03: Eco-Shame with Rebecca Gray

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Oct 3, 2022

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ANECDOTE

Rebecca's Eco-Perfectionism Struggle

Rebecca Gray shared her personal struggle with eco-perfectionism during her environmental studies.
She faced crippling anxiety and guilt trying to perfectly reduce her carbon footprint and food waste.

INSIGHT

Archetypes Don't Define Morality

Embodying archetypes in communities reflects societal pressures, not morality.
Striving to perfect these archetypes often leads to imposter syndrome and diminished self-worth.

ANECDOTE

Kasey on Archetype Struggles

Kasey Davis recounted her personal experience embodying archetypes in addiction recovery, church, and mental health spaces.
She linked the root fear of unworthiness to the obsessive striving for these identities.

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You have probably heard me say, “You can’t save the rainforest if you are depressed.” The truth is that eco-shame and eco-perfectionism can get in the way of our taking steps toward better functioning. If you have ever felt guilty for not being “eco-friendly enough,” this episode is for you!

Rebecca Gray is an environmental epidemiologist. With her master’s degree in public health, she studies disease, the patterns of disease, and health at population levels within communities and countries. She also studies how factors in the environment impact health by causing and promoting disease. Rebecca works with government agencies like the EPA and CDC to develop water guidelines to keep pollutants out of the water supply.

Show Highlights:

How Rebecca has experienced forms of eco-shame in her profession
How some people push the environmental movement in ways that are able-ist
The trap we fall into to “embody the archetype” of the space we occupy
How social media plays into the eco-perfectionism pressure we feel
Why functionality matters more than the morality of what we do in care tasks, eating, the environment, etc.
Rebecca’s view of today’s environmental movement
Why we should ask ourselves how an eco-behavior affects our health and well being
What really does need to happen to prevent climate change
How our capitalistic society colors what we can do to be eco-friendly
How differing narratives make us feel pressured to make individual changes and collective changes to “save the world”
How to identify what we need to function well, fill in gaps with eco-friendly behaviors, and learn how to conserve our energy
How to take a more reasonable–and less stressful–view of sustainability swaps
Actions that have the least impact and the most impact on environmentalism
Rebecca’s advice about letting ourselves off the hook for the decisions we make

Resources:

Connect with Rebecca: LinkedIn

Connect with KC: TikTok and Instagram

Get KC's Book, How to Keep House While Drowning

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