By Cindy Levy LMHC, TEP, CHT
The news from Audubon’s 2019 Survival by Degrees report is grim: 64% of North American bird species – 389 of 604 – are at risk from climate change.
The 2019 report predicted impacts from a rise in global mean annual temperature by 2080. Three warming scenarios were compared: 1.5 degrees, 2.0 degrees, and 3.0 degrees. If we don’t curb climate change immediately, we are heading towards a 3.0 degrees rise, which would imperil many birds we love.
For the entire report, go to https://nationalaudubon.app.box.com/s/ufr4lrt43s3przcmxghlm036n2tbteo4/file/536784078341 . For an analysis of this report by Kim Edelson, Ph.D., go to https://blackhills-audubon.org/survival-by-degrees-the-new-audubon-report-on-the-effects-of-climate-change-on-birds/.
We are witnessing runaway impacts, and feel powerless to stop them. We feel this deeply through our interconnection with all life.
As I write this, I hear the Varied Thrush’s one note song. It’s a sign of spring, which grounds me in the natural seasons. This is one species at risk of losing its summer habitat from climate change. I feel that personally.
Many of us struggle to face the losses and uncertainties, now and in the future. We feel paralyzed. We aren’t sure how to work through this grief and despair. We resist feeling the depths of our pain. We are cynical about whether we can make a difference. We operate in a chronic depression. We wonder how to give voice to this in community.
The literature on death mostly pertains to humans. Pet loss is also recognized. There’s not much guidance on grief for the world and the future: mourning the loss of entire species, entire ecosystems. It’s happening everywhere: temperate and tropical forests, rivers, estuaries, coral reefs, even plankton underneath the ice in Antarctica.
Joanna Macy, an activist, Buddhist scholar, and teacher, has written extensively about ecopsychology: our connection with nature. She says we are: “…inseparable from the currents of matter, energy, and information that flow through us and sustain us as interconnected open systems…When part of that body is traumatized – in the sufferings of fellow beings, in the pillage of our planet, and even in the violation of future generations, too – we sense that trauma too.” (Macy, 1995).
For many of us, birdwatching and other ways of being in nature is a path to sanity and healing. The pleasure we feel with them helps re-center us. Our love of birds often transcendent, expressing a connection to the whole. How many of us turn to birds and other animals, plants and ecosystems to “escape” modern life and remember who we are? And what does it mean when we know they’re suffering, even doomed?
The Jungian analyst James Hillman writes in A Psyche the Size of the Earth that we are one with life. A key question is, “Where does me begin?” (Hillman, 1995). Your answer to that question helps define your sense of “place,” and your role. It’s from here that we grapple with the uncertainties facing us.
Climate change is forcing us to do this. With compassion, I hope to offer ways to approach this work.
Honoring our Grief
“Extinction events are nothing new, but this one didn’t have to happen.” – Robert Michael Pyle
The emotional responses we have are real and legitimate. Our sorrow is compounded by the guilt we have as human beings for our hand in environmental destruction.
Mourning ecological losses is navigating new territory. In the millions of years humans have been on the planet, it is only in the last century we’ve had to face this. There is no simple or predictable path.
Witnessing ecological devastation is traumatic. It is helpful to review what trauma is. Bessel van der Kolk, a noted expert on trauma, defines it as an experience that overwhelms our nervous system. He writes, “…the critical element that makes an experience traumatic is the subjective assessment by victims of how threatened and helpless they feel.” (van der Kolk, 2007)
When trauma happens, our sympathetic nervous system kicks into gear and we go into fight/flight/freeze. We mobilize to defend ourselves or flee, and/or become immobile as a last resort in order to survive. These responses come from the brain’s limbic system and are mediated by the brainstem. (Siegal, 2012).
We are evolutionally designed to quickly return to the parasympathetic nervous system’s “rest and digest” operating mode. This makes sense when facing a predator: when the threat is over, we can shake it off and reset ourselves. When we do, our neocortex – the thinking brain and executive center – come back online.
However, we’re not equipped to process the ongoing trauma of ecological losses. It doesn’t make sense, and it doesn’t end. We find ourselves numb, confused, horrified, enraged, distraught.
Human beings are social animals. We are equipped with a social engagement system which, ideally, helps us regulate our emotions, know who we are, and find our place. The fact that you are reading this article means you were raised in a “good enough” environment to meet your basic needs, including interacting with your caregivers. While you may debate that, it remains a natural human tendency to seek support when facing hardship – or at least long for that.
Communities such as Audubon are a way we come back to each other, via our shared love of birds. We’re in this together. We can practice holding safe space to work through our heartache, rage, and despair so we can un-freeze and harness that into creative responses.
