[175] Climate play – with Lucy Hawthorne

A Sustainable Life with Jen Gale

Climate and play might not be two things that we naturally put together. And even less so, climate and 'playfulness'. Climate change is a huge, overwhelming, complext issue and i couldn't be more important. So we need to take this seriously and absolutely need to be bringing our best game, there's no room for messing around, right?
Maybe not!
I loved this chat with the brilliant Lucy Hawthorne, founder of Climate Play who is "making it safe, light and fun to face climate change". Lucy runs a range of workshops and programmes that help people work through emotions, information and actions associated with climate change. In this episode we discuss playfulness as a mindset and why that's so important when it comes to tackling big, serious issues like climate change.
You might think that Climate Play workshops, especially ones involving Lego are aimed at children, but that's very much not the case here - Lucy's workshops are for grown ups, and often grown ups working in proper grown up jobs in proper grown up companies. We talk about the importance of play, especially for adults - how it expands our minds, and puts us into a great, positive frame of mind, meaning we're at our best when attempting to tackle such big and complex issues as climate change.
There was a phrase that Lucy used at one point during the conversation - something like using play to 'put a softer edges on things to be able to have the harder conversations' that really struck me. I know that I can get very caught up in the importance of this work and the pressure I put on myself to get it right, because so much is at stake. That can mean that I'm potentially pretty intense when I attempt any conversations around climate change and climate action! Allowing ourselves (myself) to experiment and be more playful with what works and what doesn't, letting go of a fear of failure, because we can't fail as we're just experimenting and trying some stuff out, is such an important mindset shift, and one that I'm going to try and embrace. Along with the idea of embracing and doing more of the things that bring us joy, and thinking about how we can do more of what we do with a (genuine!) smile on our faces.
And speaking of big mindset shifts, look out for the brilliant one right at the end, where Lucy shares the power of simply swapping one simple word in our vocabulary, and how that can make us "more motivated, more likely to carry on doing it (climate action), and more likely to be smiling while I'm doing it."

Lucy Hawthorne

GOOD NEWS!
In the new Good News section after the main interview, I share some of the good climate news happening (because there is some, I promise!). Here's this weeks pick:

• Environment secretary to reconsider mandatory food waste reporting for businesses (Ends Report)
• Second UK company appoints nature to the board (Positive News)
• And much closer to home - some lovely feedback on Linked In on my Carbon Literacy course.
  Nicola says "Proud of this one. Thank you to Jen at Sustainable(ish) for taking what I find to be a minefield and distilling it down to the individual level and how we can actually make a difference, with some small (or big) adjustments to our thinking and lifestyles. One of my pledges was to commit to one meat free meal a week, I initially thought I would struggle with this, but a few months down the line it has not been as bad as I was expecting. With this one act I'm helping to save nearly 100kgs of CO2 across the year. If, like me you find the climate situation we are facing a challenge to get your head around and you have the opportunity to undertake carbon literacy training, I highly recommend that you take it."
  
  

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LISTEN...

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USEFUL LINKS:

• Climate Play
  - Website
  - Linked In
  - Climate Play meet-up
• Lucy Hawthorne on Linked In
• Lego Serious Play
  
• Talking about climate change video
• Climate equality: a planet for the 99%
• Bananas Game - Dr Emma Fieldhouse
• Play by Stuart Brown
• Climate Change Coaching by Charly Cox and Sarah Flynn
• Carbon Literacy training
• The Sustainable(ish) Clubhouse
• Crap-free Christmas course
  

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What do you think?
What does play mean to you?
How can you use this in the climate space to bring more curiosity and joy,
and to help you to let go of any fear of failure?
How can you be more playful and curious in your approach to climate action whether that's at home, work, or in your community?
Do let me know in the comments!

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