Climate Anxiety Isn’t Just a Psychological Crisis
It’s a spiritual one
I was glad to see the New York Times’ recent article, “Climate Change Enters the Therapy Room.” As the climate crisis worsens, more people are sure to report feelings of anxiety and grief, and therapy offers many excellent tools for coping.
However, therapy can only go so far in responding to climate anxiety.
A few years ago, a social worker friend of mine laughed at me when I said I was on my way to facilitate a climate grief group. “That’s not real grief,” he said. He was used to working with people and their loved ones struggling with substance use — lives ravaged by instability and pain. I was taken aback at his response and stumbled over my words as I tried to explain. How could someone not feel fear and sadness as they witnessed ongoing extreme weather disasters, biodiversity loss, drought, starvation, and so much more?
I shouldn’t have been surprised at my friend’s reaction. About a decade ago, I was personally so overwhelmed with sadness about climate change that I fell into a deep depression. Even though I did everything I could to reduce my carbon footprint — cut out meat from my diet, thrifted my clothes, used public transportation — I began to realize that there was no way I could end my complicity in the crisis, especially as a citizen of the United States, the world’s biggest polluter and contributor to global warming. There were many days I had to resist the temptation to end my own life. I sought out a therapist, but quickly gave up when she couldn’t understand nor sufficiently respond to my existential dread.
I’m not a therapist myself, but I’m an ordained minister, spiritual director, and climate organizer. Over the last few years, I’ve hosted dozens of gatherings for people dealing with eco grief and anxiety. Many participants report not having anyone else to talk to about their feelings and the relief they feel at finding others who feel similarly is palpable.
However, these gatherings go beyond therapeutic emotional processing. As people contemplate the death and destruction occurring on our planet — entire towns leveled by fire, families drowning in flash floods, the sixth mass extinction — other questions inevitably arise. What is the meaning of all this suffering? What is my relationship to the world? How am I to live?
These aren’t just psychological questions; they’re spiritual ones. Spirituality is about finding meaning and purpose in our lives. It’s about connecting to something greater than ourselves and recognizing our moral responsibility to one another. Are we static creatures, separate from the soil, water, flora, and fauna on this planet or are we all part of an interconnected web of life? Are we meant to keep living in a way that contributes to the crisis or find ways to live that are healing to the earth?
When you realize that we are all interconnected, then anxiety and grief are completely normal responses to what is happening — not only the destruction, extraction, and exploitation of the earth’s resources and its inhabitants, but also the greed, ineptitude, and apathy of our governments and corporations. This is a heartbreaking time to be alive, especially when what used to seem so abstract (at least to those of us in the Western, industrialized world) no longer is.
Yes, therapy can help us feel calmer and more resilient as we face what’s happening — this is, in fact, crucial if we’re to sustain ourselves mentally and emotionally during difficult times. But, as the psychologist Thomas J. Doherty himself pointed out in the New York Times article, our personal lifestyle choices aren’t the problem. Even though therapy provides excellent tools for mental and emotional wellbeing, we can’t learn how to merely soothe our anxiety if all that’s doing is allowing us to keep maintaining the societal structures and industries that contribute to the climate crisis.
In other words, encouraging people to seek therapy as a salve for their eco-anxiety may be just another way of putting the burden on individuals — instead of looking to the bigger picture and seeing how we can respond collectively.
For me, I did eventually find a therapist who helped me immensely, and she’s part of why I’m here today. But, ultimately, it was my spiritual journey that made me realize that there was more to life than searching for my own ease and happiness; I was being called to respond to the cries of the world with compassion, with love in action.
I believe that we are all called to take our place in the great web of life — not only our human family, but also the community of the more than human beings who swim in the oceans and rivers, who flock through the air and crawl through the earth.
Spirituality will look different for everyone and there are many ways of connecting to the sacred. You might engage in practices like meditation or prayer, you may attend a service at your house of worship, perhaps you take a walk through the woods or embrace your lover. These things can help us experience awe, joy, love, and the breathtaking mystery of being alive — all of which reminds us why we need to fight the climate crisis.
What would it look like for you to take part in the healing of the world and the stewardship of this beautiful earth? Joanna Macy, activist and Buddhist scholar, says the climate crisis is an opportunity for awakening, that it in itself is a spiritual path. I have personally found this to be true. As I engage in activism and ways to slow the destruction of a warming climate, I feel a sense of purpose and like I am part of something greater than myself. This doesn’t mean my difficult emotions go away. In fact, the more I lean into my grief, the more I am connected to my love for the world.
