The environmental crisis is emotionally tough.
Here, climate psychologist Margaret Klein Salamon, PhD, offers her top climate anxiety tips.
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Are you struggling with tricky climate emotions?
It would hardly be shocking if so.
Thats just part of being alive in 2023.
Yes, the climate disaster holds bleak effects if we do nothing.
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But the truth is that were not without options, hope, or a path forward.
Below, find my top climate anxiety tips for processing and channeling your emotions into effective action andmindful optimism.
6 climate anxiety tips to feel better and make a difference
1.
Think: What am I, pathetic?
or I have no right to feel this way when others are so much worse off?
One of my top climate anxiety tips is to cut negative self-talk that only complicates things further.
This kind of self-criticism shuts down emotional processing and exploration.
It will not serve you.
Welcome your self-critical feelings as a means of building emotional muscle.
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Approach your pain with an attitude of curiosity and self-compassion.
Instead, welcome your self-critical feelings as a means of building emotional muscle.
Approach your pain with an attitude of curiosity and self-compassion.
You likely wouldnt tell them to ignore their pain or call them a bad person.
You would listen to their feelings with interest and respond to them with compassion and empathy.
Dont treat yourself worse than you would treat a loved one.
Welcome fear, grief, and other difficult feelings about climate anxiety
You are right to be upset!
Your feelings are validall of them.
Feeling fear is a healthy response to the climate emergency.
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Grief is also healthy in this time of mass deaths and extinctions.
People grieve because they love humanity and the living world.
We must decide that losses deserve to be remembered, felt, and mourned.
Its benefits includelinking the emotional and physiologicaland can even help you feel better, in some cases.
Rethink your life story: Maybe you have a mission?
The climate emergency will drastically affect your life and your future.
Have you taken that in, and really thought it through?
And even more deeply, have you considered why you are alive at this time of tremendous import?
Manypeople who become activists have gone through this kind of identity rethinkingin the context of the climate emergency.
No one understands how bad it is or I cant talk to anyone about it.
Dealing with the truth is hard enough.
No one should have to do it alone.
Be personal, emotional, authentic, and empathetic.
Am I just supposed to carry around almost unbearable pain?
Or is there something to be done?
Normal channels for change have failed.
Our institutions are not keeping pace with the accelerating emergency.
Its time to get outside of your comfort zone.
According to a 2021 Yale study,8.6 million adults are definitely willing to personally participatein nonviolent civil disobedience for climate.
Are you one of these willing Americans?
If so, its time to activate.
Only it’s possible for you to decide where it’s possible for you to be most effective.
But know that any and every role is better than none.
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