By: Zach Miller

Los Angeles has set some of the ambitious goals to transition to 100% renewable energy by 2045. While the plan will be finalized sometime in the future, Adam invites us to start with now. 

Internally, according to Lafferty, we all have access to a kind of renewable energy that springs from “living authentically and committing to a core vision for ourselves”. He uses material energy as a metaphor for describing our sense of verve. He encourages us to think of it as an inductive vitality, “derived from genuine self-expression”.

“Too often”, he continues, “we rely on the off-gassing of external validation—seeking acceptance, approval, and acknowledgment”. 

“These unstable fumes”, which he says are often “extracted from trying to look good or be right”, are inefficiently consumed by the efforting to “run from what we’re afraid we are or might be”. If this racket, or what he calls our “role self”, is left unexamined, we repeat the vicious cycle into depletion. 

“Renewal”, then, he says,  involves “stepping off the looping tape of our story” and reconnecting with the wellspring of energy that he says comes from “relaxing into the genuine acceptance of our whole selves” and “committing to live from a place of personal integrity”. 

There, he says, is a space where we can gently see our “what is,” free from charged assessments. “And in that space, energy can be transformed from exhaustion, extraction, and burnout to a much lighter feeling of opportunity, potential, and choice.”

So why is this important? 

Because, Lafferty offers, “We are at our best when we believe what we’re trying to do is of value to us”. 

Particularly if the task that we are up against is challenging; “If we can choose to see what’s in front of us as a growth opportunity rather than as a stressor, we will also begin to see more actions available to us”. 

An energetic feel, he says, of “expansion rather than contraction.”

How did we get here?

Dr. Tara Brach, psychologist, author and teacher,  calls it the universal “trance of unworthiness”, where, she says, “90% of the western population” has self-limiting beliefs about themselves and the potential of their capabilities. 

This means, according to Lafferty,  “that it is possible that the majority of professionals in the global north are looking at the actions available to them redacted by their own perceptions”.

“Fear at a global scale” he says, “is made-up of a majority of individuals who, at best, view it as their grim duty to get involved”. 

How do we change it?

Adam cites  Dr. Tobias Luthe of ETH Zurich, a resilient regenerative systems designer and researcher.  

Luthe points to a social change theory, originally written by Dr. Damon Centola from University of Pennsylvania, suggests “when 25% of a group adopts a new behavior or agrees with a point of view, it can become the new norm and influence the rest of the group”. 

In this case, according to Lafferty, the new point of view is a “personal sense of freedom.”And “in that freedom”, he says,  “there is power. Renewable power”.

Published By: Aize Perez