Thursday, May 7, 2009

Eco-Anxiety: Are You Encountering the Negativity Challenge?

I've noticed a common challenge in talking with my spiritually-oriented friends, colleagues, and clients about the needs for addressing the psychological aspects the environmental, economic, and psychological aspects of climate change and resource depletion. They consider such topics to be negative thoughts they don't want to contribute to.
I was discussing this conundrum with my friend and colleague Carolyn Baker because her excellent book, Sacred Demise, for which I wrote the forward, is the first book that addresses the inner, spiritual aspects of these very real, live-changing threats we're facing. Following our conversation she wrote a most thought-provoking essay on this issue for distribution.
I would very much like to know your thoughts, both to the topic and to Carolyne's response. Are you experiencing this kind of response from in your spiritually-oriented friends, colleagues, and clients? How do you approach it?
Soon I look forward to doing a review of Carolyn's book here on the blog. It is an invaluable resource for those of us who are helping with the Inner Work of Transition to a Sustainable Future.

WHEN FACING REALITY IS NOT "NEGATIVE THINKING"
by Carolyn Baker, Wednesday, 06 May 2009

There is no coming to consciousness without pain.
~Carl Jung~

Recently a friend told me that she had been talking up my book Sacred Demise: Walking The Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse and suggesting to friends who are aware of collapse that they read it. On several occasions the response was, "Well, I don't want to engage in ‘negative thinking'. I'd rather keep a positive attitude and stay hopeful in the face of what's going in on the world." When I heard this, I smiled inside because this perspective in particular prompted me to write the book. One of my intentions in doing so was to help heal the false assumption that looking honestly at the end of the world as we have known it is synonymous with wallowing in negativity.
First, let me begin by assuring the reader that I do not recommend staring down collapse 24-7. Initially, admitting the reality of collapse is frightening and disheartening. People at first tend to become overwhelmed with fear or hopelessness or both. At that point, we can do one of two things: We can back off and process the facts in bits and pieces, interspersing doing so with living our everyday lives, doing things we enjoy with people we love, and savoring everything in life that nourishes us. Or, we can immediately engage one or more defense mechanisms in order to assuage our fear and cognitive dissonance.
The defense mechanism most frequently employed is denial, and unfortunately, some forms of spirituality are particularly useful in fostering denial because inherent in them is the assumption that accepting the demise of industrial civilization will drag one down into permanent depression, anger, hopelessness, or despair. While it is true that when first acknowledging collapse, one might experience such feelings, this does not guarantee that one must choose to take up residence in dark feelings, redecorate, change one's address, and permanently reside there.
I wrote Sacred Demise from the perspective of exactly the opposite experience. Did I feel negative feelings when first learning about collapse and its implications? Of course. Do I still have moments when negative feelings return and cloud what was an-otherwise normal day? Absolutely. But for me, acknowledging and preparing for collapse has been a sea-change in every aspect of my life, which includes a full palette of emotional and spiritual colors and hues. It has indeed made me more fully human and alive.
Rather than dragging me down into depression and despair, my acceptance of what is, has liberated me both emotionally and spiritually. As I have released false hopes of "fixing" civilization cosmetically or creating a mass consciousness change that might engender mass movements, I have gained much more energy for my work and for preparation for the daunting days ahead. In other words, I have gained a visceral understanding of "crisis as opportunity"-a cliché which I bandied about earlier in my life but could not fully appreciate until I allowed myself to deeply understand collapse and its ramifications.
Last month, Oregon Peak Oil researcher and blogger, Jan Lundberg, put out a call to his readers to respond on three questions regarding collapse:
What we are acting toward? What main outcome might we be looking forward to?
What do we relish leaving behind, as collapse begins or as it will be intensified?
What do we not want to leave behind unresolved; or, what needs to be done before it's too late to accomplish it?
This week, Culture Change published the results of the survey which I strongly encourage everyone to read. Here are a few responses:

• I look forward to the world breaking up "into small colonies of the saved" (Robert Bly). I look forward to a simpler, less neurotic life for me and my children. I would like to think that my children, while their chances of survival may be lower, their chances of happiness will be higher.
• The central change I would like to see is abandonment of the addictive, frenzied, exploitative American way of life in favor of a tribal, cooperative, relaxed way of life that puts responsibility toward other species and the Earth, as well as other human beings, first.
• An authentic life that is centered around people and not things. Revival of things spiritual and not material.
• Learning how to live with each other and within the larger community of our bioregions and ecosystems in a way that is intimate, honest, humble, and humanly and ecologically sustainable. That includes restoring viable community life, economic and ecological relationships and systems - living systems.

