leaves him paralysed and overwhelmed, too stressed to take action, because I keep telling him what he SHOULD do, instead of creating a safe and supportive environment for him to feel comfortable doing what he wants to or needs to do. Since feeling the power of support and safety, I have shifted gears to ensuring that he feels safe as my main priority. People don’t feel safe when you tell them that they should be doing something that they aren’t. This tends to make a person feel inadequate for not having thought of or being able to execute the logical solution themselves. It also puts more value on the solution than on the feelings of the individual facing the predicament. My leader made me feel safe by supporting me as I was, and this has shown me a more caring way to be. By trying to help people, I don’t want to leave them feeling even worse than they did before.

This shift to support and safety towards others, as they are, not who they should be or would be if they did something else, has been monumental in changing my relationships for the better. It turns out that if I support people in the way my leader supported me, others, too, can unlock their cache of energy and have the creativity, capacity, and support to navigate their challenges independently. It has also allowed me to become closer to people in previous moments of tension. Todd, if you are reading this, I completely acknowledge that you have been telling me this for years. Sometimes a girl’s gotta learn her own lessons.

One added bonus that I did not expect from this shift to a prioritisation of safety first has been a further detachment from the Western notion of individualism. In the past, when I have been impacted by the behaviour of people in my community, I have immediately resorted to my tried and true sphere of control to immediately try to change something about myself to lessen the impact of their actions on my emotions. Maybe I’d ignore their comments or behaviour, maybe I’d distance myself from the person, or maybe I’d try to understand the reasons behind their behaviour from their perspective to better empathise with them. By doing this, I thought I was being a good community member by making my hurt feelings my own problem to deal with, independent of burdening others with my unease. In reality, my independent behaviour was weakening my community connections as I was not welcoming the other person into this opportunity for reciprocal care. Instead, I was prone to harbouring resentment from built-up silent frustrations that accrued over time.

After putting these new behaviours into practice recently, I have learned for the first time in a very tangible way that others are willing and able to make adjustments for me to feel safe as much as I am able to make adjustments for them. In a beautiful moment that I shared with a friend, a request for a constructive behaviour change led to an important conversation that brought us closer together. I now see that my sphere of control has let me down. I don’t want to control everything; I want to be in relation with everyone.

So this is where I have been. Instead of feeling the need to hustle and fix everything like my ye olde conservationist roots have had me doing, I have been practising creating safe spaces for myself and those around me. I have been working out how to connect more with people when my instinct is to grow apart, and to slow down when my body urges me to hurry towards a solution. All this safety has granted me and those around me more energy that we have been using to be creative and play together. I have never made so much art in my life.

The thing is, my dear Earth Carer, the world is still scary and uncertain- this much may be true for as long as I live. But instead of feeling as if I am at the mercy of everything, that I have to adjust to the injustices of the world, or that I have to uncover all the solutions myself in challenging times, I now feel supported by those around me, and I know that I can weather all uncertainties with them in their care. I hope they also feel the same in mine. This is why I haven’t been in a position to write to you, dear Earth Carer. I don’t want to prescribe you with anything, a quick fix, or a solution- that is the old Jessie. In truth, I wanted to be able to share my experience in a way that says, there, there, you’re okay. I am here, and you are safe. We are all navigating life’s uncertainties together, and you are not alone.

With boundless support,

Jessie