Understand that individual behavioral changes (e.g., reducing personal carbon footprint) have a negligible impact on global climate change. Instead, focus energy on collective and political actions that address systemic issues like shifting energy grids to renewables or changing agricultural practices.
Employ meditation to manage difficult emotions like eco-anxiety and rage, preventing immobilization or unskillful action. This practice builds resilience, enabling individuals to endure challenging political work and act more effectively in discerning where to best apply their energy.
Use mindfulness to identify activism that aligns with ‘what the world needs,’ ‘what you are good at,’ and ‘what brings you joy.’ This discernment helps ensure long-term engagement and effectiveness, avoiding burnout from joyless or unsustainable efforts.
Address eco-anxiety by allowing difficult feelings to be present and investigating them without being controlled. Practice feeling what’s true, acknowledging it (e.g., ‘right now, it’s like this’), and creating mental spaciousness to prevent denial or impulsive reactions.
When feeling overwhelmed by anxiety, use box breathing: inhale for four seconds, hold for four, exhale for four, and hold out for four. This technique helps to calm the nervous system and reduce immediate distress.
To persuade those doubtful about climate change, ask them about personal changes they’ve noticed in their local environment and listen to their concerns without shaming or preaching. Focus on shared experiences rather than distant events or forcing solutions.
Actively bring difficult, challenging subjects like climate crisis headlines or worst-case scenarios into meditation. Monitor physiological and psychological reactions with curiosity in a safe space to build resilience and equanimity, preventing the mind from freaking out when encountering these topics in daily life.
Engage in individual actions like lowering consumption, composting, or driving electric cars as an expression of personal ethical commitments. While these actions do not significantly impact global climate change, they are important for living one’s values and communicating beliefs within a community.
Participate in local political processes, such as supporting initiatives to switch to solar grids for local electricity. Collective action at the local level can lead to significant systemic changes when scaled across many communities.
Practice being at peace with ‘what is,’ even when confronting painful truths like climate change. Letting go of resistance to difficult realities can lead to a subtle contentment and peaceful settledness, reducing suffering.
Don’t shy away from bringing anger into your meditation practice. Use it as a training ground for the mind to be with difficult feelings, allowing you to confront them more skillfully in daily life without being controlled by them.
Engage in practices like memento mori (contemplating death) not to be morbid, but to affirm the finitude of life. This helps cultivate peace, equanimity, and acceptance, highlighting the importance of each moment and relationships.