While none of us knows exactly how the collapse of civilization [as we know it]will unfold and while it is a process -- sometimes subtle, sometimes blatant -- whose beginning, middle, and end are and will be difficult to discern, the responses to Lundberg's questions are encouraging. First, they let me know that I'm not alone and that there are many more individuals than I could have imagined who are looking at collapse with the same optimism -and fear- that I feel when I contemplate it. Moreover, what I hear in these responses is not "negativity" but a deep longing for the possibility of living lives in harmony with all of the earth community and thereby experiencing the fullness of our humanity.
In the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, Sigmund Freud cultivated a very dark perception of humanity as he assessed the baser instincts largely repressed in the human unconscious. His pupil who became the famous Swiss psychologist, Carl Jung, acknowledged the dark side of humanity which drove Freud to utter despair but unlike Freud, Jung came to believe that the dark side was a necessary ally in transforming human consciousness.
Jung spent decades studying myriad spiritual teachers, mythologies, and archetypes of the unconscious, and championed the sacred in nature and in the human psyche; however, Jung insisted that, "We must beware of thinking of good and evil as absolute opposites. The criterion of ethical action can no longer consist in the simple view that good has the force of a categorical imperative, while so-called evil can resolutely be shunned. Recognition of the reality of evil necessarily relativizes the good, and the evil likewise, converting both into halves of a paradoxical whole."
In other words, according to Jung, what we call "good" and "evil" need each other and in our binary thinking are opposite poles which in reality comprise the whole of the human experience; one needs the other for completion, and particularly for the transformation of consciousness. This is why Jung adamantly declared that "Mental illness is the avoidance of suffering." He was not referring to meaningless anguish but suffering which we endeavor to make sense of so that our genuine human purpose may be revealed to us.
In Sacred Demise, I repeatedly return to the question: Who do we want to be in the face of collapse? My friend Joanna Gabriel in a wonderful 2007 interview with Peak Moment TV beautifully articulates the question "Who Am I In A Post-Petroleum World". We both concur that these are the ultimate questions that collapse is inviting us to address in our individual lives and in our communities. I believe that it is futile to attempt to do so unless we are willing to struggle with all of the human emotions that emerge as we choose to stop avoiding the issue of collapse and with the support of trusted others, look at it honestly, welcoming it as a wise teacher and ally.
Sacred Demise painstakingly guides the reader in opening to the process of initiation that collapse is foisting upon us. The ancients and all traditional peoples know that without initiations, humans will not develop into mature, whole beings. In such cultures, it would be almost unheard of for anyone to speak of "wanting to avoid negativity" because all experiences and feelings are honored as necessary aspects of the human condition, without which humans cannot become fully conscious.
Among other things, collapse is asking us to grow up, to become initiated elders and thereby guide humanity in a revolutionary new direction. Near the end of Sacred Demise, I include an excerpt from a comment a reader of my website, Truth to Power, emailed me last year. He wrote:

I, for one, would find much more meaning from
putting food on the table that is truly needed and
sustaining rather than taken for granted. Food
that I raised or killed myself, or we ourselves,
or my neighbor did, and I bartered with him
for it. Much more so than the meaning Empire
tells me what I am supposed to get from sitting
here in my cubicle (my penultimate day today!)
rearranging little electronic blips in exchange for
money, which I am then supposed to exchange
not only for my sustenance, but also for all sorts
of diversions, to make me forget how meaningless
it all is.
I, for one, will find consolation in knowing
my neighbors - and in knowing that they are
there for me as I am for them, rather than living
amidst strangers, as most all of us do now. I will
find consolation in knowing that my ecological
footprint does not extend beyond my gaze.
That the things I consume do not cause death
and destruction beyond my ability to see and
internalize, rather than out of sight and mind as
now, and so much larger than any being could
ever have a ‘right' to.
I, for one, will find purpose in working closely
and cooperatively and communally with those
around me to provide our own sustenance,
comforts such as they may be, and entertainments
as time allows.
I have no illusions that life post-collapse will be
idyllic, nor that the transition will be anything
but ugly. But neither shall I miss that which
is dying - the dizzying complexity of our oil-drenched
lifestyles, a thousand channels of
nothing worth watching, mega-malls, motor
sports (how many kinds of insane are those!?!),
celebrities, glitter, growth, more, faster, bigger,
keep up with the Joneses but ignore the
sweatshops and the dying ecosystems, consume,
medicate, live large... then die. Where is one to
find a sense of purpose in all of that?
Whether one considers oneself "spiritual", atheist, agnostic, religious, or eternally skeptical, the task of accepting collapse and seizing the myriad opportunities it presents, is sacred work. As for me, nothing in my life has proven more positive or powerful.

