The Environment and Mental Health
Written by Rosaleen Xiong
“What environmental issue do you care about the most and why?”
Interviews have always made me nervous, and this one was no exception. It was last spring, and I was interviewing for the role of program fellow at Georgia Interfaith Power and Light (GIPL) with Hannah and Codi. I thought it was going pretty well, but this question gave me pause. How honest should I be? Would they understand my answer? I decided to go with my immediate instinct.
“Well, it’s kind of basic, but I would probably have to say carbon emissions. As for why … do y’all also lay awake at night thinking about how greenhouse gasses are going to make our planet uninhabitable?”
Sure, I was being a little dramatic, but what really struck me was how both Hannah and Codi immediately nodded yes in agreement with my statement. One of the biggest challenges in environmental action is how lonely it can feel, so even that simple moment made me feel so relieved and affirmed knowing I was not alone in my feelings of grief and anxiety around the environment.
I was reminded of this conversation a year later when I taught my first workshop on Coping with Eco-Distress. Eco-distress is short for ecological distress and refers to several emotions, such as eco-grief, eco-anxiety, and eco-guilt, that arise due to experiencing or learning about environmental degradation, the loss of ecosystems and species, and/or climate change. Even though I was pretty sure others experienced eco-distress, I was still nervous about this workshop. Would it actually resonate with people? Or is it just me who feels these feelings?
The workshop started out slow, with only a few participants raising their hands to answer questions. As we continued talking, though, more and more folks started offering their thoughts. By the end of the workshop, there was so much discussion I had to cut it short because we had run out of time.
Being a part of a spiritual community and feeling invited to share the burden of eco-distress made me think back to that first time Hannah and Codi validated my personal feelings of eco-grief. It is powerful and soothing to be able to share a common burden with friends.
Today, October 10, is World Mental Health Day. If my experiences with GIPL have taught me anything, it is that eco-distress is an incredibly common and reasonable response to the environmental destruction that we are seeing around us, and it is having a real impact on people’s mental health.
I have also learned we do not have to cope with eco-distress alone.
Leaning on our spiritual communities for support and solidarity can be an invaluable way to cope with our feelings of eco-distress. In a community, we may laugh together, cry together, and, perhaps most importantly, care for each other. We may also learn to lean on other mental health resources, including mindfulness, therapy, and rest.
If eco-distress begins tangibly impacting our day-to-day lives, it may be time to seek professional help. Groups like the Climate Psychology Alliance and the Climate Psychiatry Alliance have formed to offer mental health support specifically to those suffering from eco-distress. GIPL also offers a workshop titled Climate and Our Emotional Wellbeing taught by one such therapist, Janna Diamond, an Atlanta-area practitioner who serves as the Georgia State Coordinator for the Climate Psychology Alliance.
Through my workshop, I have seen firsthand how sharing our own experiences of eco-distress and listening to the experiences of others can help us cope with eco-grief and eco-anxiety.
On this World Mental Health Day, I want to remind you that even when you feel lost or hopeless, you are never truly alone in the fight against climate change.
