Descriptions of the different emotions that interviewees experienced in their work for socio-ecological change constituted a significant part of the interviews. It was noticeable that the ways of perceiving and handling challenging emotions differed between the interviewees. One aspect that emerged throughout the interviews was the nature of the emotions that activists experienced. Many interviewees reported feeling guilty in their work for socio-ecological change. One interviewee reported that “the most active activists are feeling guilty because they think they are not doing enough for any cause, for human rights, for climate justice, for whatever” (ES2). Particularly, activists from the Global North struggled with the ‘burden’ of guilt and responsibility that comes with their privileges and historically grown identities within a colonial system: “No matter how much I do, I never do enough. Many people lack the sense of having the right to exist, especially white people from the Global North that first want to work off their historical debt” (DE2).

Several interviewees reported feeling frustrated and anxious in their work, especially if they had been active for a long time. As one interviewee pointed out: “The emotions of despair and rage and extreme frustration over what’s going on, everything that should happen but isn’t happening. It’s become a cliché to talk about climate anxiety. [...] and there is that feeling that almost literally the world around us is going up in flames” (SE1). Connected to this, interviewees described a lack of psychological research and knowledge about emotional experiences of activism. One interviewee posed the question of how psychological knowledge could help them cope with their emotions in extreme situations, for example, when being overwhelmed with the climate crisis, or when dealing with traumatic experiences and police violence (DE1). Another interviewee wondered about how they could learn to deal with environmental and social loss, asking specifically: “What is the psychological effect of social breakdown?” (US1). Another aspect was the question about the effects of feeling hopeful. Few interviewees mentioned hope at all, but those who did had different concerns about it. One interviewee explained how “For me, it’s always very interesting, the feeling of hope. If hope is something that keeps you going or is it something that makes you complacent like ‘Oh it’s gonna be fine’[…]” (NL2).

One solution described by the interviewees was to create more spaces to talk about their perceived emotions in depth. These should go beyond the short and superficial sharing of, for example, tiredness or sadness, and recognise the diversity of experiences. According to them, there was a painful discrepancy between the extraordinary experiences that activist groups shared, and the lack of space to pause and jointly acknowledge these experiences and the emotions that arose. One interviewee summarised the importance of psychological work in this field when they shared how “we need to grapple with works on moaning and loss and grief and how to sustain our anger and willingness to fight against all odds. And clearly these are psychological, I mean, this is psychological work where psychologists can be of immense help. Both through therapy or groups sessions, but also through text, through writings about these” (SE1). According to another interviewee, it can be very challenging and uncomfortable to talk about emotions in the group, especially related to the internal dynamics of the collective (NL3). Here, psychological help may be particularly relevant.

The theme of ‘becoming resilient’ was created as an umbrella term for all aspects of long-term activism and its encompassing challenges. Various interviewees felt exhausted by their work and lacked recreation. Repeatedly, they found themselves stuck, overwhelmed and overworked because they had not allowed themselves the breaks they needed. They mentioned symptoms of burnout, depression, and disillusionment, and raised questions about how to prevent or deal with this state. It seemed to be a challenge for various interviewees to set realistic boundaries of how much work- and emotional load they can carry. Particularly in demanding times, many interviewees reported a lack of coping strategies to deal with stress, for example, one participant described “I notice that I have days when I see very little of the outside world. Where I often think that I feel really unhealthy in my body and in my head in such hot phases of projects. [...] I don’t think we really know how we can help each other.” (DE6).

The interviewees’ exhaustion was partially attributed to a sense of urgency and time pressure. “In the climate movement, there is this ever-present feeling of urgency. We have to do this, (...), and if we don’t, we’re going to be completely fucked. But at the same time, you can’t keep running all the time. One question is: How do you balance the urgency with the fact that you are not going to be able to achieve change just like that?” (EL1). Finding a healthy balance is a challenge for both collective practices and individual activist routines, represented in this interviewee’s statement: “How do we move at a meaningful pace? [...] How do I strike the right balance between like doing too much and not doing enough?” (UK3). Overworking was also attributed to the general narrative that ‘activists’, by self-definition, want to do more and more, and neglect self-care as part of their radical practice of resistance and regeneration.

In addition, some interviewees mentioned an overall feeling of disconnection from each other and from nature. It seems to be a challenge to balance their engagement for a more sustainable and connected world with an increasingly disconnected, digitalised way of working together. Connected to this, participants stated increasing feelings of numbness. One interviewee reported that they “sometimes have moments of ‘what’s the point?’ Kind of tapping into apathy and nihilism. It tends to be when I’m really overworked and not giving myself enough time to really rest or play” (NL4). Another interviewee described their detachment from sadness and other feelings: “For example, the new IPCC report came out and I was reading it, and I just didn’t feel anything about it. I wasn’t sad […] it didn’t really do anything with me anymore. And that made me quite concerned. […] I want to keep this motivation of finding these things shocking, so I am motivated to fight against them” (NL2).

