“The biggest gift you can give is to be absolutely present and when you're worrying about whether you're hopeful or hopeless or pessimistic or optimistic, who cares? The main thing is that you're showing up, that you're here and that you're finding ever more capacity to love this world because it will not be healed without that.”

― Joanna Macy, Active Hope

Strategies to Cultivate Resilience

STRATEGY #1: Practice Self-Care

  • "Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation and that is an act of political warfare." ― Audre Lord, Civil Rights Activist

Strategy #2: Hold Space for Your Climate Emotions

  • “The heart that breaks open can contain the whole universe.” ― Joanna Macy, Active Hope

STRATEGY #3: Look for Evidenced-Based Hope

  • "By focusing our attention so heavily on what's broken, we are reinforcing a starting-line fallacy that makes it feel as if nothing useful has ever been accomplished and that all the hard work lies ahead. We need to pry ourselves free from this disempowering rhetoric and situate ourselves within the positive environment trends that are already well established and yielding the successful results we need to grow." ― Elin Kelsey, Hope Matters

  • Check out the list of Solutions Journalism resources below.

STRATEGY #4: Build Your Self-Efficacy through Meaningful Action

STRATEGY #5: Practice Solidarity

  • “Many of us have been socialized to understand that constant growth, violent competition, and critical mass are the ways to create change. But emergence shows us that adaptation and evolution depend more upon critical, deep and authentic connections…Emergence emphasizes critical connections over critical mass.” ― adrienne marie brown, Emergent Strategy

Resources for Eco-Grief and Climate Anxiety