Managing Climate Anxiety, Grief, Anger and Guilt: Strategies to Navigate Negative Climate Emotions
Are you feeling overwhelmed when you think about the climate crisis? Do you get angry when you think about the extent of biodiversity loss? Are you worried about the future on this planet?
You might think you are the only one feeling this. But that is not true (anymore). It is estimated that 72% of the world’s population report that they are worried about the climate crisis. Younger people are most affected, with over 60% reporting that they are worried or extremely worried about the climate crisis.
This worry is called climate anxiety, or eco-anxiety. And it is only one of many feelings that you might experience in response to the global crisis double crisis of climate change and biodiversity loss. Before we look at the big 5 climate emotions that drag us down, I want to highlight something extremely important:
Experiencing climate anxiety is not pathological. There is nothing wrong with you. You are experiencing a reasonable response to what is happening on our planet and the natural world.
This is important. Many people don’t talk about their climate emotions because they are afraid that they might be judged, or think that something is wrong with them. Let me tell you: there is nothing wrong with you! Even though these emotions can feel quite overwhelming, the fact that you are experiencing them means you care for the natural world and all living beings. Many climate psychologists are now highlighting that this is in fact a very reasonable response to the widespread destruction of ecosystems that we are seeing in every part of the planet.
Let’s learn more about the negative climate emotions and how we can manage them. This article covers:
Understanding Climate Anxiety
Climate anxiety, also referred to as eco-anxiety, is the heightened emotional, mental or somatic distress in response to dangerous changes in the climate system (The Handbook of Climate Psychology). Climate anxiety can show up in different ways, including irritability, loss of appetite, weakness, disturbed sleep and in more severe cases panic attacks. While research highlights that climate anxiety is felt much more in younger generations and people who have been exposed to climate disasters directly or indirectly (through social media and the news), it is important to note that climate anxiety is growing among every group in the general population.
Evidence-based strategies to calm climate anxiety
There are a few effective ways that can help you calm your climate anxiety and manage these feelings effectively. The below strategies are not aimed at ignoring or brushing away climate emotions. These strategies are tools to help you acknowledge your feelings, give them space and then harness them to revert to a more positive space. From that place, we can continue our journey to positive action.
Take climate action. One of the best ways to alleviate climate anxiety is to focus on positive action. The key here is that everything counts: take that first small step, however small. Because everything matters. Make a climate pledge, sign petitions, adopt a small environmentally friendly habit in your day-to-day. Climate action doesn’t have to be loud and on the streets. In fact, most climate action is quiet and takes place in our minds and our homes. What small action can you do today to contribute to a better future?
Connect with other impact-driven people. Community is the best antidote to feeling eco-anxiety. Surround yourself with like-minded people, who go through similar feelings than yourself. If you don’t have anyone in your inner circle yet, explore online communities or look for a climate café or climate circle in your area (I regularly host climate café’s online. If you want to get notified about the next one, consider signing up for my newsletter).
Practice self-care. Emotions don’t tend to stick around for long - if they get the attention they need to feel heard and seen. Befriend your emotions and give them space through self-care. Consider journaling for a few minutes about how you feel. Many people find emotional relief through working with their body, for example through breathing techniques, gentle yoga, a slow walk or taking a bath. Allow your emotions a safe space to exist for a few minutes and equally allow yourself to let them go again. If you find practising self-care challenging or feel you don’t have the tools or the time for it, consider working with a climate-informed coach or psychologist. I offer climate coaching for individuals, teams and organisations. You can learn more about this here.
Schedule rest and find balance. Our busy lives often demand a lot from us. Yet, rest and balance are two crucial ingredients to a healthy life. When you feel overwhelmed with the state of the world, try to schedule more time for rest and activities that bring you a sense of calmness, being grounded and finding balance.
Harnessing Climate Anger
Climate anger is feeling angry about the magnitude of the climate crisis, often triggered by a low level of personal control. Climate anger sometimes shows up through blaming others (e. g. the government, the rich, the oil industry).
Harness your climate anger. The best advise I got was: Get mad! And then get to work. Anger is a feeling that triggers our fight-or-flight response. You can harness that by jumping into action. Turning your anger into action builds resilience and strengths. Consider doing bolder actions than you are already doing. This is not a call for committing an arrestable offence. Typically climate action is a journey. People start with individual actions like recycling, upcycling, composting, changing their diets and using a more sustainable means of transport. If you are doing some of this already, think about what action you could inspire at work, in your community or university and school. For the workplace there are big changes ahead that require strong positive corporate action: the EU has recently put the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) into place, a law that requires companies to expand their reporting on their sustainability practices. 60,000 companies in Europe will have to comply with this directive, but only about 22% are ready. There is much work to do for anger turning into positive action.
