Climate Grief & Growth

Our leaders aren’t leading, our institutions are failing us, and every day, the planet lurches toward uninhabitable living conditions. So many are already feeling the impacts on the frontlines from increased storms, raging wildfires, unprecedented flooding, and changing seasons. We’ve also been launched into the sixth mass extinction as key ecosystems and species are swallowed up by the dominant culture. Loss is in the air we breathe.

There is so much to grieve. When we are overwhelmed by these shared losses and don’t take time to process them, they threaten our ability to feel present, connected, and joyful. It prevents us from making the necessary changes to protect what is still here. Grieving connects us to our love and helps fuel our work to transform these destructive aspects of our culture. At Good Grief Network and Reimagine, we know there is wisdom and a soul maturity that happens when we are able to name loss and describe how it has transformed us. As soul activist and therapist Francis Weller says, "Any who undertake real mourning return with gravitas, wisdom gathered in the darkness."

In this workshop, Good Grief Network Founding Director LaUra Schmidt will help us touch our feelings of grief and balance them with love and joy. We will practice grounding exercises, honor our losses, connect with each other, share some poetry, and move our bodies to metabolize grief and distress associated with the climate crisis and ecocide.

LaUra Schmidt

LaUra (she/her) is the founder of the Good Grief Network and the brain behind the “10-Steps to Resilience & Empowerment in a Chaotic Climate” program and the FLOW Facilitation Training modality. She is a truth seeker, community builder, cultural critic, trainer, program designer, and facilitator. She is a lifelong student, curator, and practitioner of personal and collective resilience strategies. LaUra graduated with a BS in Environmental Studies, Biology, and Religious Studies. Her MS is in Environmental Humanities. She recently earned an “Integrative Somatic Trauma Therapy” Certificate through The Embody Lab and a “Climate Psychology” certificate through California Institute of Integral Studies.

In August 2023, LaUra’s book on Good Grief Network’s unique 10-Step program called How to Live in a Chaotic Climate: 10 Steps to Reconnect with Ourselves, Our Communities, and Our Planet will be released through Shambhala Publications.

About Reimagine and the Climate Grief & Growth Series

Reimagine's mission is to help all people face adversity, loss, and mortality, and channel the hard parts of life into meaningful action and growth. www.letsreimagine.org

This event is part of Reimagine’s three-part series “Climate Grief & Growth” in March 2023. Planet earth is in hospice and its inhabitants need grief support. Climate change is relentlessly producing more disaster, death, grief, and anxiety. We are actively destroying the environment, both with intent and negligence. Governments and corporations have ignored warnings from scientists, spiritual leaders, and activists. But despite it all, there’s comfort in our collective struggle. In this series, we will learn ways to grow in the face of climate grief by learning, practicing mindfulness, and taking action. Topics for discussion and practice will include regulating feelings of despair and finding purpose in acts of service and civic engagement.

About Good Grief Network

Good Grief Network is a nonprofit organization that started in 2016. We bring people together to process collective grief, eco-distress, and overwhelming feelings concerning the collective planetary crises. By building individual and community resilience, we empower people to rediscover their agency and engage in meaningful actions.

Using a variety of modalities such as embodiment, group sharing, deep listening, and co-visioning, Good Grief Network creates brave, emergent spaces where people process their heavy emotions, learn new skills, reconnect on all levels, and actively build communities that are invested in intentional relationships, healing, and growth.

On March 22, 2023, Reimagine hosted a thought-provoking event as part of their "Climate Grief & Growth" series. The event featured Kaira Jewel Lingo, a Buddhist teacher with expertise in weaving mindfulness, meditation, and social justice, and LaUra Schmidt, the founder of Good Grief Network. Together, they guided attendees in taking small, meaningful steps towards growth and transformation when confronting climate change and ecocide.

During their dialogue, attendees were invited into peer-led breakout groups to discuss questions such as the disruption of core belief systems in relation to climate change and ecocide, insights gained from experiencing grief, examples of mindfulness practices to regulate difficult emotions, and acts of service to help others and the planet.

Kaira Jewel Lingo shared her lifelong interest in spirituality and social justice, drawing inspiration from Engaged Buddhism developed by Thich Nhat Hanh and her dad's work with Martin Luther King Jr. She taught internationally in the Zen lineage and the Vipassana tradition, as well as in secular mindfulness, at the intersection of racial, climate, and social justice with a focus on activists, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, artists, educators, families, and youth. Keira is author of We Were Made for These Times: Ten Lessons in Moving through Change, Loss and Disruption from Parallax Press. Her teachings and writings can be found at www.kairajewel.com. IG @kairajewel. She is also the author of "We Were Made for These Times: Ten Lessons in Moving through Change, Loss and Disruption" from Parallax Press.

