Below are four steps that we have put together in order to create a more holistic approach to activism. They do not cover every aspect of what it is to be a holistic activist because that is an ongoing process. They are also not standalone; they’re a feedback loop. Acceptance fuels compassionate critique, which sharpens communication, which enables interconnected action. Together, they aim to shift activism from reactive firefighting towards proactive activism that leads to systemic change.

For a more detailed description of the steps, please download the Holistic Activism booklet on the main menu and/or listen to the audio booklet. 

Step 1: Acceptance, Uncertainty and Presence

Have you ever stood beneath a night sky and felt overwhelmed by its vastness or walked through an ancient forest and experienced something that was difficult to put into words? There is a sense of wonder in these moments. For a while, we stop trying to analyse or control what we are experiencing and simply become present to it. The Japanese have a word for this: yūgen; a profound awareness of the universe that evokes feelings too deep and mysterious for words.

Embracing yūgen is not just the foundation of Holistic Activism but also the way that we need to interact with the world as a culture. This is not a new concept but it has been forgotten in those cultures that have embraced colonialism as a mindset. Deep ecologist John Seed often discusses how it is a common trait among Indigenous cultures to have rituals that reconnect people to the space that lies outside of language.

Stepping beyond the mind

While we can experience the bigger picture, we can never fully understand it at a mind level because are part of it. We are not observers standing outside the universe, looking in, we are the universe experiencing itself from within. However, our minds naturally seek certainty. It is what they evolved to do in order for our species to have the best chance of survival. But underlying the mind is the space that lies outside of mind; that deep connectivity to all that is.

This is not about rejecting the mind or treating it as an enemy. The mind is an extraordinary tool and the remaining three steps of Holistic Activism are, in part, about learning to use it more effectively. But in order to use the mind effectively, we first need to recognise its limitations. This means that instead of always seeking certainty through words, we can discover what becomes possible when we are comfortable with not knowing.

Why does this matter for activism? Because the way we relate to our own minds affects the way we relate to other people. When we become less attached to our opinions and identities, we become better able to listen. We can consider perspectives that challenge our own, recognise paradox and complexity, find common ground and think beyond individual issues towards the systems in which they exist. This does not mean abandoning our values or refusing to challenge injustice. It means recognising that challenging an idea does not require us to reject the person who holds it.

Embracing acceptance and uncertainty as a pathway to presence and more empathetic communication

Letting go is also about embracing acceptance but it is important to emphasise that acceptance does not mean compliance. It simply means accepting that for better or worse, the universe has unfolded to this point. In the words of George Tsakraklides, acceptance is ‘not about sitting idle’. ‘It is consciously immersing yourself in reality’. And while the path that we take from hereon must involve learning from the mistakes of history and healing the trauma that has been left in its wake, it must also be about reconnecting to a state where we are deeply immersed in the unfolding present moment.

Acceptance is also about accepting our own feelings as they are right now as this helps us to avoid burying those feelings. Otherwise, they may play out in ways that impact those around us. Therefore, we should not feel guilty about applying the same acceptance and compassion to ourselves that we give to the wider world, because they are one and the same.

As we become more comfortable with uncertainty and more present to our experience, we can begin to loosen our attachment to the identities and opinions constructed by our minds. This enables us to recognise our own shadows without allowing them to unconsciously shape the activism we practise. This creates space for something deeper to emerge: a sense of connection that does not depend upon everyone agreeing with us on every issue all of the time.

As Joseph Joubert wrote, “the aim of argument, or of discussion, should not be victory, but progress.”

By becoming more comfortable with uncertainty, more present to our experience and less attached to the need to be right, we create the conditions for empathy, connection and systems thinking. This is the kind of activism that is required to transition to a post-growth society that embraces the interconnectedness and complexity that we witness when we are in a state of yūgen. 

Step 2:  Breaking the Cycle of Pain

As stated in the first step: 

Acceptance is also about accepting our own feelings as they are right now as this helps us to avoid burying those feelings. Otherwise, they may play out in ways that impact those around us. Therefore, we should not feel guilty about applying the same acceptance and compassion to ourselves that we give to the wider world, because they are one and the same.

This means embracing all of our emotions, positive and negative, processed and unprocessed. Without this, we risk projecting those unprocessed feelings onto others through our communication. Therefore, it is important that we extend the same compassion and acceptance to ourselves as we do to the wider world, as they are interconnected. By integrating heartfelt connection and acceptance into our activism, we empower ourselves to acknowledge both our own unprocessed feelings and those of others.

