Even if you’re lucky enough not to be targeted directly, just watching the news or even our social media feeds these days bring a daily assault on so many issues progressives care about: human rights and equality, environmental protection, animal welfare, and the state of our democracy and our discourse, for starters.

How do we cope without burying our heads in the sand?

“Self-care” has become a popular topic in recent years, but it wasn’t a term I had even heard of when I started out as an activist 20 years ago. I recently recognized that, without consciously planning it, I’ve been using some key strategies that have helped me keep going all these years, though they’re a bit different than what folks normally think of when we think of self-care. In addition to the basics that most of us know (though may not necessarily do), like eating healthy, exercising, meditation, and getting enough sleep, choosing our approach to activism and how we engage with the problems in our world can help us use our time strategically and avoid burning out.

At Youth Empowered Action (YEA) Camp, a summer camp for social change, we have expanded our focus on self-care since the 2016 election. This year we will host our second year of YEA Camp for Adults as well, and we will make even more time for this. We will do yoga and journaling and meditation, yes, and we will also focus on how we can do activism in ways that not only make a big difference in the world but also sustain ourselves. We’ll also have time in nature and the opportunity to visit with rescued animals at the sanctuary we will be staying at. But I digress….

Here are 10 approaches to self-care that might support you in your journey as an activist and human.

1. Resist

So many YEA Campers have been speaking out against this administration.

It might seem like doing activism is not a form of self-care or is even the opposite of self-care, but resisting harm is self-preservation and helps us know we are taking action on what matters to us.

When your house is on fire, it’s hard to go take a bubble bath. We need to sound an alarm and put out the fires.

“Activism is the antidote to despair,” said Joan Baez, and taking action can not only bring about change but also keeps us action-oriented so we can protect ourselves and our community and don’t feel helpless.

While social justice issues are very interconnected, to avoid overwhelm, at YEA Camp we recommend focusing on one main issue, what we call your IOI, or issue of importance. Nobody can solve any of the major problems of the world alone, but all of our actions add up to make a cumulative difference. Taking breaks and pacing yourself as needed for you and your life are key.

To get more involved in activism opposing this administration, connect with Indivisible, sign up with 5 Calls to call your legislators, or get involved with any of the many organizations working to bring about social justice.

2. Focus on other types of activism you enjoy or can easily accomplish to see an in-person, real-time impact.

There is so much we can all do in our communities to make a difference.

Resistance activism is playing defense, stopping something bad from happening. As important as that currently is, it’s also difficult and exhausting, and a “victory” just means stopping something terrible.

We also need to proactively find ways to make good things happen. This can include volunteering at a local shelter or community organization, doing a neighborhood cleanup, teaching people what you know, or greening your school or office.

Is there a way to combine something you love to do with a cause you believe in? Or a way you could get involved that doesn’t involve convincing sold-out politicians to change their policies?

It’s also empowering to recommit to daily actions that you have direct control over. Think driving less, eating fewer animal products, boycotting harmful companies, buying less stuff, and speaking up in oppressive situations. Knowing that we are doing these daily things can help us feel OK about taking the time off we need. Try to bring humor, lightness, and joy to counter the stress associated with the issues we’re working to address.

3. Think of yourself in a larger activism context.

You don’t need to get your PhD in Social Change, but just learning about how change has happened in the past can reframe our thinking in a more long-term context. It can be humbling to realize just how many actions it takes to cumulatively bring about systemic change, and to recognize that none of us can ever do “enough.” That also frees us up to pace ourselves. Even though we may not see big results right away, each small step adds up. Two short videos about the gay rights movement and civil rights movement serve as a reminder that all of the actions so many people took led to big change.

4. Donate money.

If you’re feeling depleted or demoralized about the state of the world, a donation is essentially paying someone else to do the work that you’re not able to do. And giving not only does good, it makes us feel good — and activism that combines doing good with feeling good is a win-win that we should do as much as we can. Even better that it only takes a minute and then you can go do whatever you need to do.

Even if you are not in a good financial situation at the moment, since you’re reading this, you can probably donate $1. Maybe $10 or $100? Or more, if you can. Choose an organization doing good work (here are many we recommend), and then commission them (or us) to do more of it while you take time to do what you need to do.

