Season 1, Episode 4: Acceptance, Commitment and Climate with Guest Karine St. Jean

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Written By Climate Change And Happiness
 

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Season 1, Episode 4 | Acceptance, Commitment and Climate with Guest Karine St. Jean

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. Thomas recognizes some important works that integrate Buddhism and ecology as well as concepts like hyper-empathy that take on added meaning in the context of the climate crisis. Panu rounds out the discussion by introducing the concept of “binocular vision” as a way to hold multiple emotions in awareness as we grapple with complex 21st century dilemmas. 

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Transcript

Season 1, Episode 4: Acceptance, Commitment and Climate with Guest Karine St. Jean

[music: “CC&H theme music”]

Introduction voice: Welcome to Climate Change and Happiness, an international podcast that explores the personal side of climate change. Your feelings, what the crisis means to you, and how to cope and thrive. And now, your hosts, Thomas Doherty and Panu Pihkala.

Thomas Doherty: Hello, I am Thomas Doherty.

Panu Pihkala: And I am Panu Pihkala. 

Doherty: And welcome to Climate Change and Happiness. The show for people around the globe who are feeling and thinking deeply about the personal side of climate change and the climate crisis. Their emotional responses and their feelings. As you know from listening, I’m a psychologist in Portland, Oregon and Panu is an emotions researcher from Helsinki, Finland. And, today, from Montreal, Canada, we have a guest.

Karine St. Jean: Hi. Really happy to be here. I’m Karine St. Jean. I’m a psychologist here in Montreal, Canada. I’ve been interested in this relationship between ourselves and the planet and all emotions that come with it for a few years now. And I’m trying to help as many people as I can to navigate these lands.

Doherty: Bonjour, Karine.

St. Jean: Bonjour. I’m French-speaking too. 

Doherty: Like Panu, je parle un peu français (I speak a little bit of French), but not enough to carry an intelligent conversation. But Karine, I know I’ve had some connection with you and I’m really proud to have you here as our guest. Our first guest on our podcast, actually. And I know you’ve been doing, as a psychologist, some interesting work in Montreal. And I just wanted to start out by asking you, you know, is this, how did this psychology and nature-climate connection start out with you? I think people are always curious about that for mental health professionals. Was it a long-standing interest? Or was it, was there a kind of trigger or an event? You know, what’s some, you know, details about how this might work out in your life?

St. Jean: It started inside. Like being worried about the state of our planet and navigating all those emotions like hopelessness, sadness, fear and struggling with conflicting values and emotions. So, it was more like a personal thing that I was juggling with and exploring. And started to talk about that with colleagues. And we started a few actions at the clinic, at work to make this whole clinic a bit more green and a bit more conscious. And somehow things kind of fell into place and I started talking about eco-anxiety. Started reading a lot about that. Reading research and at some point decided to put all those thoughts together in a book. That was my journey so far. 

And, of course, being in touch with clients who are struggling with that. Like carrying the pain and very deep questions about that: like should I continue studying? Should I have children? My children - what I’m creating for them? So, all those things that were showing up in therapy. So, learning from those clients how they were navigating these emotions and helping them create a space where they could feel heard, supported, validated in what they are feeling – and unpacking all those emotions were kind of also a really significant part of this process for me.

Pihkala: That is very, very fascinating, Karine and bienvenue (welcome). 

St. Jean: Merci (thank you).

Pihkala: Working in Finland there’s lots of similarities in what we’ve seen. I’m not a therapist, but I’ve been facilitating discussion groups together with therapists for people who feel rather strong eco-anxiety and so on. So, can you share with us a bit more about the methods you’ve been using in such encounters?

St. Jean: I would say the first thing that comes to mind is holding the space for all those emotions to be named and to be processed and to be okay with the pain and the suffering that comes with it. So in my, but also with my clients, like so they can trust that it can be held and named and explored. And also that we can make sense of that and eventually do something – whether it’s to take care of ourselves or, I should say and, take care of the planet too. The whole process is, of course, infused by my, I’ll say that’s my personal practice and my personal belief. I’m exploring mindfulness and Buddhism. So it kind of infuses a bit how I approach how we can help hold emotions, but also Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is also showing up in how I help people.

