1. Take a deep breath and then another.
2. Make sure your feet are on the ground or floor and feel the heaviness of them.
3. Breath softly through your nose – slow and quite shallow breaths are good.
4. Think about relaxing the muscles in your face, your neck, your arms . . . all the way down to your toes.
5. Then give yourself a great big hug and tell yourself that in this moment you are OK.
Hopefully you are feeling less anxious now.
You are not alone in feeling anxiety about the climate crisis – it can feel overwhelming and out of control.
When this is combined with 24 hour news and all the other things life throws at us – it can be hard.
Some of us may also experience grief or just an underlying sadness as we go about our daily lives.
You’ve recognised what you are feeling.
* You’ve already done an important thing – you have recognised what you are feeling.
* When we are stressed we can’t make good decisions so it’s great to try to manage this – breathing techniques are one of the best ways to bring our body out of anxiety. And this means our brain will also be calmer and able to work things out.
* Understand our capacity. We are one human in a world of 8 billion and we can’t simply can’t fix the climate crisis on our own. This doesn’t mean we should give up – it just means we should give ourselves a break.
* There are many ways of looking after our climate and the most important one is to connect with other people. In fact being kind and looking after one another is one of the most radical thing we can do.
* We might already be fully stretched looking after ourselves or others. That’s ok too. We need to understand our capacity and not beat ourselves up. Sometimes just being alive on this earth is enough.
* Finding a local group to join is a brilliant thing to do – being with other people helps us. And doing something positive together is even better.
* Perhaps there is a campaign to clean up your local river, or reduce air pollution, or encourage the use of public transport. Maybe you can join a food growing collective or help at the food bank or plant trees. Perhaps there is a local programme to help refugees or you would like to join your local council and bring climate issues to the table.
We are alive right now. This time happens to be our time on this incredible planet. There is beauty and connection to be found.
Sometimes we can channel our anxiety into micro managing every aspect of our life – deciding that living the perfect climate life (whatever that is) is the only way to make a difference. It’s great to choose to do things that make a difference – like eating less meat, not flying, using public transport. But none of us can solve the climate crisis on our own – we need systemic change. Rather than focusing solely on our individual lives it can help to think about collective issues and to find other people who care as well.
Photograph – Alban Roinard
KEEP OUR SEA CHEMICAL FREE 