Wil Andruschak
Grant Neufeld neglected his personal health while pursuring his passion for helping others
‘The first job of every activist is to take care of yourself’
In the summer of 2007 Grant Neufeld was busy. Homelessness was on the rise as Calgary boomed. Alberta’s oilsands was also booming and attracting international attention. For an anti-poverty and environmental activist like Neufeld there was plenty of work to do and he struggles now to remember all of his commitments during that time: meetings about poverty media interviews about the housing shortage a project on local democracy work with the Green Party. “I know there were some others” he says unsatisfied by the incompleteness of his list. “That’s not something that I necessarily recommend for people — to be spread so thin.”
At the peak he was working 14-plus hours a day a schedule he acknowledges was completely unhealthy and unsustainable. “Bad sleeping schedules erratic eating way too many meetings and events” he recalls. Neufeld was chosen as the city’s “most active activist” in Fast Forward’s readers poll in 2007 and 2008 but eventually last fall he broke down. Neufeld had burnt himself out. “Basically from mid-September until the end of the year I was pretty useless.” He resigned from his staff job at the Arusha Centre and took time away from his other commitments to rest.
By running himself down like this he’d broken his own rule. “The first job of every activist is to take care of yourself” Neufeld says. “And I’m an excellent example of how not to do that.”
This isn’t the first time Neufeld has burnt himself out during the two decades he’s been an activist and his experience isn’t unique.
“What I have seen especially working in Alberta over the last couple of years is people really kind of flaring up and doing a lot of stuff and then just fading out” says Leila Darwish a Calgary-based peace and environmental activist. “…We really need to start asking the question: why are people burning out or stepping back or having to walk away from something that they’re so passionate about?”
For one many activists don’t keep balanced schedules. “I’m usually keeping myself right at the edge of capacity at all times” says Neufeld. They also take on too much often neglecting their personal health in their efforts to improve the health of others. “We tend to push ourselves really hard and because certain things aren’t changing we refuse to take care of ourselves” says Darwish. “We refuse to give ourselves a break. And I think when you have that kind of culture what happens is people don’t feel like they can take a break.”
Darwish and Neufeld both agree that activist culture needs to change so people are encouraged to take better care of themselves. “We need to be thinking about how to keep people in the game longer so the people that are still around can share their experience with the people who are coming in and the people who are coming in actually feel like they’re coming into a really vibrant powerful community” says Darwish.
Neufeld says it’s also important for new activists to have realistic expectations so they don’t burn out within a couple years. “To me this is a really critical thing for people engaging in activism to understand” he says. “The work you’re doing nine times out of 10… you will not see the results of your work.”
After a pseudo-hiatus (even when he’s burnt out he doesn’t step away from activism altogether) Neufeld is getting back into the work he loves. “The value in the work — the deep inner value — comes from knowing you’re helping people” says Neufeld. “That’s the most rewarding thing there is.” And in the meantime he knows he’s got to follow his own advice and pace himself better taking breaks when he needs them. “It’s quite irrational to be doing what I’m doing.”