Pihkala: That’s most interesting. Thanks for sharing a bit more about those methods. And since I have a background also in religion and worldview research and practice and so on, so I’ve also been interested about mindfulness for a long time. And it’s fascinating to see also those books about eco-anxiety and related phenomena that are now coming out. Very many of them do have Buddhist influences and people utilize mindfulness. So there really seems to be something that helps people with these difficult emotions. 

Doherty: Yeah and, you know, there was a book called Dharma Gaia that came out, you know, 20, 30 years ago [1990]. That was an early collection. Joanna Macy’s work, obviously. You know, [her] World as Lover, World as Self (1991) has gotten into this kind of work.

Yeah so, I mean, our podcast is a holding space too. So the listeners, you know, we’re holding space for our emotions and for yours as well. And then, there’s this critical tension with feeling and then action. You know, how to stay with just the feeling and with the presensing. So I’m just wondering. I just want to name that off the bat because I just think that’s an impulse. People have a hard time sitting still! And really being with these things because they’re kind of yucky. They’re yucky feelings. You know, I know that comes up in your work, Karine, and you experience it as well. What is, you know, ACT therapy - Acceptance and Commitment Therapy - is a model that I’m influenced by as well. What are some of the examples of, Karine, that you would go to when someone’s struggling with that action impulse? Is that something that you could speak to? 

St. Jean: When I think of ACT therapy, so it’s Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, two things come to mind. All those emotions are really just important information. They are yucky, but they are really important because they are telling us that something that we value or someone that we value is kind of influenced or hurt by what is going on. So, they are telling us that something is important. So, finding a space to explore these values. What’s meaningful for us. And probably, like all the listeners, probably have different values related to climate and environment and the biodiversity and social inequities and injustice. So, many of this can be brought up and named so it can help in making sense of all these yucky feelings that we tend to, you know, work very hard to run away from. Whether it’s by Netflix or whatever means we choose. So, getting in touch with those values, I think it’s a way of approaching those emotions that can be a bit less frightening first. 

And the other piece that I use that I find helpful in ACT is how do we relate with this mind that’s not always so helpful for us? Sometimes we can get lost and very fixed. And someone that I know used a nice word like “unbendable and unbreakable” views or perspectives. And they can become very narrow and they can create a lot of pain like at 3 am in the morning when I’m still worrying about whether I should have children? Or those poor koalas that have been burned. It’s not really helpful for me. Not saying that it’s true or not. It’s just not helpful. 

So, that’s the first layer. And the second layer that sometimes I will go with exploring with people, clients is: what is this that’s going on in my mind lately? Images? Words? It’s not happening right now. It may be happening somewhere, but for me right in this moment the nature of those thoughts are just words and images associated with feelings. And it’s not - I’m not saying that in a way of, you know, just thoughts are not important, but more like “oh can I relate differently with those thoughts.” And I find this could be helpful in creating a different space to approach all that is going on when we think about our poor planet. 

Doherty: hmmm.

Pihkala: That is most interesting. And a close colleague of mine in Finland, Sanni Saarimäki, who is a psychologist working with students started a sort of pioneering group in Finland for future-related anxiety among students at a technology university. So you can imagine the contradictions that people have when they become more aware of the systemic crisis and realize that partly their studies and the professions that they are aiming towards are sort of part of the problem. So it’s very complicated. 

But, she’s been using Acceptance Commitment Therapy quite a lot and we’ve had interesting discussions related to it. And I think it’s very important just as I heard you say to sort of emphasize the reality of the crisis, but then also say that, you know, working with our thoughts and with our possible rumination and so on it can also help. So, it’s not necessary to discard CBT altogether in this.

Doherty: Yeah. Yeah and there’s a tension between, you know, getting into the thoughts and trying to question them or just really just not tangling with them. Like they say [in ACT], let go of the tug of war with the thought. And so that’s interesting. I have a saying in therapy, you know, our mind is going to do what it wants to do. Both positive and negative, you know. Someone is really on a, you know, more positive, someone’s out dating and they meet someone and then suddenly have all these fantasies about all they’re going to be together with this person. And this is the right person for them. And they’re going to be living together. And so they start having, you know, “future tripping” as we call it. Where they’re just way out there. And I say, you know, “your horses are going to run so let them run, but just don’t ride them.” You know, so your thoughts are going to run, just don’t get on their back and ride them. 

