“Emotions are often what lead people to act.” ~Dr. Britt Wray

In sessions about the state of the world, politics, systemic opression and the climate crisis, we focus on increasing resilience so that we don’t get stuck feeling the wide range challenging of emotions it brings. It is human to feel fear, sadness, anger, guilt, shame, and despair when we face reality and are confronted with loss, unpredictability, and threat.

It is also human to want to protect ourselves from this; we often want to avoid pain. We can become overwhelmed or numb if we feel too much at once. Then we are no longer able to act, and this does not help us personaly nor collectively.

Yet if we want to find our way in the wilderness of our times, we need to feel what is inside us. We feel because we love and care. And when we feel we do it is important is that we not only pay attention to what challenges us, but that we also pay attention to what we are grateful for, to what brings us pleasure, to beauty, and to what nourishes our lives. It is in the tension between pain and fear on the one hand and gratitude and love for life on the other, that our resilience grows. Trying to contribute to a more just world is what gives meaning to our lives.

Emotions often spur people into action. It may well be that feelings of ecological anxiety and grief, while enormously challenging, are in fact the crucible through which humanity must pass in order to muster the energy and conviction needed to make the life-saving changes that are now required. (From: Source)

Photo: Javier Miranda