Carolyn Baker, Ph.D., is the author of Sacred Demise: Walking The Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse (2009 IUniverse). She manages the Truth to Power website at and has also authored U.S. History Uncensored: What Your High School Textbook Didn't Tell You.
You can order Sacred Demise here. Read book foreword at http://www.carolynbaker.net/

11 comments:

  1. Hi Sarah,
    I find it greatly awareness raising, challenging in a good way and almost uplifting to let feelings and experiences flow through as they are - for myself as well as anyone/anything else. Sharing, living from an honest expression of what is, in me and around me, right now, with committing deeply to caring for the planet and beings and the whole sum of creation, all that informing my thinking, action and speaking for the greatest good of all - the separation and differences disappear, the need to mental/emotional process disappear and the beauty and ugliness of who I am appears and the call for transformation (transition) becomes irresistible, the creation and destruction then occurs on the energetic level. If we are the creator of what is, why not create the best we can? And the shadow of my being as well as the light are both instrumental for taking steps to do that.

    Thinking about anything can call it in, be it collapse, abundance, peace or war. What is it I am calling in, without blocking what is happening?

    Through all that I become a fuller human being, our families and communities become whole, or culture heals.

    Regards,
    Richard

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  2. Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Richard. Your holistic process is so similar to the natural systems thinking process of ecopsychology that I find personally so meaninful. I am curious though, would you elaborate a bit on what you mean that thinking about something will call it in? Are you suggesting we should ignore considering certain things we become aware of and think of other things?
    Sarah

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  3. Sent via e-mail from Allison - Part 1 of 3

    Although Carolyn's perspective seems resonant with my own on some levels, there is also a distinct difference that I think is important to express.

    Carolyn wrote: This is why Jung adamantly declared that "Mental illness is the avoidance of suffering." He was not referring to meaningless anguish but suffering which we endeavor to make sense of so that our genuine human purpose may be revealed to us.

    I agree that experiencing pain and suffering can lead to some personal growth/development, as Carolyn suggests- -as long as it is not extreme, when it can then actually do physical and emotional damage (PTSD, for instance). However, from what I've learned from a dozen years of practicing the Natural Systems Thinking Process developed by Dr. Michael Cohen of Project NatureConnect, in which we learn to connect to the messages that keep the Earth evolving and in balance, I don't see "revealing life's purpose" as suffering's main raison d'être.
    Here's a little background for my perspective:
    In The Whispering Pond, systems theorist Ervin Laszlo explains that leading edge scientists are now beginning to realize that "there is a constant and intimate contact among the things that coexist and co-evolve in the universe - a sharing of bonds and messages that makes reality into a stupendous network of interaction and communication." It is this 'sharing of messages' in Nature that keeps it in balance. In Cohen's Natural Systems Thinking Process (NSTP), we learn to connect to the these messages that sustain the Web of Life through our 53 senses, which register the attraction relationships that nature uses to create and sustain life. As I have personally experienced hundreds of times, Dr. Cohen's simple reconnecting with nature activities--which heal senses that have been damaged and severed because of our species' excessive indoor living and disconnecting cultural stories and conditioning--give rise to an increased awareness of the messages that sustain the web of life. As more and more senses are strengthened and connected, personal choices and behaviors begin to reflect nature's wisdom. Support of the Web replaces personal greed and destructive personal, social, and environmental behaviors.
    Although Carolyn's perspective seems resonant with my own on some levels, there is also a distinct difference that I think is important to express.

    Carolyn wrote: This is why Jung adamantly declared that "Mental illness is the avoidance of suffering." He was not referring to meaningless anguish but suffering which we endeavor to make sense of so that our genuine human purpose may be revealed to us.

