We are meant to be here
“Close your eyes, and take a deep breath.”
I sat in my bedroom. My professor’s voice came through my computer speakers, a classroom of Zoom-faces sat opposite of me, and one-by-one we slowly followed her instructions. As I closed my eyes, I reflected on my current circumstance. It was fall of 2020 during my graduate program in Sustainable Food Systems, which tied together my love for agriculture and passion for stewarding our beautiful earth. Despite this confluence of interests, the whole program had mostly been emotionally draining. I had found working in the environmental sector — both professionally and academically — to be overwhelming because of the insurmountable task of addressing the numerous ways that the world was falling apart. By choosing to focus on both the ecological and social impacts of environmental change related to industrial agriculture, I was heartbroken as my eyes were increasingly opened to the exploitation and degradation of communities and ecosystems.
“Now hold it for 8 seconds.” My chest felt tight. I feel this sensation again now as I sit here typing this. Not only was I feeling overwhelmed by climate change and biodiversity collapse, but I was also daunted by what that implied. The sustainability industry operates from a premise that human impacts are bad for this earth and that the world would be best off if humans no longer existed on it. In this argument, in order to be a steward of the earth — both personally and professionally — I believed I needed to minimize myself and decrease my impact as much as possible. In pursuit of minimizing my environmental impact, I had minimized many parts of myself: drive less, buy less… be less. I reflected on moments like when I stood in the grocery aisle for 20 minutes googling whether oat or soy milk was the least bad alt-milk choice before giving up in overwhelm and going home empty-handed; all of my options had an impact that I couldn’t stomach. In a way, I was always holding my breath as we were prompted to here, tiptoeing around to make my footprint as small as possible.
“And breathe out.” My out-breath was rushed and half-hearted, more a sigh of exasperation than a true intentional exhalation. I questioned whether my chosen industry was right for me. My efforts towards a reduced impact often made me feel like I was swimming upstream, and it was difficult to endure the mental health toll of the recurring thought that “we shouldn’t really be here”.
The intentional softness of my professor’s voice pulled me out of my negative thoughts. “As you breathe out, I want you to picture how the carbon dioxide that your body has created is nourishing the plants around you.” While the environmental sector has focused tremendous energy on carbon dioxide reduction to prevent climate change, she reminded us that the mere existence of carbon dioxide is not inherently bad; it is actually an essential component of the cyclical working of healthy ecosystems. On hearing this, I felt something shift in me. What could it mean for my body’s pure existence to provide that kind of value in the world?
With this prompt, I recognized that I needed to try the exercise another time. I again breathed deeply, filling my lungs with more air than I’d allowed them the first time. I felt my ribs expand, my flesh stretching in all directions as my body swelled to take up more space than it had in quite some time. As I held my breath with more intention this time, I felt my whole body pulsing. I pictured the blood flowing through my body, slowly taking carbon dioxide from my flesh and into my lungs. As I exhaled, I did so much more slowly, this time with my hand on my chest, eyes closed, and head tilted slightly up. I envisioned this exhale as a glowing stream that poured out of my nostrils, swirled around my room, and left through the cracked open window, coating my houseplants and then my backyard garden with a sheen. Compared to my first attempt at this exercise, nothing was technically different about the air that I had exhaled, but it felt like everything had changed. A tear rolled down my face, and the core of my being shifted.
If carbon dioxide can play an important role in healthy functioning ecosystems, what important role can humans play? The exercise invited me to consider the way my impact could be a life-giving and regenerative one. While I had learned about the regenerative paradigm through my studies, I believe this was one of the first times where I really felt it; there is a sizable difference between knowing something intellectually and understanding it with your state of being. For the first time in years, instead of feeling like a burden to the non-human living things around me, I began to see my presence as a gift. What a different experience to picture my existence as one that gives life.
This exercise helped me to challenge the worldview I had fallen into while studying in the sustainability paradigm. Since moving beyond the mentality that suggests our existence is only detrimental, I’ve begun to really explore the ways that my contributions to the world make me a more joyful, whole, and self-expressed person. For me, this looks like bringing my passion for regenerative agriculture into my personal community where I support the aspirations of my local producers and advocate for their needs to be successful entrepreneurs. And in Terra Genesis, I’ve enjoyed extending the regenerative paradigm beyond agriculture to consider how organizations, businesses, and people can exist in the world in a regenerative way. This work feels much different to me. While my work still requires my dedication and energy, it does not drain me; in fact, it often feels like it is regenerating me in return. I am energized by the communities that I am working within, and I trust that I have unique ways to contribute to the regeneration of the places and people I care about. In this work, minimizing myself would be ridding myself and my community of the special attributes that I can bring into my work. I still care about climate change and biodiversity, but my being state has shifted away from debilitating overwhelm and into a space where I feel an invitation towards opportunity.
I take deep breaths more frequently now, deeply inward with dedication to taking up space, and deeply outward with trust that as humans, we have so much living to be a part of.
