I’ve often heard myself described as an all-or-nothing person.  I’m not sure how much I agree with that, but I’m certainly leaning into that description by doing what I’m about to do now…taking all of August off.  Properly off.  No work, no campaigning, no talks, no protests, no Zoom meetings. I’m not going on a big trip somewhere, I don’t have a big list of tasks to complete… 


So why am I doing this, taking time off without a plan? Taking time off where there is SO MUCH that needs to be done? Well, basically, I fear the consequences if I don’t… stop. 


I know I’m not the only person finding this year particularly intense or fraught or demoralising. Within the communities I’m part of I can see so many of us struggling with the weight of knowing and feeling the mounting threats of climate and ecological breakdown, especially whilst action to confront it has seemingly lost momentum. I see many struggling to bear that pain and feeling of powerlessness, amplified massively by the escalating authoritarianism, heartbreaking violence and continued repression of peaceful activism we’re witnessing. This didn’t begin in 2025 - it has been building for a long time - but I’ve felt a step change. 


Highs and lows are an inevitable part of trying to drive change, of trying to do pretty much anything worthwhile. Since I first started engaging with the climate movement in 2018, the hard bits have been tempered, held and offset by the incredible friendships, networks and communities forged within them. Knowing we face many defeats we’ve got quite good at celebrating the wins, however small. Recognising we’re up against existential threats somehow makes it easier for us to properly appreciate the stuff that really matters, especially connection with other people and the all other life there is around us. For all the many moments of despair, I’ve enjoyed access to a steady stream of warmth, encouragement, laughter, cautious hope.  But that semblance of balance has been much harder to find; years of Emergency action are now showing their strain on us. 


It can be tempting to dismiss rest as an indulgence we can’t afford. Logically, I know this doesn’t really hold up. Without rest, and without taking some care of our physical and mental health, how can we expect ourselves to be OK-enough to keep showing up? But taking a break can feel dangerous. It feels dangerous to me right now. It’s not that I think that the future of humanity, nor even of the projects close to my heart, hinges on my own immediate actions (or lack thereof) - that would be both arrogant and unrealistic. It’s hard to articulate, but I think it’s a combination of: fear that I’ll let people I love down; fear that - with all the privilege I have to be able to take action - I’m failing to fulfil a moral obligation to do as much as I possibly can; and something much more nebulous around my sense of self-worth and identity I might lose by not being fully and actively engaged in the work I’ve come see as essential.


When I really try to interrogate this, I can see that not resting, not striving for a sustainable balance has been a bigger danger, and a consistent failure. That reality has been impossible to ignore this year. In January, a spell of what I described at the time as “full blown dread”*, would probably have been more wisely interpreted as a warning … rather than an inconvenience, weakness or challenge to push through. Had I done this, and then prioritised rest / recovery / ‘regen’ in response, I suspect that a lot of the exhaustion, errors, overreactions and damage to relationships that have punctuated the months since could and would have been avoided**. It’s time to move from berating myself for this, to learning from it. It’s time for a reset. For myself but also for the people around me… and for the work we still need to do together.

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“Dimensions of the Great Turning” from The Work that Reconnects, annotated with examples.


Speaking of ‘the work’, I’ve been prompted recently to revisit thinking about exactly what that is. The focus of most of my attention and energies over the past seven years have been what can be described as “holding actions”: attempting to raise understanding and intervene to prevent avoidable harms. I desperately want more people, if not most people, to be empowered to take these kinds of actions too, because that means they’re more likely to succeed and that the personal risks for people who take a stand are massively reduced. When I was first introduced to the concept of there being multiple ‘dimensions’ to the work needed to bring about systemic societal and political transformations I found it strangely threatening. Maybe I perceived the other dimensions as avenues that could be used to justify “opting out” of the types of action I (still) feel very invested in. But gradually I’ve come to understand that these are necessary complements to, rather than competitors of, “holding actions”. I’ve realised that ‘activists’ can have a tendency to only “count” these often-exhausting types of action as ‘the work’; we don’t often acknowledge the constant learning, the radical shifts in our priorities, values and approaches, the care and community we cultivate. These are valid too - essential even - and absolutely worthy of our time, attention and celebration.


In taking a break, these are thoughts and ideas I’ll probably have more space for. But if all I’ll end up doing is disrupting a pattern of imbalance and overwork, well, that’s not nothing.  Proper time with family and friends, getting outside and to wild spaces, decent-quality eating, moving and sleeping wouldn’t go amiss either.  


See you in the Autumn 🧡



* I wrote about this at the time here: https://abiperrin.com/dread-scale.html 

** Some personal positives amidst those negatives this year… for balance: we released our book, promoted a deeply personal film, coordinated a mass lobby in an attempt to bring science to politics; I’ve faced my anxieties around public speaking at universities, climate conferences and community events around the country; I’ve written and contributed to holistic, (hopefully) empowering climate and nature trainings for audiences who have real power to make a difference.