To counter burnout, disconnection, and apathy, many interviewees considered resilience as a part of a collective—not merely personal—practice. According to some interviewees, the lack of focus on collective resilience is partly rooted in neoliberal systems that individualise and pathologise collective problems. For example, one interviewee suggested that “in social movements it would be powerful to consider and really have more dialogue about how these collective structures are directly impacting our well-being, and our nervous systems and our mental health” (NL4). Various interviewees mentioned the importance of having mutual support groups and investigating the power of the group for the wellbeing of individuals. One interviewee reported their frustrating experiences with mainstream therapists (NL3). They longed for professionals who do not question the decision of leading an activist life including all the confrontation and stress it involves.

Interviewees frequently addressed structural barriers that made their active and resilient engagement difficult. The topic that has been mentioned most prominently is money, or as one interviewee put it: “you actually have to survive” (US1). Without financial resources, people are excluded since they might not even be able to afford the necessities for activism, such as online data to join video conferences. Several interviewees expressed their struggles to joggle activism besides other commitments like work, education, or family. It was pointed out that in particular members of less privileged groups often do not have the freedom to engage in activism due to lack of money and time. Furthermore, financial limitations and “unequal access to nature” (UK2) also prevent less privileged groups from gathering the necessary experiences to become an activist.

Moreover, interviewees described that they have to face an immense power imbalance between themselves and their political opponents. Most of the time there is “definitely skill, but not as much skill and money in our group compared to whoever we end up having a campaign against” (NZ1). In line with this, the interviewees often experienced frustration because of the lack of funding and posed the question of how to “build collective ways of funding the political movement that we need, especially in the Global South” (US1). In a conversation after the interview, one interviewee also clearly stated that they think that financial and temporal resources should go directly into socio-ecological activism instead of researching it which has a lower importance for them (DE4). However, interviewees also noted that receiving funding holds further challenges such as complicated dynamics between paid activists and volunteers.

Various interviewees mentioned processes of identity formation within and around socio-ecological movements. Many seemed to be reflecting on the various roles that people take on within the movement, and the expectations that come with those roles. One interviewee mentioned that “there is a strong reliance on the fact that people share visions and values will be enough. But after workshops and trainings, I realised how valuable it is to learn certain competences, for example, differentiation of different roles. What can be my role as an activist, and what is it not?” (DE1). Similarly, for some people it was important to remind themselves that all roles are important and have their respective right to exist. The idea of finding a role within the movement and creating their own ‘ideal’ identity as a contributing activist was on the minds of several interviewees.

However, another interviewee explained the potential downsides of activist roles: “I find the word authenticity difficult. How to be in authentic relationships when I am trying to project the idea of the good self? Because then this model facilitator, model activist, model researcher, model white person is this thing that is interacting with the world, rather than me with the fragility, questions and not knowing the answers and all of those things. […] One thing that runs through all the work I do is this desire to find real connection” (UK1). Another interviewee raised related questions about the potential of identities to both unlock power and harm. They asked, “How do we manage the psychological process of forming genuine and empowering identities without having those becoming a new kind of prison, […] instead learn to grow such psychological spaces where our identity, our sense of self, our sense of our collective self can compete, evolve, and grow?” (ES1).

Beyond questions around the (dis-)advantages of identification, one interviewee asked about the psychological mechanisms that create high identification in the first place (DE3). They wanted to know more about how to strengthen identification with different socio-ecological movements, but also how to deal with the fact that individuals have very different identities. Thereby, they asked about a ‘good’ balance between a strong identification with some socio-ecological groups and causes, and the weaker identification with many other causes and respective groups.

Many participants addressed questions and challenges regarding working together in one’s group and across social movements. Some of the questions revolved around organising action groups. One participant directly posed the question about what’s the best way to organise? (DE6) Another interviewee described that their group aimed for flat hierarchies in their structures: “One of the challenges [is] how to avoid hierarchies that are always there. People with more experiences […] [have] a little bit of training, so that’s a challenge always, how not to impose thoughts but at the same time get shit done” (NL1). These flat hierarchies required more patience as deadlines were not strictly handled. Another interviewee talked about establishing collective practices that represent alternative societies: “For a long time, I have been curious about how to implement what anarchists would call prefigurative politics; so we’re creating the world we would like to live in by doing that as much as possible in our daily interactions” (NL4), and addressed the reluctance to embrace leadership in socio-ecological movements: “I think that in a lot of lefty movements there is quite an aversion to authoritarianism and to leaders in general. I wonder how this potentially hinders collective action. […] So, I’m quite curious about what healthy leadership looks like, how there can be different models of it” (NL4).

