How to turn climate anxiety into action

It's normal to feel anxious or overwhelmed by climate change, says psychologist Renée Lertzman. Can we turn those feelings into something productive? In an affirming talk, Lertzman discusses the emotional effects of climate change and offers insights on how psychology can help us discover both the creativity and resilience needed to act on environmental issues.

It's deeply painful

to face what's happening
on our planet right now.

From forests burning,

ocean plastic,

species just gone each day,

displacement.

It's easy to feel totally overwhelmed.

Maybe a bit helpless.

Powerless.

Angry.

On fire.

Numb.

Disconnected.

Perhaps all of the above.

These messy and complicated feelings,

they make total sense.

I wish that someone
had said this to me 30 years ago.

I was a college freshman
taking environmental studies,

which is basically a semester
of really bad news

about all the ways that humans
have profoundly damaged

our beautiful earth.

And I felt like I had been dropped
into a dark tunnel,

given no tools to get out

and yet expected to carry on
with my everyday life

as if things were normal.

But once you're exposed
to that kind of information,

things are not normal anymore.

And I was anxious, I was terrified,

no one was talking about this,

and I almost dropped out
of school, for real.

But instead, I signed up
for a field study in California,

and we were backpacking together
as a small group for two months,

which I know sounds very intense.

And it was, but what I found
is that we talked a lot.

We talked about how we were feeling

about the world,

openly and honestly,

and no one told me at any point
to be more positive

or more hopeful.

Not once.

And surprisingly,
I found myself feeling better.

I actually felt like
I could face these issues

that had seemed so insurmountable

more head on.

And I had this epiphany:

What if by understanding ourselves

and one another,

we could find our way through this crisis

in a new and different way?

You know, what if psychology actually held

a missing key to unlocking action

on the greatest challenges
facing our planet right now?

So when I got back from the field study,

I focused on clinical psychology,

and I researched the relationships

between trauma and grief and creativity.

And the paradox at the heart of,
I think, all of this

is how do we stay present

with what's really painful,

how do we stay connected

in the face of what's threatening
and overwhelming and scary?

And it turns out that psychology
knows a lot about these things.

Truly, a lot.

But I wasn't hearing any of this
being referenced

in my environmental studies class,

or the climate action meetings
I started going to,

or the international conferences,

where everyone is asking:

Why aren't we acting faster,
and what's it going to take?

And so this has become
my mission of sorts,

which is that I take insights
from psychology

and I translate them
into resources and tools

to support those working on the frontlines
to turn things around.

And that means for anyone, by the way.

We're all on the frontlines right now.

And it's my belief,

after years of straddling these worlds

between environment and
climate and psychology,

that this actually is
a missing ingredient in our work

that can exponentially accelerate
our capacities to be creative

and resilient and capable
and skillful and courageous

and all those things that the world
is needing from us right now.

So I'm going to share
three concepts with you

that I found particularly game-changing

and how I make sense of this moment

for us as humans.

And the first is something
called our window of tolerance.

So Dr. Dan Siegel has described
us all as having a window.

How much stress can we tolerate

while staying connected

and what clinicians
would call "integrated."

Integrated, where we can actually

be in touch with our thoughts and feelings

and not just get kind of co-opted.

And we all have a threshold.

And what happens when we experience stress

beyond what we can tolerate?

We tend to go into the edges
of our window.

And on one hand,

we might go into a sort of collapse,

what's called a chaotic response,

which looks like depression, despair,

kind of a shutting down.

And on the other side of this window
is a more rigid response:

denial,

anger,

rigid.

And so when that happens,

we actually lose our capacity
to be integrated,

resilient, adaptive,

all those things that we want to be.

And this is totally normal,

but it's happening
all around the world right now, right?

We're all vacillating between
these different feelings and emotions.

And so with something like climate change,

with every new scientific report,

documentary,

connecting the dots between,
you know, what we're doing

and the impact it's having,

it can collectively be pushing us
outside of our window of tolerance.

And we lose that capacity, right?

So, over the years,
I've interviewed hundreds of people

from all backgrounds
and political affiliations,

from the Midwest US to China,

and I talked to people
about how are we feeling

about what's happening.

Not what opinions or beliefs.

What are we feeling

about what's going on
with your local environment,

with your water, your soil,
the big picture.

And what I hear from people

almost across the board, I'm telling you,

is a bind.

People tell me at some point
in the conversation,

"I care very deeply
about what's happening,

I'm incredibly freaked out.

I'm scared,

I love this land, I love the birds,"

whatever that is,

"But I feel like my actions
are insignificant.

