Choosing Yourself at COP 30: How to stay healthy and well while creating the world we want

“to the [person] reading this
with a tired soul and a restless heart
i hope you find the courage
to choose yourself”

r.h. Sin -

It’s been five years since I began my journey to wellbeing. I had dabbled before. But the rubber really hit the road in the lead up to the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP 26) in Glasgow in 2021.

It all began with a choice: to choose myself or not. To honour my needs or not. To love myself or not.

Our work tends not to encourage that. And when you’re building initiatives, choosing yourself is even harder.  Because, unless you have seed funding, building something new is a side hustle. It’s starting from scratch and figuring things out as you go. Making mistakes and pivoting.

To pay the bills during the construction process, I took on projects and strung it together with funding through consultancies to work on the initiatives – with partners we still work with today. Some of those earnings went to paying for websites, email and Zoom accounts. And all the other things it takes to carve out space in the day to day.

A friend built the very first website for the Climate Leadership Initiative (CLI). Then we lost it somehow because I was focused on other things (I still don’t understand how). I built the second one myself with a website builder. It was years before we had a professional designer steer us towards what we have now. And even that one is still in progress.

Building new things takes practice, perseverance and a whole lot of patience.

With the Loss and Damage Collaboration (L&DC) it was much more of a collaborative effort, but we were still starting from scratch. Choosing yourself is not easy in those circumstances. Doing so has opportunity costs you become very aware of, particularly when you’re fundraising to keep the lights on. But as time goes on, you also become aware of the costs of not choosing yourself as they become so much greater. It feels like and very much is like swallowing down your own needs over and over again. And then one day you just can’t anymore. Because you’re so full of unspoken truths.

That’s what happened to me before COP 26. I just couldn’t anymore.

But still I was conflicted. Wondering if I was worthy of choosing myself. Then I remembered something a friend had said to me during a very difficult time. When I was struggling with my mental health in the wake of COP 21. Buried under an overwhelming workload. Travelling more than I was at home. Living by the mantra of do more, do more, do more... The voices in my head were incessant. You’re not enough yet. Keep doing. Keep chasing. She said: You don’t have to go.

And then one day I just couldn’t anymore.

Choosing not to go to COP 26, which was in the country I live in, felt revolutionary. And when I look back now, I am still a bit in awe of that decision. But it was COVID items. And life still felt so uncertain.

That choice led to other choices. Get outside in nature. Make time for meditation and mindfulness. Move my body in ways that feel good. Decisions not to go to meetings that, in retrospect, I probably should have been at from a fundraising perspective. But my mind, body and soul just couldn’t do it. I listened sometimes but not always. I swallowed down a lot in the intervening years between then and now. Slowly I began to get better at quelling the voices in my head that told me I wasn’t enough yet. I got better at pushing back. Telling myself I was already enough regardless of what work I did in the world.

Last year, I chose not to go to COP 29 because my body was screaming “No”. I listened. Still I struggled with a wondering if it was okay. Not to be there in person to support the teams I work with in real time.

This year feels different. I’m getting better at choosing myself. As the teams have expanded I’ve had to do less and less. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t still a million things to do. Things falling off my plate every day. Emails that go unanswered for longer than I’d like. But it becomes easier to see the opportunity costs of choosing yourself. Life is still hectic but I felt excited to be in Belém for COP 30. Getting here wasn’t easy and I’m ready to make the most of it.

This year I’m following the Global Goal on Adaptation for the first time in a long time. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how to strengthen synergies between adaptation and Loss and Damage while mobilising and providing funding for the full spectrum of climate action in climate vulnerable countries and the frontline communities within them. I’m also thinking more about how to strengthen connections between the local, national and the global. I’m always pondering how to shape minds and particularly hearts through my work. Choosing myself gives me permission to Zoom out and look at the big picture more.

I’m also honoured as always to be working with a team of amazing young climate leaders who have just onboarded the fourth cohort of the New Generation program: eight young climate leaders from across the Global South. That feels exciting and fun. Far from a burden. Work has become a place where I feel most alive. Because I learned to choose myself and not feel guilty when doing so (mostly).

This year I’ve been on a worthiness bender. I stole that term from one of my teachers in the course I’ve been taking to become a women’s empowerment course.  Something I’m able to do because I’m getting better at choosing myself.

And because of that I’m becoming better at making change in the world. Seeing my unique gifts. And feeling enough despite all the things that can’t get done. Sometimes I work late, particularly in the lead up to this COP. I had to work many weekends too over the last few months because of some writing work I took on that I found difficult to do during the busy weekdays. So I’m taking an extended break after the COP to spend time with my family in Canada. Bake cookies (vegan and gluten free) with my mum. Play in the snow with my nephews. Cozy up under blankets with mugs of tea to watch movies with my nieces. Catch up with my brothers.  

And yes, I do know that I am extraordinarily privileged for many reasons.

But I also know that worthiness is available to us all. Some of us might need to transcend more in getting there. And working to address those inequalities and injustices behind that is a critical part of our work. The journey will invariably look different for everyone. But at the end of the day we can all choose ourselves in tiny moments throughout every day.

So here’s my simple advice for staying as healthy and well as you can at COP 30. Choose yourself in tiny moments. Make that detour on the way to a meeting to fill up your water bottle. Do five minutes of meditation in the morning if that’s all the time you feel you can spare. Take a few deep breaths when you need to. Eat nourishing food when you can.

And also know that the COP is a particular time of year when we will need to work harder and longer. It wasn’t easy for us to get here. We owe it to the people we serve to make the most of this opportunity to take another step towards a world in which all humans, all other species and all ecosystems are thriving on a healthy planet. That world is not only possible. It’s happening. And when we choose ourselves, when we strive to feel worthy, when we know we are enough - it comes faster.

One of my colleagues told me yesterday that she feels very optimistic about this COP. She said she’s manifesting it into being. I loved that. So I’m working on that too. I hope you will too. Despite everything going on in the world, I also feel very optimistic about COP 30 because I know how powerful we truly are. I hope you do too.

As I’ve written about many times before, we see more of what we focus on. Everything becomes real first in our imaginations. So, to that end, I have one small request: In those quiet moments when you have a few moments to take a few deep breaths, visualise a world in which all the inhabitants of planet Earth and the places and spaces that nurture and support them are thriving. Do a five senses reality. Be there in first person. What do you see, hear, smell, feel and touch? See it and really be there. And then let’s move towards that world together.