I try to do that with anxiety well. You know, our anxiety is going to run. It’s on all the time. It’s a normal, natural setting. Unfortunately we live in a time, you know, where the world keeps setting off our red anxiety light constantly. All the time. So, we can let that run. So, experientially that’s hard to do. Then it’s to the, you know, in terms of climate emotions, we can also try to think about the emotions we want to be feeling. You know, that we want to cultivate. Like I’ve been playing around with this word “faith.” Faith is often one that doesn’t come up in climate discourse very much. But, you know, allegiance, fidelity to something.

St. Jean: Trust.

Doherty: Faith in our values. Yeah, you know, and how do we kind of play with that growing feelings. You know, growing the feelings we want.

Pihkala: Yeah. It’s like the FBI [US Federal Bureau of Investigation], you know. They have words behind the abbreviation. I think it’s “Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity.” Well, I’m not commenting about the actual FBI and these, but it’s a nice combination of three values and virtues. And fides, the original word linking both with faith and trust as you, Karine, said. So, does this sort of faith angle of Thomas resonate with you, Karin?

St. Jean: When you first mentioned it, it was, what came to mind is this combination of kind of trust and action that goes along with faith that for me makes faith meaningful. It’s kind of faith anchored in like real things. As opposed to some, you know, some of listeners and even me like when we talk about faith, as Thomas mentioned, it’s something more like I trust in something that I don’t know. Or that I don’t have proof of. Whereas, the faith that we seem to be talking about right now makes a lot of sense. Being anchored in an ability to also hold all the positive that’s being done right now. Like there are some good news. I mean I believe that much. And if we don’t read the IPCC report it’s easier sometimes to do. But there is hope and if we can anchor ourself in this, in faith that there’s something that can be done. And it makes sense.

But for some people it might be hard to allow themselves to have positive emotions. It can feel so wrong because they are so entangled in their own anxiety and fear. And it’s something that it’s worth cultivating, finding our own way of having faith in something that makes sense.

Pihkala: Yeah, thanks for sharing that. And I totally agree from my own experience that any kind of healthy pride or even being content is very difficult even for ardent environmental activists because of the strong possibility of ecological guilt and shame. And the situation where basically or theoretically you could always do more. So it’s very difficult when there’s no established social norms that when, have you done enough.

St. Jean: I’ve heard people being shamed by members of their group because they were daring, speaking of something that’s positive, and there can be something of that in certain groups too. So I think it's something to explore at least.

Doherty: Yeah. And I think for listeners, it’s something we all struggle with. I struggle with this. Panu. I mean, we all struggle with this too. I work with people in groups like the Sunrise Movement. They’re taking on climate change and social justice and, you know, built in inequalities. So there’s, in every direction, there are things to be upset about. And it can really be a competition to see how bad you can feel in some ways. And so it is radical to capture the truth of our feelings. Which is that they’re also positive because they’re wild as we’ve talked about before on our podcast. They’re wild. We’re going to have positive feelings.

And this whole “hyper-empathy” is another good word that I like. We’ve been talking about our different words that we like. Hyperempathy. You know, this ability to feel sensations of others really strongly, including pain. Comes out of Octavia Butler's novel Parable of the Sower. But, you know, we do have this hyper-empathy because of technology and all the things we can see and hear and learn about. And so, it does make it difficult. But, you know,  faith anchored in a real thing, you know. Like Ashlee Consolo says, “gritty hope.” It’s like hope that’s - or hope based in action. Or built hope. So I think there’s this idea we have to be - you know, the actions and emotions can work well together if we can get them in the right synch. In the right synch, but I think there’s just a lot of loss. A lot of loss and grief because our actions seem so small sometimes.

Pihkala: Do you, Karine, operate with the concept of meaning explicitly in your work? Because, of course, that’s one that’s very closely related to the subject matter we’ve been talking about.

St. Jean: I think it’s essential that we explore the meaning of what we feel. It’s, for me, a big chunk of how I can be with all those emotions. If I’m just drowning in them, it can be really, really heavy. But if I can, and I notice that too, and people even in groups like when people can find a collective meaning to their sense of grief or to their anger, it opens a door into okay, but what can I do with that? And sometimes it can be as beautifully and powerfully simple as just going out in nature and being able to feel all those positive emotions that we have to hold together because they are co-existing in that moment. Like there’s the beauty of nature, but also all the awareness of what’s going on in nature. But because we can understand all that, we can put words, we can discern and there’s a sense of yeah it makes sense.