And I don't know where to start.

And I'm also --"

I hear between the lines
of what people say --

"I'm really scared to change.

Really scared of any change, it's so --

I can't even think about it,
it's like, unthinkable."

And this is the second concept,

which is something called a double bind.

And a double bind is when we feel
sort of like, damned if you do,

and damned if you don't,

and you're just kind of stuck there.

It's a very intolerable human experience.

And we will do anything we can
to get rid of it and just push it away.

And so all that care and concern,

it's there, it just goes down,
it goes underground.

But what happens is,

it looks like people don't care,
it looks like apathy.

And so a lot of folks who are seeing
the urgency of the situation

are like, "We've got to motivate you.

We've got to get you psyched."

And we become cheerleaders for solutions.

Or like, "Here's the facts,
this is happening, wake up."

And these things
are actually not inherently bad,

because we need solutions
and we need to face the facts.

But inadvertently, this can backfire

and lead to more numbing and inaction,

which is very perplexing
for a lot of people.

It's like, what the heck
is going on, right?

And so, this is because of this, you know,

it's not really touching
what's going on underneath.

So imagine that you go see a therapist,

and you've got a double bind.

You're feeling really stuck,

you know you've got to change

and the therapist starts shouting at you

and saying, "Don’t you see
what's happening?

If you don't act now,

you're going to face
terrifying consequences.

Don’t you care?

What's wrong with you?

What's it going to take?"

Or you see a therapist
and you're feeling actually sad

and grief.

And this therapist says,

"You know, don't think about it too much.

Here's some simple things you can do.

Simple positive things."

And sends you on your way.

So if it were me,

I would fire this therapist immediately,

because a good therapist
practices something called attunement.

I love this concept so much.

Attunement, right, the word "to tune."

And attunement is when
we're feeling in sync,

when we feel understood

and we feel accepted
for exactly where we are.

And we feel that, you know,

we're in relationship with the world
in a way that makes sense,

no one's trying to change us

or shame us or judge us.

Right?

And attunement takes skill.

When the stakes are high,

let me tell you, it's very hard
to want to attune with anything,

when we're facing such urgent threats.

But the paradox of the moment we're in

is that when we are more in tune
in our window of tolerance,

we are so much more capable
of solving problems,

being creative, being adaptive,

being flexible,

being our brilliant selves, right?

So what if our climate
and environmental work

was informed by these concepts, right,

of window of tolerance,

lot of double binds

and attunement?

So it can look like a whole lot of things.

So I'm asked all the time,

"OK, Renee, this sounds awesome
for a clinical context,

we don't have time for this."

And that is absolutely not true.

Because we can bring attunement

into every aspect
of our work on this issue.

And it starts with ourselves.

You actually can't do attunement
unless you're in touch with yourself,

I'm sorry to break it to you.

There's no way around it.

It's from the inside out.

And so it starts with actually
tuning in to "how am I feeling?"

And being compassionate.

I know it's easy to say

but really being compassionate,

it's like, these are hard issues.

This is a hard moment to be a human being,

we're waking up.

I'm not a bad person.

What's going on,

bring curiosity into our own experience,

which then allows us to attune socially,

that's the next way we can apply this,

is attuning, whether it's in small groups

or one-on-one,

campaigning, strategy,
classrooms, movie theaters,

parks.

Where we can give each other permission
to just be who we are,

and again, this allows us to move

into the higher level functioning.

The executive function,
the prefrontal cortex,

when we feel that our
nervous system can calm down

and we are understood by the other.

And the third way
is leading with attunement.

As leaders and influencers,

showing up as human, as real,

saying, "You know what?

I am really scared.

I don't know what all the answers are."

Can you imagine leaders saying that?

"I don't know.

But here we are, and we're all needed.

And we're in this together.

And we can do this."

That's a very different message
than just, "We can do this," right.

It's like, "Here we are.

I'm scared, but this is happening."

So here's the thing,

all of this work exists,

we have the tools
to create these conditions

that can allow us to show up

as our brilliant selves.

And I know, without doubt, 100 percent,

that each one of us has the capacity

to meet these challenges
with the ingenuity

and brilliance and bravery
that we as humans have.

We just need to cultivate
the conditions together.

We need each other.

To support each other

and allow ourselves to really meet this.

That's what we need, so ...

Let's take a deep breath.

Have compassion for ourselves

and one another in this moment,
time in history,

so we collectively process
these painful truths,

these difficult realities.

Let's do this together.

The world is ready for us to do this.

And we can do this.

Thank you.

(Applause)