Dealing with Climate Change Anxiety

 

                I read a newspaper article* recently that really got my attention.  It was about the large and growing number of people who are seeking psychotherapy for anxiety, fear, and depression because of climate change—both climate events happening now and forecasted future events.   Drought, wildfires, extreme heat, smoke, extreme flooding, crop failures, more violent hurricanes, and melting ice caps are all happening now.   We also worry about worse things happening in the future:  present problems becoming worse, food shortages, hordes of climate refugees migrating to where we live, marauding gangs breaking into our houses to steal our food or even the house itself, general breakdown of law and order, and the government not doing nearly enough about any of it.  

                Our denial mechanisms are breaking down.  Climate change is happening not only in distant places and it’s not happening only in the future.  It has arrived at our doorstep and entered where we live.  Counselors have been working with fear, anxiety, and despair for decades.  But climate anxiety is different, because our fears are rational and based on solid evidence. We can say that my fear of spiders is way out of proportion to the actual danger.  But with climate change, it actually makes sense to feel fear given the colossal proportions of the unfolding disaster.  What we are experiencing is not “all in our minds.”

                The historical Buddha’s body of teachings is intended as a comprehensive program for reducing and eliminating suffering.  Are there things we can learn from these teachings that will help us to relieve our mental and emotional suffering due to climate change in all its manifestations?

                The Buddha said there are basically two kinds of lives.  The first one he called passive and random, and he likened this way of life to a leaf in the wind.  The leaf is blown this way and that way and its direction is always determined by external forces:  wind speed and direction, the pull of gravity, rainfall, and so on.  The second kind of life he called intentional and assertive.  Here is how these lives differ from each other.

                Imagine a small row boat on a large river.  The person in the boat is lying in the bottom of the boat and drifting.  External forces determine the direction of the boat:  wind, river currents, and other objects in the river that the boat bumps up against.  This is passive and random.  Now imagine that same person getting up and sitting in the boat seat, taking the oars in hand, and rowing the boat in a specific direction that he has consciously chosen.  Even if this person never reaches a specific end-destination, his experience in the boat feels totally different—his life has been totally transformed by his taking action to move in a consciously chosen direction.  This is a metaphor for an intentional and assertive life.  

                We can apply this to climate change anxiety.   We can look for the things we can actually do (even if small) to mitigate climate change and then do them.  Taking action always feels better than being a passive “victim.”  It also just might improve our situation a bit.  Some things we can do will be a good fit for me but may not be a good fit for you.  

                Here are a few possibilities.   Writing this blog post and doing speaking engagements are good fits for me.  Almost all of us can drive our cars less, avoid airplane travel, eat a plant based diet, participate in demonstrations, donate to and volunteer time to organizations opposing climate change, use a clothes line or indoor drying rack, make climate change the top priority in voting choices, take out lawns and grow some of our own food at home, educate ourselves and others, buy less stuff, and much, much more.   

                And it helps to keep  in mind that the example you set does influence other people to think “Maybe I can do that, too.”  Your behavior also has a way of starting conversations and finding out that you are not alone.  And don’t worry about seeing huge results, just do it and see if you don’t feel different! 

                Another practice I think the Buddha would recommend involves mindfulness meditation.  Get in the habit of observing what your mind is doing during the day, particularly when you are feeling stressed in regard to climate change.  It is a fact that the Earth is warming due to human created greenhouse gases.  It is not a fact that planet warming will devastate our food crops, there will be marauding gangs pillaging cities and towns, and that we will starve.  All of this could happen, but we don’t know if it actually will or not.  This is a mentally constructed fictional story about the future.  If I don’t see this story for what it is, it could be terrifying. 

                The mind does this a lot:  “I got fired (fact), and I’ll never get a good job again (fictional mental story).”  “I hurt my back (fact), now everything is going to fall apart (mental story).”  When we begin to carefully observe our thoughts, we will notice how pervasive these kinds of stories are.  Most of our fear and anxiety in life comes not from our actual situation, but from the stories about that situation that our minds create. 

                Since these stories are almost always some sort of mental movie about the future, a useful related practice here is to ask ourselves:  “Is there any problem in the present moment?”  Almost always, the answer to that question is “No”—I’m not in pain or in danger, I’m not injured or sick, I have adequate food and shelter, my loved ones are nearby and safe; I’m ok!” 

                I think the Buddha would also suggest that we practice something called Mindful Consumption.  This is one of the Fifth Mindfulness Training, also formerly known as the Fifth Precept for guiding our conduct.  As used here, the word consumption refers to taking things in or ingesting.  We do this when we take something into the body by eating, drinking, or taking a drug.  We also do it when we take things into our consciousness. 

                Reading a newspaper is a form of taking things in.  The same is true of the conversations we have, movies and television we watch, what happens at our place of work, music, books, and more. We need to Keep up with what is going on in the world enough to see opportunities for positive action, but reading one horrifying climate change  newspaper  story after another  damages our consciousness and is unnecessary.  We need to be mindful about what we let in and how much of it. We need to ask ourselves, do I really need to know this?  What effect does this have on my mental and emotional health?

                We need to seek out positive news, and reduce our exposure to toxic conversations and visual imagery. This is not hiding our heads in the sand or indulging in pleasant day dreams; it is consciously looking for and appreciating the good that really does exist in the world—even in regard to climate change.

                Another important practice for climate anxiety is to regularly remind ourselves of a very basic fact:  My personal suffering about climate change does not help anything.  It doesn’t help with the problem of climate change and it doesn’t help with how I feel.  I need to take the energy that is going into my suffering about the problem and put it into my response to the problem.   The Dalai Lama was once asked why he wasn’t more devastated by the Chinese takeover of Tibet, destroying countless temples, and murdering vast numbers of people.  He said:  “The Chinese have taken everything from us.  Should I give them my peace of mind, too?”  He might have added, “I want to put all of my energy into trying to improve the situation in Tibet.”

                The ongoing horror movie of climate change can, if we allow it to, pull us into a state of agitation that can take over our entire awareness.  I like to think of consciousness as being a sort of space, like an empty room in a house.  Sometimes thoughts of climate change can fill up the entire “room,” wall to wall and floor to ceiling so that it seems as if nothing else exists in the universe.  When this happens we need to practice noticing that this has happened and then deliberately shift our awareness to something else in our environment:  the beautiful blue sky and white clouds, the tree outside my window, the sound of rain falling on the roof…  Simple things that show us that there is more to the world than our hornets’ nest of thoughts about climate change.  There is a whole big world out there that is something other than climate change.  We can choose to notice and appreciate this on a regular basis while still taking action to mitigate climate change.

_____________________________

                * ”Climate Change Is Keeping Therapists Up at Night,” New York Times, October 21, 2023.

 

Note:   My intention is to add new posts to the blog approximately every 2 to 3 weeks. If you would like to receive an e-mail notification each time a new blog post is made, please let me know and I will add you to the list of recipients. This notification will also include the title of the new post.  Some of the material that appears in this blog is copyrighted, but in keeping with the Buddha’s teaching that the dharma is not to be sold, the contents of this blog may be freely copied and given away, but not sold. 

            If you have questions, comments, or ideas for new Blog topics please contact Dale at ahimsaacres@gmail.com.