In the words of Alan Watts:

“There are people who are unconscious of their own dark sides and they project that darkness outwards into whoever the enemy may be and say…”there is the darkness, it is not in me”. Therefore, because the darkness is not in me, I am justified in annihilating this enemy… But to the degree that a person becomes conscious that the evil is as much in himself as in the other…to this same degree he is not likely to project it onto some scapegoat and commit the most criminal acts of violence upon other people. In order to admit and really accept and understand the evil in oneself, one has to be able to do it without being an enemy to it.”

A significant portion of the projection that Watts is describing here manifests in the way we communicate with each other. This is because communication can act as a conduit, both consciously and unconsciously to transmit unresolved pain onto others. For this reason, choosing to draw a line under the cycle of pain that we pass down from one generation to another and sideways to those around us, is an essential part of holistic activism.

Activism that transmits pain only adds to the existential problems that activism needs to tackle. However, activism that seeks to heal by drawing a line under the cycle of pain, helps move us towards a much-needed paradigm shift away from the catastrophic course that humanity is currently heading.

For this reason, acceptance, compassion and assertiveness go together because to be compassionate means fully accepting the other person as they are right now. But this does not mean that we shouldn’t show emotional boundaries. In fact, it is crucial that we do. That way we can work towards breaking the cycle of pain with a combination of compassion and assertiveness.

Compassionate Assertiveness

Being assertive does not mean ‘fighting back’. It is about preventing another person’s pain from having a negative impact upon you in the same way that the direct and indirect pain of possibly countless other people has had an impact upon the person who is trying to project onto you.

It is also about ensuring that you in turn, do not push your pain onto that person. Learning assertive techniques in combination with compassion is valuable as it allows us to shift conversations that perpetuate pain to ones that foster collaboration and meaningful progress.

By setting firm but compassionate boundaries with the intent of engaging in genuine, productive dialogue, we also help to create a space whereby unprocessed emotions and traumas can be properly processed.

Being both compassionate and assertive also helps us identify those individuals who are open to collaboration versus those who are only focused on conflict and division. This can help prevent burnout by allowing you to know when it is worth investing your time into conversation, when to walk away without resentment or when to focus on conflict resolution.

Compassionate assertiveness also cultivates empathy by encouraging genuine curiosity about others’ perspectives which is important because as discussed in the previous step, “the aim of argument, or of discussion, should not be victory, but progress.” 

Step 3: Looking for Intersection and Common Ground

The kind of social interaction that leads to progress is focussed on looking for areas of common ground as a place to connect.

This isn’t to say that your opinions are not important or that all opinions are equal, only that your perspective is more likely to have an impact if you enter into dialogue showing a willingness to see the issue from the other’s perspective. Looking for the common ground that you share is a way of using your conversation as a means of adding nuance rather than looking to prove the other wrong.

In other words you have to let go of achieving a specific outcome in order to achieve a constructive outcome. Otherwise, there is a risk of becoming bogged down in the conflict that is directed by the cycle of pain. As Bill Bullard says, ‘the highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another’s world.’ Opinion on the other hand, ‘requires no accountability, no understanding.’

As mentioned in the previous steps, the aim is to enter into any correspondence with acceptance underpinned by compassionate assertiveness. This will shine through in your communication and it will in turn lessen the risk of that communication descending into cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance according to Frantz Fanon is:

Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalise, ignore and even deny anything that doesn’t fit in with the core belief.

The process of activism as a whole needs to be seen as an ongoing process that is always open to modification. As long as there is language there will always be a need for activism because even in the most utopian of scenarios there will always be a need for vigilance. Otherwise, there will always be a risk that the reductionist nature of language will, in combination with the mind’s tendency to equate opinion with identity, lead to tunnel vision and ultimately, cognitive dissonance. What we do not want to do for example is replace neo-liberalism with some other ‘ism’ that is just as socially and environmentally lacking.

It is important therefore to emphasise that the ongoing nature of activism should not be seen as a chore. Instead we need to convert activism from something that is reactionary and conflict-laden into something that is regenerative and integral to our social fabric. 

In other words, by looking for areas of common ground, you are helping to pave an easier path towards discussing issues where there is less common ground. This is because your relationship is already built on the desire for cooperation rather than the need to gain moral superiority. The fact that you are also employing acceptance, compassion and assertiveness means that the tone of the interaction will either be constructive or you will know that it is necessary to walk away.

Step 4: The Art of Critical Thinking

Language is an extraordinarily useful tool, but it also has inherent limitations. By turning the complexity of our experience into words and concepts, it allows us to communicate, analyse and make sense of the world. But in doing so, it inevitably breaks something vastly more complex into manageable conceptual pieces.

There is nothing wrong with this; language could hardly function otherwise. What matters is recognising the limitation. The world we describe through language is not the world in its entirety. Our ideas, categories and narratives are simplified representations of something much more complex.