5. Follow just the right amount of the right news.

As activists, we want to be generally aware of what is going on — sometimes it can be more stressful not to know — but you don’t need to know intimate details of every horrible thing happening in the world each day. Learn just enough of what you need to know for the activism you will be doing. Some specific tips:

• Remove any news apps from your phone and disable news notifications.
• Give yourself a time limit of the amount of time you can spend on the news or social media each day. Monitor it so it doesn’t get out of hand.
• Ask yourself: Do I really need to know the details of this? What will I do with this information? Will this help me to make a bigger difference, or make me feel more demoralized?
• Sometimes we need to laugh instead of cry. Watching Alec Baldwin’s dead-on Saturday Night Live performances, and critiques from Seth Myers, Trevor Noah, Samantha Bee, or Stephen Colbert can be as gratifying as a bubble bath. In fact, there’s actually reason to believe that satire is better equipped to critique Trump than mainstream news.

6. Build community and ask for what you need

Some of our community at YEA Camp for Adults

OK, enough about activism. We need to reach out and create tighter community than we’ve had before. We’ve currently got a perfect storm of disconnection. While so many of us communicate more with our friends by typing than talking, we also are more likely than older generations to move far away from our families and to be single later in life. Statistically, we’re less involved in community organizations, whether it be religious or civic, and we are less likely to know our neighbors. And there’s an all-out assault on just about every community of people, animals, and the planet who are not straight white men.

We need to know that we can count on others when we need it, and we will feel good to do the same for others. So meet your neighbors, try going to local events, maybe find a MeetUp, talk to people you come in contact with, connect with like-minded people through social media, and be in better touch with your expanding circle of friends and family. If you need help, there are resources to support you even in the most dire of circumstances.

At YEA Camp, we focus on giving campers the knowledge, skills, confidence, and community to make a bigger difference on their cause when they get home. We believe that being a part of a like-minded and dedicated community makes all of us stronger advocates. We want to be your cheerleader!

7. Manage your life and take care of yourself in ways that are right for you.

Typically, when we think of self-care, we may picture a spa day or yoga class, and these, of course, can be great. But we need to go deeper to assess what we can do to fully take care of ourselves.

In some ways, we all need the same basic things as a baseline, such as eating healthy food, access to clean drinking water, getting exercise, sleeping enough, safe shelter, and nourishing relationships. So many people, especially of lower income, are not getting these basic needs met.

• Evaluate different areas of life that cause you anxiety, from work stress to health issues to your home, relationships, or finances, and start dealing with the most critical ones.
• Get more rigorous doing what you need to do because taking care of ourselves is a precursor to taking care of others.
• Tackle unhealthy and develop healthy habits and practices as directly as possible to take care of yourself and your one precious life.

From stopping smoking to getting check-ups to paying bills on time, healing your relationships to pursuing your goals, or otherwise “adulting,” you are in charge of managing your life. When you don’t do it well, other things start to suffer, including your activism.

As activist hero Audre Lorde said, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”

8. Figure out and do what you love.

YEA Camp for Adults is held at Woodstock Farm Sanctuary.

To stay in this for the long haul, we need to find ways to enjoy our lives, do the things we love, and step away from stressful situations when we need to. Many people are either not clear about what they truly enjoy doing, and many more are clear that they don’t spend much time doing what they love.

If you love to read or write or play music or be outdoors, make time to do that, even if it’s just for a few minutes a day or an hour or two a week.

One of my favorite things about our YEA Camp for Adults is that it is held at Woodstock Farm Sanctuary, which provides sanctuary and some animal friends to visit with while we are there as well. Animals have an innocence and gentleness that can be an antidote to stress and help restore our energy and feeling of unconditional love.

At YEA Camp, we combine the seriousness of activism training with fun activities to model sustainable activism.

9. Pursue fun and challenging hobbies and distract yourself as needed.

Pursuing challenging hobbies is a great way to trick your brain to take a break from what it was worrying about so that it can focus on the matter at hand. Studying a new language, learning a musical instrument, creating art, dancing, reading novels, playing games, and any sort of vigorous exercise are great for this. Find something you really enjoy that gets your mind off of things, and have that be your go-to when you need it.

10. Feel your emotions — the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Our compassion and empathy has led us to become activists for change, but these emotions can sometimes overwhelm us. We are not robots and cannot go numb. We also need to live our lives and enjoy the beauty and possibility that we can create in life.

Being guided by a healthy relationship to our emotions will not only help us as individuals, it will help us as activists. We’ve got to feel the good, the bad, and the ugly. That might mean crying when we need to, journaling, talking things through with friends, or seeing a therapist. It can mean being quiet and meditating or going out in nature to unplug. It also means being grateful for the countless privileges and opportunities, friends, experiences, and beauty in life. When we don’t run away from our emotions, we can run toward what we want.

