Let me tell you a story. Two years ago, my house was flooded. I don’t know if you saw in the past few weeks, the past few months, terrible images in Canada, the sky being orange, burning forests, wildfires spiraling out of control.
Well, it’s not only that. Last week, my mom’s house got flooded and my brother’s house got flooded. And there were also some tornado warnings in the Ontario region.
Dealing with Climate Anxiety as a Therapist
Climate change is here, guys. We need to do something about it. But what do we do when we’re therapists? How are we supposed to deal with end times fascism? How are we supposed to deal with climate catastrophes when you look outside and the sky is orange? This anxiety is not just in a person’s head.
It’s actually right outside of the window. So if you’re looking for the answer for that, stay tuned. My name is David Archer.
I’m an EMDR therapy trainer, an anti-racist psychotherapist, author, and you can check the links in the description for more info. But let’s get into the weekly consult for this week. Jojo’s a non-binary client of mine, and they were going through some challenges.
It was a little rough. And although we had our trauma history, we were working on traumas from the past, they were a little stressed because of some of the images that you can see on the screen. This is what was blowing up on their social media, the destruction, the wildfires.
The Core of the Anxiety
So the stresses they had were very present. So they were concerned about the future, feeling like what’s the purpose of continuing to go on living if our future is being robbed from us. And you know, there are many fancy explanations and insights that I could give, but I felt that the answer needed to come from the client themselves.
This is where we used resource integration. And let me just break it down. Here’s the basic idea.
When a person is stressed about something, it’s not just the content of it. It’s actually the process of it. I’ll say it in a different way.
The words they use to explain what is the issue is only half of the story. What’s even more important is the emotion that underlies it. What’s even more important is the physical feeling, the physical sensations that are connected to it, because those physical feelings relate to the unconscious action urges, survival-based responses, fight, flight, freeze, shutdown responses.
Interoception and Imagination
And it’s that that we need to target with our interventions when we’re talking about things that seem really challenging to overcome. So this means that if their anxiety is projecting into the future or imagining something, the solution is also imagining something different, but projecting into their infinite creativity. So with Jojo, I was like, okay, well, what are the three self-critical thoughts that are coming up? And so then they listed the difficulties, they listed the challenges.
And when they started to think about like, you know, it seems like my future is being robbed from me. It looks like there’s nothing that can be done about this. It’s helpless. Why should I go on living? When the person says those types of thoughts, we need to focus on something called interoception. What happens in the body when you think these thoughts? And then Jojo described it as, you know, it feels as if it’s like a juice box that’s being squeezed. And so I don’t see how to help this specific problem.
There we go. That’s the issue. It’s not the thoughts.
Developing the Resource
It’s actually that feeling that’s at the core of it. So we needed to think of a visualization that was going to offset or counter that experience. So we needed to find a neutralizing or even like a complimentary response to it.
So we were then able to think about a balloon, which is the opposite. Instead of this crunching in, it was a balloon that was expanding. So they started to think of the balloon and they’re like, well, I don’t see how that’s relevant.
I say, hold on, let’s develop this resource. Let’s develop the understanding. So then they were able to make an image that represented what the balloon represented, which was going upwards.
They were able to think of an image that represented the essence of this, which was sunlight. And then they started to think about this rich, descriptive image of the sunlight coming in, whether it’s outside, whether it’s inside, nature blossoming. Even if things are really challenging, knowing that nature would continue, they started to think about the smell of the ocean.
Integrating the Resource
They started to think about the grass underneath their feet. And them describing this led them to have an emotion that was actually something that was moving upwards instead of the squishing feeling that the negative thoughts, the self-critical thoughts were giving for them. We started to do then the bilaterals, tapping from left to right as they were thinking about this great resource.
As they continued developing the resource, then there might’ve been some times where there were some challenges relating to fully accessing it. Well, they needed to customize the resource so it would be good for all parts of them. So then they started to really think about, okay, the orange color of the sunlight, that was specifically important for them.
So then we noticed that. And then their body was clear. At that point, we asked them, now that they’re feeling good, tapping from left to right, body, everything is good in the body, we need to ask, what are the words of wisdom that come from this resource, that come from your experience now? The words of wisdom that Jojo said was, things are going to be okay.
Disconfirming Self-Critical Thoughts
And then we go with that. We continue to do the tapping. And then the person’s feeling now that they generated wisdom out of nowhere, they’re feeling this good feeling.
And then we asked them to integrate with the resource, to become one with the resource and notice their experience of it. And then they report, you know, all of a sudden, they see this image of when they were younger, there was a science project that they did. They were able to grow an orange in this like artificial greenhouse that they created.
And all of a sudden, it made sense, this squished feeling of the juice box, this orange color, and then the orange, which was represented from what they created in the science project, their unconscious mind was making some connections to things that I could not necessarily know in advance. And maybe they wouldn’t have conscious access to either. This feeling, this surge of resourcefulness, is the opposite.
And the disconfirmation of the self-critical thoughts that were predicting the negative feeling that the person would have. So we got Jojo to think about those same negative self-critical thoughts. Didn’t bother them anymore.
Finding Wisdom from Within
We overlaid the resource, we felt good recognizing their power, got them to, just to double check, think about those thoughts again. No issue. Again, feel good for no reason.
Got them to think, okay, so now when you think about the climate anxiety, when you think about these images that you’ve been seeing on social media, what happens now? And then Jojo, again, feeling much calmer, looking different, speaking different, having great posture, everything was a little different, because now they were in their power. They said, even if things look hopeless, we have a duty to continue. Our ancestors depend on us to do this.
We tap from left to right. And I told them, seems like let me just drop the microphone. What else am I going to say after you just drop that knowledge, you know, and then they start to laugh.
But we need to understand that this knowledge, this wisdom can come to us. If we are grounded in our resources. If we act from our trauma history, we will reproduce the anxieties of the past, we need to find ways of acting from the deep, the depth of our resources of our own wisdom.
The Lesson of Resource Integration
And then we can come with insights that can exceed any of our expectations. So the lesson is, we’re not trying to make it that the client no longer feels that the climate is important, or the climate, that the climate crisis is not an issue, or that racism is not an issue, or that the socio-political context is not exactly what they see. Instead, we’re trying to make sure that they have the armor, that they have the equipment, that they have the sword to be able to wage battle, that if they want to be an activist, they can do it and take care of themselves.
If they want to do their activism in a specific way that’s not going out on the streets, they can still do it in their own way. But ultimately, we want to make sure that whatever change they want to bring about in the world, that it is sustainable, that they can also feed themselves, tune into a source that’s greater than themselves, and know that they are never truly alone if nature is on their side. And all that they got to do is switch it on, bring that sunlight in, bring that orange science project in, feel that good feeling, so you can do the good work out in the world.
So, if you like this video, I got a whole bunch of other videos. You can check the links in the description. Just click the button.
You know what to do. Like, share, subscribe, all of those things. Join the group, okay? Like, do what you got to do.
Just take one action. Take one action. If you liked it, share it, and let someone know that there is hope, but we got to cultivate our resources that are within.
Alright? Peace. Take care.
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