A personal exploration of renewal, healing, growth, and what it means to create a life that can renew itself.

Regeneration Means Becoming Anew

To me, regeneration means so many things.

That is part of what makes the word so powerful.

There isn’t one single definition that captures all of it. To regenerate is to renew, to become anew, to be reborn. It is the possibility that something can heal, grow, change, and come alive again.

When I think of regeneration, I think of unhealthy cells renewing and becoming healthy again. I think of someone recovering from an illness or injury and eventually using their body in ways they never thought they would again. I think of someone who has been living in scarcity, paycheck to paycheck, learning how to slow down, live more intentionally, and cultivate a different relationship with abundance.

Regeneration is both a belief and a practice.

It is the belief that we can heal, that we can grow, that we can change.

And it is the practice of creating the conditions that allow that renewal to happen.

The Life I Thought Sustainability Would Give Me

Some say regeneration is the next level up from sustainability. I discovered the idea of sustainability when I was young.

By the time I was a freshman in high school, I had already become deeply passionate about sustainability, environmental education, and creating change in my community. I became a sustainability change-maker and community advocate, and for years this work shaped how I saw the world.

But the way I initially understood sustainability was largely through the lens of optimization.

How could I optimize my diet so that it had a smaller impact on the planet while also supporting my health?

How could I use as little water as possible?

How could I reduce my energy use?

How could I become more self-sufficient in the way I moved through the world?

How could I get something done faster so I could fit more into my day?

I was really good at this.

I remember doing things like my math homework during Spanish class so that I could use that time for something else. I was always looking for ways to fit one more activity into a day, accomplish something more efficiently, or squeeze more out of the resources I had.

In many ways, that mindset was productive.

It was also exhausting.

By the time I graduated high school and entered my first couple years of college, I was deeply burned out.

And eventually I had to confront something uncomfortable:

The way I was trying to live sustainably was not sustainable for me.

When Sustainability Stopped Being Sustainable

Later, I spent years working toward what I thought was my dream job.

When I finally got there, externally it looked great. I loved the work. People would tell me how amazing the work I was doing was.

But internally, I was struggling.

I didn’t feel amazing.

I didn’t feel like I was doing particularly well.

I was exhausted, and something about the way I was living wasn’t working.

At the same time, I was beginning to see similar tensions within the sustainability movement I cared so deeply about.

Some of the strategies we were promoting in an effort to solve environmental problems weren’t necessarily addressing the deeper problem. Some could even exacerbate the very systems they were meant to improve.

That forced me to take a step back.

To slow down.

To look more deeply at the problem before rushing toward a solution.

We used to have a slide in one of our presentations about a quote attributed to Albert Einstein: if he had an hour to solve a difficult problem, he would spend 55 minutes understanding the problem and only the last 5 minutes solving it. 

That idea has stayed with me.

Sometimes the most important thing we can do is stop trying to fix everything long enough to ask:

What is actually happening here?

And that became a question I started asking not only about the environment, but about my own life.

From Sustaining to Regenerating

Around this same time, I was watching a new word begin to take its place alongside sustainability.

Regeneration.

The idea was that sustaining our current way of life was no longer enough.

We needed to rethink it.

Restore it.

Redo it.

Regenerate it.

And something clicked for me.

Because I couldn’t sustain my own way of life through constant optimization.

And I don’t believe we can sustain larger systems indefinitely when they continually deplete the very things that allow them to function.

Regeneration offered a different question.

Instead of asking only: How can I make this system more efficient?

We can ask:

What would help this system become healthy, alive, resilient, and capable of renewing itself?

That distinction has changed the way I think about almost everything.

Regeneration Isn’t Optimization

I still value efficiency.

There are absolutely situations where being more efficient is useful.

But I no longer believe efficiency is always the right question.

I can optimize my transportation while destroying my sleep.

I can optimize my schedule while damaging my relationships.

I can optimize my food choices while developing an unhealthy obsession with what I eat.

I can optimize my productivity while becoming completely depleted.

At some point, optimization can become its own form of extraction.

It asks:

How can I get more out of this?

Regeneration asks something different:

What does this living system need in order to thrive?

Sometimes the answer is more efficiency.

Sometimes it is rest.

Sometimes it is nourishment.

Sometimes it is movement, play, connection, spaciousness, boundaries, creativity, grief, stillness, or simply time.

The goal isn’t maximum output.

The goal is life.

Regeneration Isn’t Rest, Either

Rest is part of regeneration, but regeneration is bigger than rest.

I think about it in terms of yin and yang.

Rest is the yin.

It is the pause, the stillness, the receiving, the restoring.

But regeneration has yang, too.

There is movement.

Creation.

Growth.

Action.

Contribution.

Engagement with the world.

A regenerative life isn’t a life where we stop doing everything.

It is a life where rest and action can exist in relationship with one another.

Where we can move and recover.

Expand and contract.

Create and restore.

Give and receive.

There is a rhythm to it.

Regeneration Isn’t Self-Improvement

I’m not against self-improvement.

I want to grow.

I want to improve my health. I want to become a better communicator. I want to manage my money more wisely. I want to become more patient with my children. I want to keep learning.

But our culture’s version of self-improvement can become another form of optimization.

Do more.

Go faster.

Push harder.

Fix yourself.

Become better.

Become more productive.

Become your best self.

And if you aren’t careful, you can spend your entire life trying to improve yourself while becoming increasingly disconnected from the life you’re actually living.

Regeneration says:

I can improve myself, but not at the sacrifice of other areas of my life.

I can grow without moving at someone else’s pace.

I can become healthier without turning health into another obsession.

I can change without believing that who I am right now is fundamentally wrong.

In some ways, self-improvement is a result of regeneration rather than the goal of it.

It’s similar to meditation or yoga.

We don’t have to practice only because of the benefits we hope to get from the practice. The practice itself matters. And then the benefits come.

Regeneration can be like that.

It is something we participate in, not something we have to force.

A Life That Can Renew Itself

Maybe regeneration isn’t about creating a perfect life.

Maybe it’s about creating a life that has the capacity to renew itself.

A life where we can grow without constantly pushing.

Where we can improve without continually optimizing.

Where we can rest without giving up on movement.

Where we can change without believing that who we are right now isn’t enough.

I believe we can heal.

I believe we can grow.

I believe we can change.

And I believe we don’t always have to force that change.

Sometimes we need to slow down enough to understand what is actually happening. Sometimes we need to nourish what we want to grow. Sometimes we need to let go of what is depleting us.

And sometimes we simply need to create enough space for something within us to begin renewing itself.

That is what regeneration means to me.