Thomas and Panu welcome Quebecois psychologist Karine St. Jean as their first guest on the podcast. Karine practices mindfulness and uses Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT) in her climate-focused work with clients in Montreal, Canada. In a wide ranging discussion, the three discuss the value of sitting with challenging feelings and maintaining flexibility in terms of sustainability action. Karine emphasizes the value in “meaningful faith” and finding “collective meaning”  in honoring the positive and negative emotions that come up around issues of the environment.

How do we navigate eco-anxiety as an idea and as a feeling? Is it one thing or many things? Thomas and Panu talk about eco-anxiety or “ympäristöahdistus” in Finnish as a primal emotion, as a feeling we can describe in various languages, as a cultural idea, and as a psychiatric diagnosis. Thomas and Panu give a history of the concept of eco- or environmental anxiety in psychology research and in pop culture.

Safe spaces are crucial for the expression of climate feelings. Thomas and Panu talk about the loneliness people feel about climate experiences. What does it take to “hold space” for climate feelings, to “stand one’s ground” and “contain” experiences of sadness, grief or rage; and to practice “climate cosmopolitanism”? Panu looks back to pioneering work by Chellis Glendinning and shares Tim Jensen’s more recent concept of “ecologies of guilt.” Thomas reminds us of the role of values and that “We hurt where we care” echoing the writing of psychologist Steven Hayes, and classic insights about the “pains of an ecological education” going back to Aldo Leopold.