    I agree that experiencing pain and suffering can lead to some personal growth/development, as Carolyn suggests- -as long as it is not extreme, when it can then actually do physical and emotional damage (PTSD, for instance). However, from what I've learned from a dozen years of practicing the Natural Systems Thinking Process developed by Dr. Michael Cohen of Project NatureConnect, in which we learn to connect to the messages that keep the Earth evolving and in balance, I don't see "revealing life's purpose" as suffering's main raison d'être.
    Here's a little background for my perspective:

    ReplyDelete
  4. Via e-mail from Allison - Part 2 of 3

    Here's a little background for my perspective:
    In The Whispering Pond, systems theorist Ervin Laszlo explains that leading edge scientists are now beginning to realize that "there is a constant and intimate contact among the things that coexist and co-evolve in the universe - a sharing of bonds and messages that makes reality into a stupendous network of interaction and communication." It is this 'sharing of messages' in Nature that keeps it in balance. In Cohen's Natural Systems Thinking Process (NSTP), we learn to connect to the these messages that sustain the Web of Life through our 53 senses, which register the attraction relationships that nature uses to create and sustain life. As I have personally experienced hundreds of times, Dr. Cohen's simple reconnecting with nature activities--which heal senses that have been damaged and severed because of our species' excessive indoor living and disconnecting cultural stories and conditioning--give rise to an increased awareness of the messages that sustain the web of life. As more and more senses are strengthened and connected, personal choices and behaviors begin to reflect nature's wisdom. Support of the Web replaces personal greed and destructive personal, social, and environmental behaviors.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Via e-mail from Allison - Part 3 of 3

    Here's a little background for my perspective:
    In The Whispering Pond, systems theorist Ervin Laszlo explains that leading edge scientists are now beginning to realize that "there is a constant and intimate contact among the things that coexist and co-evolve in the universe - a sharing of bonds and messages that makes reality into a stupendous network of interaction and communication." It is this 'sharing of messages' in Nature that keeps it in balance. In Cohen's Natural Systems Thinking Process (NSTP), we learn to connect to the these messages that sustain the Web of Life through our 53 senses, which register the attraction relationships that nature uses to create and sustain life. As I have personally experienced hundreds of times, Dr. Cohen's simple reconnecting with nature activities--which heal senses that have been damaged and severed because of our species' excessive indoor living and disconnecting cultural stories and conditioning--give rise to an increased awareness of the messages that sustain the web of life. As more and more senses are strengthened and connected, personal choices and behaviors begin to reflect nature's wisdom. Support of the Web replaces personal greed and destructive personal, social, and environmental behaviors.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thank you, Allison, for sharing your insights. One of the greatest values of Carolyn's book is to catalyze discussions like these about the spiritual and psychological aspects of the eco-nomic changes we're facing.
    Being an ecopsychologist who relies on Dr. Cohen's natural systems thinking, I too agree that suffering is a message that our current choices, pathway, or situation is not adequately supporting of us. And certainly that is our current situation. Our cultural choices over many years have taken us further and further from a live supportive way of being in the world.
    So as far as finding our purpose in life, I would see suffering's only role to point out that we are not on purpose.
    I think I understand Carolyn's statement that mental illness is avoidance of suffering as meaning that it is a maladaption to the suffering or pain that come from not following our natural attractions. It would come from assuming that we cannot move toward something that would be sustaining and therefore we try to compensate in unhealthy, distorted ways that not only do not bring us closer to what we need, but also lead us to suffer even further.
    This seems consistent with both our view and hers.
    Blessings,
    Sarah

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  7. From Carolyn Baker via e-mail -

    Thank you, Sarah, for clarifying. By no means do I mean that we should welcome or glorify pain. That would not bring meaning or depth to our lives. It is the denial of suffering as a part of life to which I refer. Jim Kunstler states in the documentary "The Great Squeeze" that Americans have lost the "tragic sense of life" which he clarifies as being a sense of a beginning, a middle, and an end, to our experiences. Being a very immature culture in many ways, we tend to prefer that "happy times" go on forever, and unlike our seasoned, indigenous ancestors, we seem to have yet to learn that real life doesn't work that way. In Sacred Demise, I'm asking us to consider that "happy times" based on the self-centered consumeristic paradigm of empire is over and I'm attempting to engage us in thinking and feeling about the paradigm we want to create instead.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Submitted by e-mail from a reader:

    While I do believe it's true that pain and fear are natural senses that inform us of those times when we're not being supported--a clear signal from the web of life that we should be seeking more positive attractions elsewhere, so to speak--we must also become intimately familiar with the abundance that nature provides for any species that can manage to stay within its ecosystem's carrying capacity.

