The Antidote To Not-Enoughness | Robin Wall Kimmerer

1. Integrate Diverse Worldviews

Recognize and utilize both Western science for biophysical questions and Indigenous worldviews for value-laden, emotional, and spiritual knowledge, without mixing them, to gain comprehensive solutions to complex problems.

2. Treat World as Gift

Adopt a worldview that treats the natural world as a gift, leading you to consume less, cherish what you have, and ground your well-being in peace and belonging with the living world, rather than material possessions.

3. Redefine Personal Wealth

Shift your understanding of wealth from individual accumulation to well-being that flows from sharing what you have and reciprocating, ensuring all beings in the ecosystem have what they need.

4. Cultivate Enoughness Mindset

Actively recognize and embrace a sense of ’enoughness’ in your life to resist consumerist pressures, fostering personal well-being, security, and the capacity to share abundance.

5. Reclaim Your Attention

Divert your attention from economic and market forces that promote consumption and instead focus on the natural world and what genuinely sustains you, fostering contentment and resisting a scarcity mindset.

6. Practice Deep Gratitude

Engage in daily gratitude practices that acknowledge your life’s contingency on other beings, moving beyond superficial thanks to a profound understanding of interdependency with the living world.

7. Reciprocal Breath Gratitude

During breathing, consciously acknowledge that you inhale oxygen from plants and exhale carbon dioxide for them, fostering a profound sense of reciprocity, belonging, and gratitude for the living world.

8. Morning Gratitude Inventory

Begin your day by taking a ‘gratitude inventory’ of the natural world around you, observing and appreciating specific elements like birds, sun, or plants, to foster humility, connection, and a sense of abundance.

9. Share for True Security

Achieve a deeper sense of wealth and security by sharing what you have with others, fostering strong relationships and a sense of belonging that is more enduring than individual accumulation.

10. Prioritize Belonging Over Belongings

Shift your focus from accumulating material possessions to cultivating a sense of belonging through strong, reciprocal relationships within your community, which provides more enduring security and contentment.

11. Connect with Nature Locally

Turn off social media and actively learn the names and gifts of local plants and animals, like ‘Heal All,’ to foster a sense of contentment, security, and connection to the abundant natural world.

12. View Plants as Persons

Adopt an indigenous worldview that recognizes plants and other living beings as ‘persons’ or ‘subjects’ with agency and intelligence, fostering respect and deeper relationships beyond objectification.

13. Emulate Trees for Relationships

Learn from trees by building a multiplicity of good, sharing relationships with others, as this strategy fosters long-term sustainability and security by not hoarding resources.

14. Cooperate During Stress

During times of environmental stress or resource shortage, prioritize cooperation and mutualism in human societies, recognizing that nature demonstrates these principles often lead to greater success.

15. Apply Biomimicry Principles

Explore principles from the science of biomimicry beyond product design, applying nature’s models of community and economic organization to inform how human societies can better organize for well-being.

16. Question Destructive Economics

Critically challenge the current economic system by asking why it often destroys life-sustaining elements, and look to the natural world for models of abundance, sharing, and reciprocity to inform alternatives.

17. Engage in Gift Economies

Participate in local ‘gift economies’ by sharing resources like books, tools, or knowledge, or by joining community initiatives like food co-ops and free farm stands, to foster mutual support and reduce individual accumulation.

18. Build Accountable Communities

Actively work to create or join smaller, mutually accountable communities built on good relationships, as this fosters gift economies and serves as an antidote to loneliness and species loneliness.

19. Address Species Loneliness

Recognize and address ‘species loneliness,’ the estrangement from the living world, by actively learning about and connecting with the plants and animals around you to foster a sense of being cared for by the land.

20. Engage Nature with Curiosity

Approach the natural world with curiosity, attention, and humility, using tools like iNaturalist or Merlin to learn about the plants and animals around you, fostering connection and community.

21. Start a Community Garden

Initiate or join a community garden to cultivate relationships with soil, seeds, plants, and neighbors, fostering a gift economy through shared produce and mutual learning.

22. Model Abundance & Sharing

Emulate the service berry’s natural generosity by sharing abundance beyond what is needed for personal sustenance, fostering reciprocal exchanges within your community and ecosystem.

23. Try 10% Happier App

Download the 10% with Dan Harris app for a library of guided meditations to help with stress, anxiety, sleep, focus, and self-compassion, plus access to weekly live community sessions and ad-free podcast episodes.