Climate Psychology 

We are in raw times…

Does it help you to know that this rawness, these painful feelings are actually a healthy response to what is happening? They are confusing and so uncomfortable, but they make sense. Those emotions are evidence of your love for the world.

So what do we do? I have been exploring that question for the past 5 years. Or maybe a lifetime.

Your heavy feelings are actually symptoms of sanity…

Does it help you to know that this rawness, these painful feelings are actually a healthy response to what is happening? They are confusing and so uncomfortable, but they make sense. Those emotions are evidence of your love for the world.

So what do we do? I have been exploring that question for the past 5 years. Or maybe a lifetime.

If your heart is breaking, let it break you open…

Joanna Macy calls it The Great Unraveling. Francis Weller speaks of The Long Dark. We read about floods and wildfires and droughts and famines. We see favorite landscapes changing. We prepare our “go-bags” in case of evacuation. We hear of devastating species loss. And we are struck by the suffering - of our planet, of the more than human world, of marginalized people in our own communities and worldwide. 

If you are awake to the climate crisis, you may not know what to do with the emotions that have been coursing through you -  grief,  fear, anxiety, numbness, sorrow, guilt, or anger are some of the most common ones. You may feel alone as crises continue to unfold, but life around you goes on as usual. You may wonder if all that you feel (or are trying not to feel) makes sense.

To become the person you are meant to be for the world and the people you love…

One answer growing in me is that we can create spaces where we feel both brave and safe to share our pain with others who are also grappling with grief for the world. To unload the things we have been carrying alone, to be borne by many shoulders. To sit in circles and hold hot cups of tea to our hearts and talk about difficult things. To let the tears flow, or the shame or the anger. When we see ourselves being seen and hear ourselves being heard in our vulnerable places, the layers of paralysis or burnout or despair start to lift. When we “keep our grief warm,” as Francis Weller encourages, when we keep expressing it and allowing it to move, we may start to feel the new green tendrils of other things too.

Relief. Connection. Support. Inspiration. Resting in community. Reminders of who we are and what we’re here for. Energy to sustain our healing work. Inner resilience supporting our outer work in the world.

The world needs our hearts to break, and it needs our hearts to break open. So we can let the heaviness of our times move through us and move us into living in ways that can birth a new world into being.

We are wired for connection. We are built to heal and to be held in community. Our resilience is born there.

Who do you want to be?

In love with being alive. Experiencing joy. Learning to hold gratitude even during uncertain times.

Becoming a good ancestor. Living in life-sustaining ways that create a liveable world for generations to come.

Feeling the wholesome remorse that can move us into repair and renewal.

Pulling up our sleeves and doing the good work that we love. Building inner resources to sustain outer work.

Seeking a more just and equitable future. Devoted to our children, to our Elders, to marginalized people, to the land.  

Becoming a mandala of people offering meaningful effort that blends together into real change.

Will you join me?

I am a climate-aware therapist and faculty member of the Climate Emotional Resilience Institute. A trained Good Grief Network facilitator, I am certified in Climate Psychology. Through workshops and talks on climate & mental health, I support parents, educators, climate advocates, caring professionals and all people who want to orient to a more sustainable life on this beautiful planet.

I offer my gratitude for teachings from transpersonal theory, Somatic Experiencing, Good Grief Network, Joanna Macy’s Work That Reconnects, Climate Psychology at CIIS, Kaira Jewell Lingo, Francis Weller's Wild Edge of Sorrow, and The Embody Lab. The deep work offered by these teachers and organizations help us leverage our innate capacity to grow, to listen and to act.