Be a green reed: Resilience in the face of climate change

John Sabin

John Sabin

My dad once told me about a flight he took from Los Angeles to New York – a five-hour flight. A young woman with a baby sat in the row right in front of him, and as the plane took off the baby began to cry. The young mother rocked the baby and said, “There, there, Nancy. There, there, Nancy.” And the baby continued to cry. The mother patiently rocked her child, gave it a bottle, changed its diaper, but still it cried and cried. “There, there, Nancy,” the mother said, over and over. “We will be home soon, and you can have a nice bath, and sleep in your own bed. There, there, Nancy. There, there.” The mother repeated this refrain over and over. Finally, as the plane began its final descent into LaGuardia, the baby fell asleep. As they were getting off the plane, my father said to the young woman, “I admire how patient you have been with your daughter, Nancy.” “Oh, my baby’s not Nancy,” said the woman. “I’m Nancy!”

The American Psychological Association says: “Resilience is the process and outcome of successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences, especially through mental, emotional, and behavioral flexibility and adjustment to external and internal demands. . . . Psychological research demonstrates that the resources and skills associated with more positive adaptation (i.e., greater resilience) can be cultivated and practiced.” (https://www.apa.org/topics/resilience)

We can think about resilience as depending upon caring for ourselves – or offering care to and receiving care from others – in multiple dimensions: physical, emotional, social, psychological. And for those who identify as spiritual, we could add that dimension as well. I think an analogy might be to an athlete preparing for an extremely challenging athletic event. The athlete has to get themselves into the best possible condition to be able to rise to that challenge.

So, we might find ourselves more resilient in our climate work if we take care of our physical well-being, including our sleep and our diets, and if we get enough physical exercise. Along these lines, there will be a CCL training on “non-sleep deep rest” on January 10th. As climate activists, we might especially find a sense of restoration in the natural world. The German poet Rilke wrote, “If we surrendered to earth’s intelligence, we could rise up rooted, like trees.” Tamara Staton, who runs the Resilience Building Action Team, emphasizes the value of music and physical movement to restore a sense of balance and joy to our lives.

We might focus on taking care of ourselves emotionally and psychologically. Maybe that includes seeing a therapist. I’m a therapist, so I’ll put in a plug for therapy. Maybe it means learning to think and talk about things without making assumptions and without judgment. Some of you here are involved in peer counseling. Maybe it’s just having a close friend that you can have heart-to-heart talks with. And I think emotional health is closely tied to social health. For those with a spiritual faith or practice, leaning into that can be really helpful.

I think many of us struggle with the overwhelming amount of bad news we encounter about climate change, and on other topics. When I joined CCL, I had no background in climate or environmental science. I met the local environmentalist, and retired Oberlin College professor, David Orr, and I asked him if he could recommend some things I could read about climate science. He said, “Oh, you already know enough. You know enough to be active. If you know much more, you won’t be able to get out of bed in the morning.” So, that actually has guided me since then. I try to know enough to be active – but I don’t want to know so much that I can’t get out of bed in the morning. That’s true about climate change but also about other issues. I read a newspaper in the morning, but I mostly read the headlines and maybe a sentence or two. I want to know what’s happening, but I don’t take in all the details.

As a final thought, when I think of resilience, I think of what Confucius said: “The green reed which bends in the wind is stronger than the mighty oak which breaks in a storm.” To be soft and pliable, bending with the circumstances, makes us more resilient than rigidly trying to impose our will on the situations we find ourselves in.

Please check out the Resilience Building Action Team for more resources. This Action Team has created a new role of group resilience coordinator. If any of you are interested in this role, there will be some upcoming training. I don’t think the dates have been set yet, but you can get information by completing this Google form. And watch this short video (below) about resilience and the Resilience Building Action Team.

What Is Resilience? from Citizens' Climate Education on Vimeo.