I think it’s really, really helpful and also if I can understand what those emotions are telling me then it opens the door and what can I do? And it can be just making more individual actions, for example, reducing how much we consume. But it can also be educating people, getting invested in the community, or whatever feels right for us. But it will feel right only if we can make sense of what’s going on inside. So, I think exploring meaning is a big chunk of what’s happening when we’re navigating those emotions.

Pihkala: Yeah, I think that’s very well put. Thanks again for putting that into words. And a sort of big part of my work has been also to try to put out the argument that even amidst ambivalence, one can experience meaning. Thanks for pointing out this. I think it is quite a common experience, actually, that, for example, being outdoors there’s both joy and sadness. But if you engage with it, it’s luckily the meaningfulness can grow. So I think it’s always very sad if people often for understandable reasons stay inside and close down upon them. So that’s often a danger I think.

Doherty: And I think there’s an interesting tension between action and emotional work. I think as mental health people we, you know, our area is the mental hygiene. It’s [bringing] our most well, best self to the situation. But we are not sustainability professionals and I think we have to be careful of getting in there and making kind of, it’s kind of theater. You know, where we say “oh you know,  do something, and we don’t really know. We know mental health stuff. So I think, you know, how do we, how do mental health providers just help people to be their best self in general so they can bring their best self to these issues? You know, like I say: “We have issues and we have issues.” We have Capital I issues we want to change in the world. We have small i issues: our baggage and our insecurities and our neuroses and stuff like that. And that’s where we help people to be their best self. 

Yeah, because I just feel like with fossil fuel propaganda, it’s just drilled into people’s minds. You have to. It’s all your fault. You have to make the change. So I feel like in my work I have to stop. You know, name that. That’s a tough one though. Does that come up for you, Karine?

St. Jean: Yeah. What comes up for me a lot is this: Like there are conflicting things happening. Like there’s this I need my car to go to work. And like all society is built around using fossil fuels. And also there’s all the guilt of “I should.” And we live in Quebec, so when it’s minus 44 riding your bike for 20km might not be such a good idea. You may need your car. And this and also there’s all the weight of social norms and like all that stuff that we’re carrying. And it’s not so easy to be okay with finding our own space. And, like, I’m not a bad person because I have a car. It’s just choices that I need to make and allowing myself to navigate all the other conditions in my life. So it’s interesting how we can get caught up in fossil fuels are bad or shouldn’t use plastic. Never ever ever. But more like being a bit more flexible and finding what works for us because in the balance our mental health is also important. If I’m suffering a lot because I’m doing a guilt trip all the time, not so sure that that works. So, yeah those issues are like showing up.

Pihkala: Yeah. They can even be a sort of quest for purity in a sort of anthropological sense. And that’s one issue that would perhaps need even more attention. But, you mentioned, Karine, that, you know, one has to work with one’s own emotions when starting more explicitly to work with these themes. So, would you like to share some more about how did it go for you and your colleagues? You can of course choose the level of intimacy that you want to share here, but how was the process or the transition when you started to integrate more of these themes in your work?

St. Jean: Since it started, what we call like the ‘green squad’ at our clinic. So there was a guy that started this off and a few of us got along and since I was managing one of the clinics so we tried to implement those things. And so discussions were showing up. How do we feel about doing that? And how does that make us feel to do something for this? It was all good at the beginning and then we hit the “Okay, but the building doesn’t recycle.” What do we do? Like do we bring the recycling at home? But we’re all riding our bikes to work. How do we do that while carrying bunches of sheets?

So, it was quite interesting to together reflect on that. And then it shifted into how do we integrate that with our clients. These notions. That eco-anxiety. And it was like, for me, and I cannot speak for my colleagues, but for me there’s a sense of being heard. A sense of connection. Of sharing something that’s important. Knowing that I’m not alone. Feeling all the, you know, guilt, but also the anger, the fear, the sadness. And all the nuances. The shades of sadness, of anger. So, but knowing that there were people at work because when we talk about how we can help our clients, we talk about how we can help ourselves. So, it was helpful for me in that way. 