Dealing with Climate Grief or Eco-Grief
Climate grief is mourning the loss that we feel when we understand the extent of the environmental destruction. It’s an emotion that many people experience, once they allow themselves to look at the impact of climate change on all human and non-human life. Grief can show up with three different trajectories.
We may grieve what is already lost. Scientists estimate that we have already lost around 68% of biodiversity since the 1970s. Much of that loss can be attributed to habitat loss on land and in the oceans, caused by human activity. For people who have lived through that period or have been born since the 1970s, chances are that you are noticing that decline in non-human activity in your local context too. Realising what we have already lost can trigger feelings of grief and loss.
We may grieve what we decide to give up. When you enter a journey of awakening, you will most likely start changing your own habits of consumption, diet and transport. You may decide to reduce or give up meat to decrease your own carbon footprint. For similar reasons you might decide to reduce or give up flying or buying new clothes. These decisions give us a sense of being in control and taking action. But they naturally will also trigger a sense of grief and loss for the life we had and the things we used to consume that might have brought us happiness. Remember that you are not just on a climate action journey. You are also on a journey to redefine what happiness means for you. Be gentle with yourself on that journey.
We may grieve future loss. We now have enough data to predict different probable futures that tell us how life on Earth will look like at different levels of warming. With the current trajectory, the 1.5 degrees target is likely to be breached. We already know that this will impact the lives of humans and non-human species across the globe. This knowledge of impending future loss can also trigger feelings of grief and can feel like a heavy burden to carry.
What can you do to relieve climate grief?
Grief is a difficult emotion as it tends to come and go in waves. When loss is neither grieved nor worked through, it becomes a blocker for positive change. When you are feeling climate-related grief, try any of the following pathways to acknowledge and care for that feeling.
Practice self-compassion. You are grieving for Earth because you are compassionate about life on Earth. Use that same strength of compassion for yourself and speak to yourself as you would speak to a dear friend who is grieving. Consider writing a self-compassionate letter to yourself.
Talk about it. As with all these heavy climate emotions, talking about it with a kindred spirit can help you navigate climate grief. Join a climate group or consider speaking about your grief in a climate café or climate circle online or in your local area.
Navigate Climate Guilt or Eco-Guilt
Climate guilt is the feeling that you should be doing more to help the environment and save the planet. It’s triggered by that felt mismatch between our pro-environmental values and our actual behaviour. Climate guilt can lead to spiralling into climate action without taking appropriate and necessary breaks of rest to recharge. Many people try to overcome their feelings of guilt by doing more. More petitions. More climate action. More conversations trying to convince others. More protests. More reading.
Trying to do more to feel more in control can lead to a vicious circle that may even lead to burnout. If you are finding yourself dealing with climate guilt try the following to change your perspective on guilt:
Use your climate guilt as a teacher. Every emotion is here to tell us something. What can you learn from your climate guilt? Journal about your feeling of guilt and get to know it better. When does it show up? Does it have a point or is it discounting all the good things you have and are already doing? What does your feeling of guilt need to calm down?
Remember it is not your fault. It is easy to blame ourselves for not doing enough, or for having been complicit for too long. But it is essential to remember, that climate change has not been caused by one person, or one generation, or one government. Climate change is the result of thousands of years of human activity on this planet. For many of these thousands of years, our ancestors didn’t have the knowledge (or the knowledge was lost) to understand the impact that their actions were having on the environment and the complex global ecosystem. While we do have a lot of knowledge and understanding today, we also need to remember that change is a tricky business. Change doesn’t come easy to many people. In fact, it is a struggle. It’s not your fault we are in this mess. It’s also not your best friend’s fault who doesn’t want to give up meat. Do what you can and what is in your power. All actions matter. All actions count. Remember: progress over perfection!
Managing Climate Depression or Eco-Depression
We are closing this review of climate emotions with one of the heavier ones. Climate depression is a feeling of helplessness and a lack of hope for the future. Climate depression can be accompanied by what is called ‘the negative voice of depression’, which you can hear internally and might say things like: “What’s the point of all of this anyways?”
Yes, climate depression is real. While some people claim climate depression is not real, it is a very real response to climate change and a growing mental health concern across the world. Climate depression can lead you into apathy, hopelessness and even develop suicidal thoughts.
Please speak to a trusted person or a mental health professional if you think you might experience climate depression. You can also call a mental health line in your country. Here is a list of helplines across the globe.
Let’s sum this up.
Negative emotions relating to the climate crisis can be overwhelming. However, there is power in negative emotions. If we take the time to listen and acknowledge them, they offer us a source of learning and understanding. Listen to what your climate emotions are here to teach you. Don’t dismiss them. Give them the space to be heard, so that you can heal and continue your impact journey with resilience, strengths, hope and optimism.
Do you want to develop your personal mental and emotional fitness toolkit? Do you want to help your impact-driven team and organisation to learn evidence-based tools to sustain positive action? Then I would love to hear from you!
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