Creating an inviting and constructive way of working as a group was a challenge that was mentioned by several interviewees. One participant described it as “figuring out ways to have more difficult conversations, ways to deal with disagreement inside the movement without like holding grudges or getting super angry” (NL3). In line with this, interviewees also struggled with bringing different people and opinions together: “Theoretically, I really get behind that it’s like a positive thing to have diversity [but] in practical terms it’s really hard when there are 25 different opinions in the room and you have got to make a decision” (UK3). Within these struggles, another participant raised questions about finding a collective strategy (DE6). They describe a lack of a shared understanding of the political situation, for example, who are opponents and what needs to be done.

Next to struggles with diversity of opinion, interviewees also struggled with not being diverse enough as movements. One participant raised the problem that “we don’t reach many parts of society, or they don’t organise within our movement. And in some respect we don’t seem to address them. I find that quite terrible, but I don’t know how to solve that. Apparently, we have a culture or a language that is not inviting for people” (DE4). One interviewee addressed the challenge of finding a balance in their groups between resistance and regenerative work since emotional work within a group can also be very time-consuming: “If you focus on people, then this group could turn into a therapy group, and not an environmental justice group, right? So, I think it is very difficult to find the balance. […] And then, sometimes, we put too much focus on the objectives without thinking ‘where is the people’” (ES2).

One aspect that interviewees mentioned repeatedly was their capacity to find, sustain and spread motivation. Several interviewees mentioned the challenge of creating commitment in other people. One aspect of this was communication—how to address people, which value systems to appeal to, and which emotions to evoke were open questions for many interviewees. Addressing and involving people was described as especially challenging when their life circumstances and needs diverged from the interviewees’ own lives: “It can be really hard to motivate people who are not already involved in activism because people are tired and overwhelmed by life itself.” (NL3). Similarly, many interviewees expressed frustration at the difficulty of motivating people to take action which targets structural change that goes beyond individual or technical solutions: “And [people] don’t see the agency in the most responsible countries that are producing this crisis” (US1).

Furthermore, interviewees wondered about the mechanics of how to involve the broader public and incentivise the willingness to become active. There seemed to be doubt about whether and how to frame issues in a catchy way that appeals to people instead of putting them off. Especially the interviewees who had been involved in movements for a long time struggled with repetitiveness of their work: “I basically, for the last ten years, have been trying to phrase the same problem again and again. We all have said and written down these things in 95,000 variations already. So, I always wonder: Which words can I use so that the message is not worn out and doesn’t sound old?” (DE4).

A cross-cutting theme regarding motivation were reflections on participants own and their group’s efficacy. Many interviewees mentioned a desire for more experiences of accomplishment. According to them, activists are constantly caught between two poles. On the one hand, they know that there is a lot of work to be done. On the other hand, they do not know which problem to tackle first, or they do not have the capabilities to deal with all the (social/ organisational) problems they encounter. One interviewee noted “It’s difficult to know what to do when there is so much to do always” (UK3). Several people pointed out that they were unsure of their societal impact as individuals and/or activist groups and emphasised the need to clarify their own efficacy as activists.

To face difficulties with their efficacy, two interviewees pointed towards the importance of empowering collective experiences as the fuel of movements (e.g., participation in civil disobedience). One interviewee described that they “experienced a lot of powerful, collective moments, […] those that you cannot easily replicate but which are very special moments that have so much power that people stay for many years and participate. And it would have been interesting to know more about these dynamics” (DE1). According to the interviewees, these empowering experiences enable people to keep fighting in the face of political apathy and a rapidly progressing climate catastrophe.

Another cross-cutting theme was the need to understand how societal change works. This manifests itself as “the need to use psychological [...] tools to understand what’s going on. [...] Not what we go through as activist. But what processes of denial and repression [...] operate in society at large” (SE1). Several interviewees mentioned their need for strategies to reach the general public and asked what narratives should be included. For example, an interviewee asked, “What happens when we reach 1.5 degrees? Because the whole ‘soon it's going to be too late’-narrative is collapsing in a way” (DE4). This points to a key challenge of socio-ecological movements: The need to develop a viable theory of change for the transformation of societies to show people how they can contribute effectively, as individuals as well as groups.