Doherty: Yeah. Yeah, we’ve got a few more minutes here. This is really neat. One thing that I’ve enjoyed talking with Panu about is Finland and some of the values and words and customs they have there. And how nature and the natural world is talked about. And sustainability. I’m wondering - I’m really, you know, intrigued with Quebec and Montreal. And the culture there. And the Quebecois, you know, culture there. I wonder is there any, you know, Karine do you think there’s certain strengths there or certain things that come out of that culture that’s helpful? Or in terms of nature or connection with nature? The outdoors?

St. Jean: I think there’s a strong connection to nature. And in the strong connection there’s a lot of pain too because we see all our indigenous people like getting, losing their land and their way of life. It’s a lot more complicated than this, but still there’s this sense of a deep connection with earth, nature, Mother Earth. And I remember in the last election how proud I was that Quebec was one of the provinces that put the environment at the top of the list of preoccupations. And how proud I was. And I remember when two years ago when Greta Thunberg showed up for the “Walk for the Earth,” it was like hundreds of thousands of people in the street. It was the biggest walk that ever happened. And there’s this sense of yeah, we’re not alone. Collectively, we are preoccupied by that. And it’s a good thing that we’re preoccupied. That there’s a sense of a bit of fear. I think it’s and I can see it everyday. Like people bending to pick up trash in parks or so. Yeah, I feel like it’s alive. This preoccupation that’s being channeled into action. Which brings faith and hope for me to see that. 

Doherty: Yeah.

Pihkala: Yeah. Thanks again for sharing. And I really like the way that you tie together the social and collective dimension with the individual one. I think that’s very crucial here. In different levels and contexts, the social dynamics shape so profoundly people’s experiences. And, coming from Finland, I can resonate with lot’s that you said. There are lots of good collective things happening. And also, of course, there’s clashes. And right this week the Extinction Rebellion (Elokapina in Finnish) has been holding an Autumn Rebellion in the center of Helsinki. And there’s been lots of discussion about that. And, so, can you share a bit more? Is there also sort contradiction between, for example, traditional, resource intensive use of natural resources and then the sort of new environmental consciousness that you described? Or is it proceeding rapidly? How is it in Quebec? I really don’t know.

St. Jean: Not so sure I understand the question, properly, but what came to mind is that in Canada we are like a big - we were a big producer of fossil fuels. And we’re the one wanting to build a big pipeline. And so like of course there’s a lot of contradiction. And Quebec we can feel it a little less. There’s still a lot of contradiction because some people are really into that and they’re, of course, we’re consumers. We’re contributing. There’s also a lot of things that are not going the right way here in Canada. 

Pihkala: Yeah, thanks. You understood me perfectly. It’s always a relief when one is not a native speaker when somebody understands. So one of the skills that we’ve been discussing in this podcast is something that my friend and colleague Sanni has also integrated into ACT, which is sort of skill of seeing two levels. Or “binocular vision.” So exactly this ability to focus both on the good news and the bad news and not just one of them.

Doherty: Yeah and these conversations come down to, you know, first nations people and being indigenous. So I’m glad you brought that up, Karine. And you know first-nation folks that are listening, you know, that’s something we want to honor in our conversation. Basically how do we - it comes down to everyone, you know, feeling indigenous to a place. Place consciousness. And I think underlying the other emotions and values is I think ultimately will come down to the place and being with the place. So I think as we’ll wrap up here for today. But, you know, our listeners I’d encourage you to, you know, take into consideration what we talked about, but also be out in your place and maybe put your hand on the ground somewhere and just, you know, notice where you are. Because, you know, we hurt where we care. And so, we do care about our places and it’s why we have all this empathy. And what we look at for faith. But I look forward to some more conversations coming up. Karine, thank you very much for coming out and sharing. And Panu, as always, great to chat with you.

St. Jean: Thank you very much. It was really, really nice to be here today and the conversation was pretty interesting for me, so I’m grateful for that to both of you. And hope that our listeners will find something of value there.

Pihkala: Kiitos (thank you). Very nice to meet you, Karine. Let’s continue.

St. Jean: Merci beaucoup (thank you so much).  

Doherty: Have a good day everyone. 

St. Jean: Bonne journée. Have a good day. 

[music: “CC&H theme music”]

 
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