    I basically agree with what you're saying here (as I do with the vast majority of your writing), but what I'm arguing for is that there is a more effective way of presenting it; a way that is more in keeping with the tendency of living organisms to create relationships that support more life. The very language being used creates the context for how we perceive, and thus how we respond.

    Look at the frames we're reinforcing here. The first thing I think it's important to realize is that these aren't "happy" times (and I realize this is the basic point you're making as well). Currently Americans rank themselves 149 out of 150 countries on the UN's Happiness Scale. So awareness raising of reality is one project we must undertake, while also becoming aware that while the waste and greed of consumer culture is indeed a major problem, it is only a symptom of a much deeper disconnection.

    Also, there is no requirement whatsoever that a "tragic sense" be required to deal maturely with the cycle of life. As much as I enjoy and appreciate Kunstler's writing, what we have lost is the ability to participate in the fulfillment offered by a living world.
    This shows up in many ways, such as original sin, etc. An ecologically sound argument can be made that there is actually no death in the natural world, everything contributes to more life. Death is a human construct; fear of which only serves lives that haven't fulfilled; lives where fear and suffering have taken an unnatural hold.
    Otherwise, a normal death would merely be another cause for celebration.

    All that said, I fully agree that if we ignore these very real experiences of reality, of the damage we're doing--intentional or not--and the manner in which the pain of the web manifests in sentient beings--ourselves and others--who are an intimate aspect of that web, we do indeed then embody pathology. As Sarah Conn says, the earth is suffering and it speaks the loudest through the most sensitive of us.

    What I keep arguing for is to keep things both in context, and in balance. In a universe that is friendly to life and its evolution, well over 95% of our time as individuals should be "happy". This doesn't mean a Disneyland fantasy, so we must be very clear on that point. Because if life isn't meaningful and fulfilling, then we are indeed doing something wrong. I think it is a major mistake to take our experience within dominator culture, where the above percentage is often reversed, and assume that is what is "normal". This sounds way too much like Hinduism.

    We do indeed need to become more experienced at imagining and creating the life honoring paradigm we wish to move toward. This is what the combination of relocalization--the _process_ to create a sustainable future--and reconnecting with nature provide.

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  9. imho, when i think of "suffering", I think of the feelings people have as they allow themselves the awareness of what is happening on a global level to many of our beautiful, once natural eco-systems, to polar bears, the whales, and/or the many myriad species that are endangered or already slipping into extinction due to environmental degradation. This is a huge loss, and recognizing what it means on so many levels, and allowing oneself to experience the sadness and grief of this is fundamental to being fully human, as well as sitting in and honoring the council of all beings. Staying lodged there is not, but is also a possibility. Passing judgment upon others who cope differently is also part of the human range, but something that nature connection could likely "cure".

    Many of us are still leading privileged lives and haven't had s/o die in their arms, or a family member drown or be harmed in a hurricane or flood. These are just one simple example of many tragic circumstances. To those who experience them these circumstances are tragic and heart rending for some time, and empathy and compassion make these tragic to those who dare to open their eyes to such situations, or who are connect with them. Knowing that one's loved one or a polar bear will decompose and feed other life forms eventually is not generally something that one gets to until after passing thru other stages of grief, which most people, I think, would see as a form of suffering while it is happening as well as something fundamentally human and natural.

    The capacity to endure suffering, again imho, is foundational to having compassion and empathy for one's fellow beings - it has both constructive and healthy aspects but can have destructive aspects if one doesn't continue to "move thru" the feelings and use these as a vehicle for insight. As mentioned this movement happens in the context of support from nature and often the human community as one face of nature. Acceptance and love from the human community are generally the best
    'medicine'. As a psychotherapist, when I see people respond to this with an attitude of correction or censorship ~ judgment of 'negativity' ~ an inability to tolerate the full human range of feelings as verbalized by another, I see it more as a difficulty of the community member to experience and tolerate their own feelings that get stirred up.


    To set oneself up as "the teacher" and judge others in their process as "being negative", or to go around critiquing others and 'showing them the way' which seems to happen frequently is to me counterproductive and not NSTP, but simply ego. To me Real NSTP would be simply to walk the walk, and let this speak for itself ~ by attraction.

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  10. Thank you so much for your comments. I so agree with you about the ineffectiveness of anyone setting themselves up as the "teacher" or "judges" of others' responses to all we are contending with today. We must each find our way and in doing so seeing the paths others are walking can be an inspiration to us in our journeys.

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  11. Attractive posts to read, very nice blog. I subscribed to you via RSS for your latest updates, keep up the good work.

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