Holistic Activism therefore encourages us to approach our opinions and perspectives as part of an ongoing conversation rather than as fixed positions that need to be defended. Critical thinking is not about proving ourselves right or somebody else wrong. It is about examining our assumptions, listening to perspectives that challenge us and continually adding nuance to our understanding.

For this process to be sustainable, it also needs to feel joyful and regenerative. Activism that continually reinforces conflict, outrage and division can contribute to burnout and make it harder to build the broad, resilient movements needed for meaningful change. This is why Critical Thinking cannot be separated from the other three steps of Holistic Activism.

Spending time in a space beyond language is particularly important. When we experience the world without immediately trying to conceptualise it, our sense of identity becomes less dependent upon the ideas and narratives generated by the mind. This can create space to question our assumptions and become more receptive to the possibility that our understanding of what is right, wrong, possible or necessary may be incomplete.

Critical thinking therefore works best when it is oriented towards finding common ground rather than seeking validation for our existing opinions. Sometimes the outcome will be that one position is better supported than another. But if the process is framed simply as one person being right and another wrong, it can reinforce the polarisation and cognitive rigidity that critical thinking should help us move beyond.

Instead, the aim is to add layers of nuance to what others are saying, so that everyone involved can come away with a deeper understanding and a sense of ownership of whatever emerges from the conversation. This requires compassionate assertiveness: the ability to challenge ideas while maintaining respect and connection with the person expressing them.

Consider the controversial question of ‘overpopulation’. Rather than beginning with whether someone is right or wrong about the term itself, we can examine the underlying issues that concern them: access to healthcare and education, reproductive autonomy, resource consumption, ecological limits, inequality and community resilience.

This can reveal significant areas of common ground. Mutual aid, universal access to healthcare and education, and greater economic equity can all contribute to a more resilient, lower-carbon society. In such circumstances, population growth is likely to stabilise regardless of whether we agree that ‘overpopulation’ is the appropriate way to describe the problem. This creates an opportunity to connect with people who may not share our language or analysis while still working towards outcomes we value.

The planet does not care which individual opinion wins an argument. What matters is whether we can build a sufficiently broad and effective movement to respond to the ecological and social challenges we face. Such a movement will inevitably contain a diversity of perspectives. Critical thinking is essential to holding that diversity together without requiring everyone to think alike.

One particularly important critical-thinking skill is recognising when a complex issue has been reduced to a dichotomy. Sometimes this takes the form of a false dilemma, in which people are presented with only two possible positions. Town planning provides a useful example. High-density development is often justified on the basis that it helps prevent urban sprawl. From this perspective, someone who opposes high-density development in their neighbourhood can easily be characterised as supporting low-density development on the urban fringe.

But this is a false choice. Thousands of existing homes and other spaces may be vacant or underused. Existing suburbs can be retrofitted and adapted, while former industrial land can potentially be regenerated. David Holmgren’s work on Retrofitting Suburbia, for example, explores possibilities that sit outside the simplistic high-density-versus-sprawl binary.

This does not mean high-density development has no role to play. It means we should be cautious about treating any particular planning solution as universally applicable. Once a complex problem is reduced to two competing positions, other possibilities (and sometimes the interests that benefit from promoting a particular solution) can disappear from view. Critical thinking allows us to reopen those possibilities.

It is also important to distinguish critiquing an idea from attacking the person who expresses it. An ad hominem attack shifts attention away from the substance of an argument and towards the character or perceived motives of the person making it. Critical thinking should examine ideas, evidence, assumptions and consequences rather than attempting to discredit people. This is particularly important in an age of mass communication.

Free speech gives people the opportunity to express competing perspectives, but it does not automatically make those perspectives equally well-founded. Those with greater wealth, influence or access to media can have a disproportionate ability to shape public narratives. Without critical thinking, free speech can therefore amplify cognitive bias on a massive scale. The answer is not to suppress uncomfortable perspectives, but to develop the capacity to examine them critically.

This is why free speech and critical thinking are complementary rather than competing values. One creates space for ideas to be expressed; the other gives us the tools to examine them. Without the first, perspectives can be suppressed. Without the second, perspectives can become accepted as unquestionable knowledge simply because they are repeated often enough or promoted by sufficiently powerful institutions.

Ultimately, Critical Thinking within Holistic Activism asks us to acknowledge that our own perspectives are incomplete while still being willing to challenge ideas that cause harm. It combines acceptance with discernment, compassion with assertiveness, and openness with intellectual rigour. This inspires a systems thinking approach to driving change, one that aligns with the interconnected world we perceive during a state of yūgen.

For a more in-depth introduction to the four steps, please read/download the Holistic Activism Booklet (link on the homepage). Feel free also to print and distribute it.