By: Francesca Mundrick & Nicole Troy
With much negativity, uncertainty, and hopelessness in today’s world, disempowerment, apathy, and ignorance run rampant. In our pursuit for more as a human race, we have taken ourselves further and further away from nature and, thus, further away from our true selves. We can only presume to move forward by reigniting and strengthening our relationship with the Earth and with each other. Our first step is empowering our lives with hope and positivity.
With hope and positivity as a foundation, sustainability powers humanity in change making collective impact. Sustainability is so vital because it is the nexus between thought and action. Sustainability serves to bring to light the true value of the natural world by igniting our connection to it as individuals and as a human community. We must work together to achieve a true balance of stewardship using the human cornerstone of communication and sharing as our main tool.
The motivation for starting this community centered platform was to inspire hope surrounding sustainable storytelling. As Founders, our number one goal is to facilitate content sharing that is inspired, hopeful, and always centered on the beautiful connection we all have with the natural world and our human communities. We truly hope this space can help others find expression inspired by our awe-inspiring Planet while connecting with the natural world and community in a deeper, more thoughtful way.
Storytelling is Human. Sustainability connects to everything and all of us.
A Transformative Journey: Nicole
Nicole & Her Father, Michael Troy
As a trained professional in social psychology and sustainability I have a specific interest in the interaction that nature plays on humans overall well-being physically, emotionally and mentally. Research has continually shown that being in nature or even seeing photos of natural phenomena can invoke feelings that are pleasant and reduce anger, stress and fear. People in the field are also finding associations between lack of empathy and altruism that are linked to “nature deprivation”. There are so many individuals who suffer from depression, health problems and severe stress and anxiety because of the way humans are engaging in work/life balance, screen time, food choices and time spent indoors vs. outdoors.
There is a shift that truly needs to happen in reconnecting humans back with the natural world. Living harmoniously with the planet and giving back to the earth in productive ways (e.g planting trees, recycling, engaging in healthy food choices) can have drastic benefits to our own health as well as facilitate a level of empathy for one another and for the planet.
WEGSS was created with the intent to spread hopeful content and to help individuals find a deeper connection with nature. As founders we wanted to inspire change through positivity and an empathetic lens. Francesca and I first discussed our aspirations and goals for WEGSS during a time of great challenge in both of our personal lives and during the struggles that all of humanity faced during the Covid-19 pandemic. For me personally, WEGSS became a medium to generate positive energy during my fathers cancer diagnosis and subsequent treatments.
During the fall of 2021, I sat with my father in the hospital as we heard the harrowing words of a stage 4 lung cancer diagnosis. From that moment until his passing this past April, my family went on a journey that generated innumerable feelings of fear, grief, love and hope. Anyone who has been affected by cancer, understands how daunting the experience can be and the complete lack of control, while watching an individual you adore go through a physical and mental decline. What I admire most about my father was his steadfast, dependable, compassionate nature. As any good and loving parent would strive to do, he set the foundation for my passions and helped them flourish. He is the backbone for why I strive to make a difference in the world.
As a WEGSS Founder, I was able to find creative expression and solace in nature during a very daunting time in my life. Additionally, I found the space to further nurture my appreciation for the healing power of the natural world. Living in harmony with nature and with all living beings has always been an integral part of my life. However, losing a parent has made me delve even deeper into the need for my own transformational healing and desire to live in even greater alignment with simplicity and gratitude each day. I am hoping that as more platforms, organizations and education are presented about the importance of the natural world on our own health and well-being we will see a shift for the betterment of the planet.
If you are currently on a journey to find yourself and redefine your connection with nature, I hope you can find support and inspiration from the WEGSS community. Nature truly does have the power to slow us down and to facilitate a greater appreciation for the intrinsic value of life.
A Transformative Journey: Fran
Fran & Her Niece, Arianna
As a general rule, I feel that most people I interact with do not consider their connection to the Earth, natural or human history (our past as it connects to our future), and take education for granted. There seems to be a gap in thought, or even a physical gap, between most of humanity and the ground of the Earth. I see uncertainty, anger, sadness, and apathy all around me for more reasons than one. As a college lecturer, I notice students are increasingly anxious, disempowered, confused, and unsure. Are we having a crisis of defining what it means to be human? A disassociation from our roots to the Earth? Are we turning away from all the knowledge already there for us in Earth?
For a long time, the narratives of the climate crisis have dominated environmental learning. These narratives have been important for engaging negatively reinforced motivation in mobilizing environmental change by clearly highlighting human impacts. From these narratives, we must move beyond and engage people with a sense of empowerment. When learners, audiences, friends, colleagues, and family members comment in apathy and hopelessness regarding environmental change, perhaps our response should be uplifting and philosophical. Humans are not parasites to the Earth, we all evolved the same as all other living things on the Planet, we feed off the life-giving properties of Earth. Humans are not intruders, we are stewards. We are an innovative and adaptive species capable of anything. Treating ourselves, our neighbors, and our world with respect is within our true nature.
These feelings, observations, and considerations are what lead me to begin visualizing a platform like WEGSS. Let’s move away from the negative and understand how to use a true diversity of viewpoints in sustainability to create positive change in the world. Give people a hopeful narrative, a place to think, a path to travel on, actionable change, and systemic approaches; not an end of the line doom cliff.
While the foundational motivations for WEGSS were clear to me, the journey required to actualize it was long and necessary. Nicole and I worked for hours, days, months, and years brainstorming, designing, shaping, and modeling our ideas. During the very beginning of this process, the COVID-19 pandemic was at its peak of insanity, making it increasingly important to establish this more hopeful content base. At this time, I was struggling very deeply with familial hardship that caused me to decline in mental health substantially for the first time ever in my life. My sister had a baby in August of 2020. My sister and my niece were in an unsafe living situation and my sister was subjected to abuse by her partner. Living far away from us, my parents strung to action to support her with legal battles, living assistance, and emotional support. My parents both suffered in mental health and so I too fell victim to those consequences. I had never experienced real mental illness in my life. I am very confident and I do not believe in being a victim; it was very hard for me to accept that I was struggling. Overtime, I accepted those hardships as growth and it helped to elevate me more than I ever thought possible.
WEGSS became a long journey where my passions and creative thought could live and thrive. Eventually, I improved, got back on track, joined a PhD program, planned new travel and professional opportunities, and now started WEGSS. Nicole and I did not take three years to launch WEGSS because of our hardships, our journey in total was enriching, soul defying, and strengthened our process.
Looking back, we maintained our motivation to develop this platform with pure love, a thirst for knowledge, and a need to bring people joy through the power of the Earth.
With inspiration in sustainability,
Nicole Troy & Francesca Mundrick
WEGSS Founders & Team
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