Finding ways to celebrate the positives and to fully experience joy might feel difficult at times in the context of all the suffering in the world and the harm being done by the Trump administration, but cultivating happiness and gratitude, and fully appreciating the good in life can help rejuvenate us to get through harder times.

Join us this summer!

It’s been said that activism is a marathon and not a sprint. We need to find ways to show up as activists as best we can in the short term, but we also need to recognize when we need to step back, especially if we are from a community that is more at risk, when we are going through personal struggles, or when we know that we are pushing ourselves too hard or not getting our own needs met.

When the government doesn’t take care of its people, we need to work extra hard to take care of ourselves, each other, and animals and the planet too. Each of us has an important role to play in bringing about the change we wish to see in the world.

For more tips on strengthening your change-making abilities, download YEA Camp’s free ebook, The Beginner’s Guide to Changing the World. Want to see how we integrate self care with leadership training at camp? Join us this summer at YEA Camp for teens or YEA Camp for Adults.

About the Author: Nora Kramer is the Founder and Director of YEA Camp. She is a long time activist who practices self-care by swimming, playing with her dog, Daiya, and eating vegan ice cream sundaes.

The post A Different Approach to Self-Care for Activists in the Age of Trump appeared first on YEA Camp.

Youth Empowered Action (YEA) Camp was founded in 2009 to teach young people age 12 – 17 how to make a bigger difference on causes they care about. After years of people asking, in 2018, YEA Camp expanded to offer a session for the 18+ crowd. YEA Camp for Adults was born.

YEA Camp for Adults is hosted at Woodstock Farm Sanctuary in High Falls, New York and is the perfect combination of leadership conference, self-care retreat, and activism training all set to the playful and relaxing scene of summer camp.

But what is it really like to attend summer camp as an adult? Just ask Martina Gauderer, a 2018 camper.

The Inside Scoop on Adult Summer Camp

“YEA Camp for Adults exceeded my expectations in all the best possible ways. I only wish I’d been a camper 20 some years ago! As a 35-year-old with almost zero camp experience as a kid, I was delighted by all the FUN camp activities (games, dance parties, talent show, etc). It made me feel like a kid – energized and excited!

But most importantly, this camp planted seeds and gave me practical tools to take my activism to the next level. Even the most seasoned activist (I’ve been involved in various causes, campaigns, etc. for most of my adult life) can get A LOT out of the workshops and presentations offered by the camp. Perhaps most important were the activities based on confidence and community building.

As I zoned in on the issues that were most important to me as an activist, I felt lifted up, supported, and encouraged in a way I never have before in activist circles. I came away with a strong community that still keeps in touch!

Here’s Martina looking at the rescued animals in the field at Woodstock Farm Sanctuary

During camp, I was able to create a roadmap of strategy and goals that addressed my issue of importance. Campers zone in on their issue over the week. My issue of importance is something I carried with me well after camp. It has since lead me (even the most introverted of people) to build a strong activist community in my daily life, starting projects and creating real, tangible change.

Truly, I cannot speak highly enough of YEA Camp, Nora Kramer (the founder) and all of the wonderful staff! Best of all? YEA Camp for Adults is at one of the most wonderful places on earth, Woodstock Farm Sanctuary! It’s the perfect setting to inspire and create change.

Plus, the food is off the charts!! I’m forever a supporter of this incredible LIFE CHANGING camp for WORLD CHANGING people!”

Are You Ready for Summer Camp?

Are you looking for an inspiring and meaningful way to spend your summer? It’s not too late to register for YEA Camp for Adults 2019. And, of course, if you know a 12-17-year-old who wants to know how they can do more to make our world a better place, YEA Camp’s youth camp is the place to be!

The post What Summer Camp for Adults Really Looks Like appeared first on YEA Camp.

Summer camp for adults gives us permission to let down our hair and dance!

For most “grown-ups,” summer camp is a thing of the past, trading cabins for cubicles and hikes for hectic work schedules. But there are so many benefits that kids get from going to camp that are valuable for adults too!

That’s why Youth Empowered Action (YEA) Camp took its 10 years of experience running summer leadership camps for teens and created a YEA Camp for Adults.

For YEA Camp in particular, as a social justice camp that helps aspiring activists make a bigger difference on the causes they care about, we see that what we do is just as relevant for adults as for youth.