Here is a process to open a conversation which frees our energy, honors our grief, and generates change:
1. Hold sacred, contained space for all voices. Make sure you feel safe here to be vulnerable.
2. Acknowledge yourself for showing up and being willing to do this work.
3. Welcome everyone here.
4. Welcome our fears of doing this. Feelings are only morbid when they’re disowned.
5. Accept and welcome what arises. This goes against our cultural messaging. Pace yourself: you have an inner sense of what’s right for you in this moment. Know that feelings for the pain of the world are natural and healthy.
6. Give voice. Express yourself authentically and in your own way.
7. Accept, empathize with, validate and honor yourself and each other.
8. Keep the flow open. Move in to the heart and body level. Unblocking repressed feelings releases energy and clears the mind.
9. Work with anger. Welcome it courageously, and put it into flow. This anger is appropriate! Healthy anger is FIRE, FOCUS, LIFE FORCE, and CLARITY which brings us into aligned action.
10. Continue practicing self-care of mind, body, soul.
11. Commit to staying in touch with each other.
Moving Forward
“Whatever you do may seem insignificant to you, but it is most important that you do it.”
– Mahatma Gandhi
When we move through grief, we experience being in the web of living systems. Just as our pain is rooted in our interconnectedness, so is our power. This power “with” – not “over” – comes from opening to, and participating in, the flow of life. When that happens, we co-create synergistic effects.
There is a generative force impelling towards a shift in consciousness. We seek to find a potent, positive way to respond from a “We” rather than “me” position. As we awaken and arise to meet the challenge, we find ways to use our values, skills and humanity to make a difference.
This power is not ours alone; it belongs to everyone. It evokes something within. It calls us to step up and speak truthfully. It tells us to act with generosity towards each other. It catalyzes us to action, instead of allowing us to fall into resignation. It is part of our evolution as a species.
The questions then become: How do you respond? What’s your guiding light as you move forward through this? What are you pulled/called to do?
Here are some ways that ecopsychologists have found helpful:
1. Hold ritual. This can include:
- Finding a spot in nature to sit and reconnect.
- Expressive work using art, song, poetry, prose, theater, story, dance.
- Having an encounter (real or imagined) with a bird that you love. Having a back and forth conversation. Apologize if you feel moved to.
- Shamanic work: rattling, drumming, journeying.
2. Do activities you love, e.g., birdwatching, gardening, cooking. Renew yourself.
3. Have breathing and mindfulness practices to slow down, reduce stress, find balance, and open your awareness and senses.
4. Stay engaged with each other. Have circles, teaching-learning communities, etc. where you can have generative, supportive, enlivening conversations. Make the commitment to keep checking in on each other. Be noble, kind, and compassionate. Stay in community.
5. Continue working with denial, grief, anger, and hopelessness.
6. Do environmental and/or social activism. Fight to curb global warming, protect species and habitats, practice environmental justice, and other causes.
7. Speak out: to your family, friends, groups, in public. Give voice to what matters to you.
8. Conduct scientific work: bird surveys, habitat assessment, data analysis, etc.
9. Participate in environmental restoration projects.
10. Keep looking for victories instead of focusing on defeats. Keep remembering our potential. Stay open to what’s possible – to what’s emerging.
11. Share what brings you joy – what brings you back into a state of flow. This taps your aliveness, which is what the world needs. This also helps avoid burnout.
I’m curious what your takeaways are from this article. And I’m here to support you. For now, I’ll leave you with this quote by Edward Abbey, the famed environmentalist, author, and rebel:
“Be as I am – a reluctant enthusiast…a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it.”
References
Hillman, J. A Psyche the Size of the Earth, A Psychological Forward to Ecopsychology: Restoring the Earth, Healing the Mind. Roszak, T., Gomes, M.E., and Kanner, A.D., Editors. Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, CA. 1995.
Macy, J. Working Through Environmental Despair. In Ecopsychology: Restoring the Earth, Healing the Mind. Roszak, T., Gomes, M.E., and Kanner, A.D., Editors. Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, CA. 1995.
Siegal, D.J. Pocket Guide to Interpersonal Neurobiology: An Integrative Handbook of the Mind. W.W. Norton & Company, New York, N.Y. 2012.
van der Kolk, B.A., McFarlane, A.C., and Weisaeth, L., Editors. Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body, and Society. The Guilford Press, New York, NY. 2007.
Cindy Levy, LMHC, TEP, CHT
I’m a Licensed Mental Health Counselor, a Board-Certified Trainer of Psychodrama, Sociometry, and Group Psychotherapy, and a Clinical Hypnotherapist. I seek to integrate mind, body, soul, nature, and social life so you can be well and pursue your dreams. Prior to becoming a therapist, I had a career as a wildlife biologist doing ecosystem management and endangered species consultation for the US Fish and Wildlife Service. It is clear to me that our health is bound with that of life on earth, as well as our social settings.
I’d love to connect with you, and can be reached at:
clevy958@nullgmail.com
www.cindylevy.com
www.psychodramacertification.org
Westside Wellness Center,
222 Kenyon St., NW, Suite 7
Olympia, WA 98502 360-888-6630
