Eco-Grief — Can Your Heart Take it?
We were driving up Haight street after a Friday night in San Francisco’s Mission district when, only a few blocks away from home, my bubble burst. What starts as a few silent tears down my cheeks soon unfolds into loud crying and I slam my hands in furious punches at the dashboard in front of me. My husband is in shock. What was wrong?
I couldn’t tell him. I just knew that something was and whatever it was, I couldn’t hold it in anymore. Couldn’t withstand the force any longer.
He asks if we should circle the block a few times and I thankfully say yes, so we pass our home and keep driving down the southern border of Golden Gate Park until we end up at the ocean. Without hesitation, I step out and walk to the shore, the darkness of the November night swallowing me as I step out of range of the headlights. With the vast ocean in front of me and the crashing waves in my ears, my body calms.
Photo: Noaa
Eco-Grief
Have you felt it? The heart-wrecking pain of returning to a loved place only to learn that what was once lush and beautiful nature has turned into housing or a parking lot? Or the deep sense of loss when you learn that one football field of rainforest is cut down per second, carving a hole inside you with potential for depths you’re not sure you’ll ever get out of if you fall?
Eco-grief - or climate grief, as also referred to - is the pain you experience as a result of our dying natural world. You don’t have to be a Birkenstock tree-hugger to experience this grief, nor do you have to be up close to the disaster. We’re losing our only home and that is both scary and painful. Some even argue (and I’m a personal supporter of this claim) that since we’re all interconnected - people, animals, microorganisms, plants - we can experience this pain even if we can’t see it with our own eyes.
We ARE nature and so, if nature is hurting, so are we.
Terms like “eco-grief” and “climate anxiety” are becoming more and more common as big media, like The Guardian and NY Times, are covering the topic. Although it’s sad to know more people are suffering from mental illnesses as a result of climate change, I’m glad it’s being talked about. No one spoke of climate anxiety when I was younger and therefore, I was never given any help. It’s not until recent years that I’ve understood that it was grief for the world I was battling with this whole time.
Are eco-grief and climate anxiety the same thing? They can seem similar, and some people might argue that they are, but I believe they differ gravely. Especially in the way we ought to think about and treat them.
Good and bad
To make it super simple - eco-grief is good, climate anxiety is bad.
Huh?
Let me explain. Eco-grief is both necessary and unavoidable. If ignored, you might lose yourself to similar car tantrums like the one I had with my hubby in San Francisco. It’s time we understand and accept that we are part of nature and that it’s impossible to escape what’s happening to the world. Your body is feeling it, so let it feel!
You shouldn’t fear eco-grief because it’s actually a necessary tool in your toolbox as an empowered climate activist; an essential part of what fuels your desire to make change and move forward into a new kind of world. In his new book, Climate Cure, Jack Adam Weber talks about how fear and grief in combination are important drivers for action and positive change.
Grief alone can consume you. Fear alone can push you into a paralyzed state. But when combined in healthy doses, and applied to an attitude of wanting to make change happen, it becomes a powerful fuel to kickstart some empowered action. (see post)
So eco-grief, if respected and managed properly (tips for that at the bottom of this newsletter), is both healthy and empowering. Climate anxiety, however, is not! I will go deeper into climate anxiety in a future newsletter but for now, let’s just say that climate anxiety comes with nothing good.
Climate anxiety is disempowering, prohibits positive action, and is actually dangerous for your health.
Photo: David Marcu
Eco-grief is good
So… should I EMBRACE eco-grief?
Well, sort of! Because how do we find the will to grasp for the last pieces of hope and do all we can to co-create a better world if we’re not letting ourselves feel the pain of what we’re losing?
Megan sits next to her sick child’s bed, clinging on to any kind of hope there is despite the daily pain it brings to see her child dying. Will she say yes to Susan’s brunch invitation and go mingle with her ladies, or will she show up by that bedside every morning and call every doctor in the country to make sure her child gets well?
I’m not proposing that we drop the ball on everything fun (and we’ll also cover how important it is that we have fun on this journey in a future issue), but I think you get my point.
Our hearts can take it
A big reason for avoiding eco-grief is that we don’t think our hearts can take it. We’re afraid of what kind of despair we’ll find ourselves in if we actually let go and allow ourselves to grieve. How can you be a climate optimist if all you feel is sorrow and pain?
The simple answer is that you can’t be one without it! Trust me, I’ve tried, and it didn’t work. In my early years as a climate optimist, I thought the idea was to focus on all the good things and only share that positivity with the world. I thought that maybe I could be the sun in all the clouds and help more people have hope for the future, and I was constantly looking for climate optimistic things to fuel me; proof from the world that my climate optimism was real. But as you might understand, it was a difficult task…
My way of dealing with negative climate news was to apply what I thought was a big dose of healthy denial. Only I didn’t realize that even if I wasn’t paying attention to the negative, my body was. So without my knowing, the body of grief grew bigger and bigger inside me and days started to come when I couldn’t hold it in anymore.
Having embarrassing tantrums in public is one thing, but the danger of not accepting your eco-grief is that it can actually develop into climate anxiety and depression. And that’s when things start to get real. That’s when we begin to lose you as an ally and activist. And that we absolutely cannot afford!
Photo: Silvestri Matteo
Awareness hurts and that’s OK
Just like a mother can take the pain of her dying child, and just as accepting that grief and all the fears that come with it only makes her hope stronger and actions more serious, as will eco-grief empower you. You can grieve the world without losing yourself, in fact, Mother Nature wants us to. She needs us to feel the pain! Not because she’s mad and wants us to be punished for our damage, but because she knows it’s what we need to heal.
As the famous quote by John Bradshaw says:
“You can’t heal what you can’t feel.”
Accept my permission to grieve
In short - eco-grief is difficult but necessary, both for your own wellbeing and resilience but also as fuel to our important work. If you’ve waited for permission to grieve, consider this my invitation!
I encourage you to have a moment with yourself and ask if there’s any eco-grief lurking in your body. How does that feel? And the next time you encounter eco-destruction of any kind (developments, a riverbank littered with plastic, or a news article about climate change), close your eyes and feel. What is coming through? How does witnessing this make you feel? And most importantly, how will you use this energy to fuel your actions moving forward?
Here’s an article I wrote for Thrive Global if you want to learn more. You can also download my healing journaling recourse with step-to-step guides on how to release climate grief here.
Affirmation:
Awareness hurts and that’s OK.
I am stronger than I think and my heart can take the pain.
Mother Nature is asking me to heal, so I will heal.
For Her, for myself, and for all other life on this beautiful Earth.
Together, we can choose better.
Photo: Kalen Emsley
Healing journaling:
Carve out some undistracted time for yourself and put pen to paper. Ask the question: “What eco-grief am I holding on to?” Write down whatever comes through. If you can’t make up sentences, just write words to start.
Don’t hold back! You don’t have to hold anyone or anything accountable for feeling the way you do. Be angry with the world - be angry with yourself! Just let - it - out!
Read back what you just read and let the feelings manifest in your physical body. Cry if you have to, scream if you feel like screaming, punch a pillow to get out the pain! One of the biggest reasons for depression is that we get “stuck in a feeling”. Thinking about your pain isn’t enough, you have to feel them in your physical body to release them.
Reflect - how do you feel now? Once you’ve removed some of this heavy energy from your body, can you allow yourself to feel inspired and light?
If you want more of this, use this resource for four different healing and empowering journaling exercises!