Since 2009, YEA Camp has trained over 700 teens to get active and be more effective on the issues of their choice. Our program is focused on developing people’s knowledge, skills, confidence, and community — something that anyone on a change-making path will benefit from, regardless of age.

Here are 10 reasons adults need summer camp just as much as kids do:

1. Tap into a greater sense of your purpose

   When was the last time you spent a week focused on cultivating your life’s purpose? At YEA Camp, our focus is on how to make a bigger difference in the world by reconnecting with what really matters. We prioritize the good stuff.

2. Camp bursts your bubble (in a good way)!

   When we are accustomed to spending time with the same people, at the same job, and in the same community, we limit how we express ourselves. Stepping out of your bubble gives you an opportunity to experiment with new ways of being. This helps us to live into our most authentic selves.

3. Self-care, self-care, self-care

   Despite being a ubiquitous buzzword, self-care — “the practice of taking action to improve one’s own health” — is super important. In the busyness of work and life, sometimes we take our own well-being for granted. This can have consequences to our mental, physical, and emotional psyche. At camp, we share ways to replenish ourselves and invest in experiences that will refuel our energy.

   

   Forget traditional networking, at adult summer camp you will make life-long friends in a really organic way.

4. It’s the most fun you’ll ever have “networking”

   Forget business cards or small talk. Camp is set up so that we can develop meaningful friendships through a like-minded community. From playful games to heartfelt discussions to late-night pajama parties, our adult campers leave with friendships that are much deeper than can be made at happy hour.

5. Time to focus on passion projects

   When we pull ourselves out of your daily routines, we can actually focus on what matters to us. At camp, we spend a whole week exploring our activism area of interest. Setting aside intentional time for your passions can be an unforgettable experience with long-term benefits. Camp provides an opportunity to focus on passions that sometimes don’t fit into your busy schedule.

6. Shifting routines shifts your perspective

   Speaking of getting out of daily routines, think of camp as a reset. Being in nature can help us clear our minds, refocus our priorities, and refresh our outlook. Think of YEA Camp for Adults as a well-deserved retreat — but with a talent show, a dance party, and activities that will help you see the world differently and take more effective action on the causes you care about when you get home.

   

   Camp for adults allows us to spend time in nature while taking time to pursue what we really care about.

7. Being in nature is paramount for our health

   So many of us spend our days indoors, staring at screens. Being out in nature, spending time with animals, breathing fresh air, and engaging in healthy forms of movement are key ingredients to a vibrant life. YEA Camp for Adults takes place on the property of Woodstock Farm Sanctuary, a sanctuary for rescued animals whom we can visit with each day. There will be time for yoga, journaling, outdoor games or exercise, or just taking a nap under a tree.

8. We make “work” fun

   Activism can be hard, and delving into serious topics can be challenging. YEA Camp makes it fun. We don’t force you to sit at a conference. We also aren’t big fans of stuffy offices. That’s why we do our activism training in between visits with the animals and meaningful community-building activities. At the end of the week, campers leave with a clear and tangible action plan on how they can make a difference on their chosen cause. Plus, they have a great time doing it.

9. Meaningful self-development

   The more we expand our outlook and perspectives on life, the more comfortable we can be in every situation. This can lead to endless new insights, relationships, and possibilities in any area of life. We think it’s true that life does indeed begin at the end of our comfort zone. YEA Camp is designed to help campers feel more comfortable going outside their comfort zone.

   10. Live your best life

   As they say, “pick a job you like and you’ll never work a day in your life.” At camp, we believe that finding the joy and fun in something real and meaningful will help you lead a more balanced and fulfilling life. Plus, camp lets us get out of a rut or initiate shifts in routine that can lead to creativity and new perspectives. Devoting a week to what’s most important to you is so valuable. At YEA Camp for Adults, we connect with how to apply your skills and passions. We want to help you make the world a better place in a way that inspires you.

No matter how old you are, it’s not too late to have a great answer to the age-old question, “How did you spend your summer vacation?”

YEA Camp for Adults is for aspiring activists who know they want to make a bigger difference in the world, and who want focused skill-building and leadership training in the midst of the playful world of summer camp. If that sounds like a great way to spend your summer, click here to learn more. And, of course, if you know a 12-17 year-old who wants to know how they can do more to make our world a better place, YEA Camp’s youth camp is the place to be!

The post 10 Reasons Adults Should Go To Summer Camp Too appeared first on YEA Camp.