Managing our Emotions
The Climate-Crisis creates an endless stream of negative headlines to immerse ourselves in. While on one hand these headlines can provoke a desire to address the crisis, it also can lead to emotional distress and unhelpful coping strategies such paralysis, scapegoating, and nihilism.
As we discussed in What is a Career, becoming overwhelmed by big questions can lead us to paralysis. Asking “what should I do with my life?” is too big of a question that can lead our mind back to common coping strategies (i.e Netflix) to manage the anxiety of contemplating such an unanswerable question.
Similarly, asking “how can I stop the Climate-crisis?” is too big of a question. Recognize that the Climate-Crisis intersects with so many other problems from agricultural desertification and climate refugees to green power transitions and consumer waste management. In A Guide to Eco-Anxiety, author Anouschka Grose summarizes the situation succinctly that “if you care about the world, you have to care about the whole world” (p.33).
In recognizing that the climate-crisis is an interconnected web of problems, you should also know that you as individual are not capable of solving all or any of these of problem. The most powerful people in the world cannot solve the climate-crisis and some don’t want to even play a role in it. Business moguls, technocrats and populist politicians may claim to have that power, but they do not and neither do you.
What you do have is a role to play in improving one or more of the problems that perpetuate the climate-crisis…and there is power in that. There is a tremendous need in so many areas right now you absolutely have a role to play. This guide is here to help you in finding that role.
That does not discount the negative feelings you of have or the self-care you need. In Generation Dread, author Britt Wray advocates for both Internal and External activism. Internal Activism is doing the ongoing mental health work we do to process the emotions that arise from learning and observing the ongoing damage to the Earth. External Activism are the career (work and volunteer) actions we take to play a role in the addressing the climate-crisis.
Internal Activism can be done in individual therapy, group support and through other personal practices. This guide is primarily for External Activism. Resources for Internal activism have been done better elsewhere.
For those looking for support in their internal activism, therapy as well as a variety of community groups and self-guided resources can be helpful. Here are a few of my favorite resources that I recommend for looking to do your own Internal activism outside of therapy:
Websites:
Gen Dread Substack
https://gendread.substack.com/p/resources-for-working-with-climate
A list of resources for managing the distressing emotions that can arise when thinking about the climate-crisis
Another fantastic article she has on addressing Guilt and how much of it is manufactured by the oil industry as a means of distracting us from their actions.
Mark, B., & Lewis, J. (2020, December 10). Group Interventions for Climate Change Distress. Retrieved from Psychiatric Times: https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/group-interventions-climate-change-distress
Article summarizing various group interventions for dealing with Climate Change distress.
Australian Psychological Society. (2018). Climate Change. Retrieved from Australian Psychological Society: https://www.psychology.org.au/for-the-public/Psychology-topics/Climate-change-psychology
Concise and accessible information sheets on coping with distress, communicating with children and other resources for cultivating resilience and managing climate related distress
Books:
Grose, Anouchka. (2020). A Guide to Eco-Anxiety: How to Protect the Planet and Your Mental Health, Watkins Media Limited, UK.
Written by a UK Psychoanalyst, this is written from the perspective of a therapist, but also includes a more popular audience in mind in terms of suggested activities to help clients become engaged in environmentalism. She draws on a variety of counselling theories not touched on in other climate books and parses out anxiety and uncertainty as it relates to unhappiness and climate anxiety. She also highlights the expansive nature of the climate problem and how it relates to employment, indigenous rights, fashion, etc.
Lifton, Jay. (2017). The climate swerve: Reflections on mind, hope, and survival. The New Press
Jay Lifton is a psychiatrist who draws parallels between Climate Change and Nuclear war. The Climate Swerve refers to the increased societal awareness of what confronts us with regards to climate change. The book explores psychic numbing and the normalization of climate change as well as how we can react by either continuing to numb ourselves or acknowledge the distress of climate change and use it as a stimulus for additional action. It also highlights pre-traumatic stress disorder and how we can find inspiration in feeling exposed to a near death experience without having it happen.
Kelsey, Elin. (2020). Hope matters: Why changing the way we think is critical to solving the environmental crisis. Greystone Books.
Accessible book suggests hope can be understood differently in various contexts including the individual, community, and societal levels. Kelsey draws connections to grief and palliative counselling/communication that can connect to work with disenfranchised emotions related to the climate emergency. It also provides an important discussion of reading beyond negative headlines and exploring responses that are helping to improve the situation through a practice in journalism called Solutions Journalism. Finally, it explores how individuals can get stuck if they don’t know how to respond to fearful messages and can create a sense of powerlessness.
Ray, Sarah. (2020). A field guide to climate anxiety: How to keep your cool on a warming planet. University of California Press Books
An excellent introduction to climate distress and the difficult emotions associated with it. It addresses the impacts of the narratives we tell ourselves and how to change them to improve our well-being at both the individual and social levels. It also addresses the social justice elements of the climate-crisis (i.e Climate justice) to ensure that we process guilt and move towards individual and societal action
Wray, Britt. Generation Dread : Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis. Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2022.
An effective summary that blends first-person narrative with an in-depth review of how the author processes fear of the climate-crisis on an ongoing basis while doing meaningful work. An excellent supplement to the Gen Dread newsletter mentioned above and one of the best resources bringing together resources on managing our emotions amidst the climate-crisis
If you are pressed for time, I would start by reading the Gen Dread newsletter, then read Sarah Ray’s Field Guide to Climate Anxiety and Generation Dread by Britt Wray.