LaUra Schmidt, who is a truth seeker, community builder, cultural critic, trainer, program designer, and facilitator, shared her unique "10-Steps to Resilience & Empowerment in a Chaotic Climate" program and the FLOW Facilitation Training modality. She is a lifelong student, curator, and practitioner of personal and collective resilience strategies, and her academic background includes a BS in Environmental Studies, Biology, and Religious Studies, and an MS in Environmental Humanities. Attendees could look forward to her upcoming book How to Live in a Chaotic Climate: 10 Steps to Reconnect with Ourselves, Our Communities, and Our Planet which was set to release in August 2023 through Shambhala Publications.

The event was organized by Reimagine (www.letsreimagine.org), whose mission is to help people face adversity, loss, and mortality, and channel the hard parts of life into meaningful action and growth. The Climate Grief & Growth series aimed to provide ways to grow in the face of climate grief by learning, practicing mindfulness, and taking action. Topics of discussion and practice included regulating feelings of despair and finding purpose in acts of service and civic engagement.

Good Grief Network, a nonprofit organization that started in 2016, was also a part of the event. They brought people together to process collective grief, eco-distress, and overwhelming feelings concerning the collective planetary crises. By building individual and community resilience, they empower people to rediscover their agency and engage in meaningful actions. Using a variety of modalities such as embodiment, group sharing, deep listening, and co-visioning, Good Grief Network creates brave, emergent spaces where people process their heavy emotions, learn new skills, reconnect on all levels, and actively build communities that are invested in intentional relationships, healing, and growth.

Grief is most often associated with human loss, but it can also apply to our responses to climate change and the destruction of the natural environment. In this roundtable discussion, leading experts in mental health, climate justice, and environmental humanities provide a range of perspectives on climate grief as well as opportunities for growth as we struggle with ecological crisis. Leslie Davenport, Kyle X. Hill, LaUra Schmidt, and Tori Tsui share personal examples of eco-loss they have experienced, the collective experience of this trauma, and how we can navigate a path forward.

Leslie Davenport

Leslie Davenport is a climate psychology educator, consultant, and therapist exploring the intersectionality of climate, health, education, policy, and social justice. Leslie helped shape the document: “Mental Health and Our Changing Climate: Impacts, Implications, and Guidance,” and authored four books including Emotional Resiliency in the Era of Climate Change, and All the Feelings Under the Sun, written for youth through the American Psychological Association. She is an advisor to Post Carbon Institute, Climate Mental Health Network, Integrative Healers Action Network, One Resilient Earth, and co-lead of the Climate Psychology Certification at the California Institute of Integral Studies and faculty with their School of Professional Psychology and Health. www.lesliedavenport.com FB @LeslieDavenportAuthor

Kyle X. Hill

Kyle X. Hill, PhD, MPH is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, lineal descendent of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate (Dakota; Heipa district) and Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe (Lakota; White Horse community). Dr. Hill is a licensed psychologist in the state of Minnesota, currently serving as an assistant professor with the University of North Dakota, school of medicine and health sciences, department of Indigenous Health. Most recently, Dr. Hill completed his MPH through the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2020. He is active in community-based participatory research with American Indian and First Nations communities in the U.S. and Canada while also collaborating on research projects across social, behavioral and environmental health within Native communities. In particular, his research interests consider the social, political and ecological determinants of health, as well as climate justice and decolonizing health and wellness in Indigenous communities. He currently lives on his Dakota and Anishinaabe traditional homelands in Imnizaska Otunwe (St. Paul), MN. Dr. Hill is also a veteran of the U.S. Army and enjoys travelling in the summer as a grass dancer on the powwow trail.

LaUra Schmidt

LaUra (she/her) is the founder of the Good Grief Network and the brain behind the “10-Steps to Resilience & Empowerment in a Chaotic Climate” program and the FLOW Facilitation Training modality. She is a truth seeker, community builder, cultural critic, trainer, program designer, and facilitator. She is a lifelong student, curator, and practitioner of personal and collective resilience strategies. LaUra graduated with a BS in Environmental Studies, Biology, and Religious Studies. Her MS is in Environmental Humanities. She recently earned an “Integrative Somatic Trauma Therapy” Certificate through The Embody Lab and a “Climate Psychology” certificate through California Institute of Integral Studies.

In August 2023, LaUra’s book on Good Grief Network’s unique 10-Step program called How to Live in a Chaotic Climate: 10 Steps to Reconnect with Ourselves, Our Communities, and Our Planet will be released through Shambhala Publications.

Tori Tsui

Tori is a self-described 'bad' activist who focuses on climate change, mental health and anti-racism. She utilizes her platform to educate and spread awareness of intersectional climate activism and mental health, in an accessible manner that resonates with her followers and new audiences alike. Tori speaks openly about her own struggles with BPD and PMDD. Her recent work includes working with a group of activists, alongside musician Billie Eilish, on the digital January cover of Vogue. Tori has previously worked with Stella McCartney to model as a climate activist for their FW19 campaign. She was invited to a roundtable with Stella’s team during Paris Fashion Week – interacting with influential figures such as Amber Valletta and Jonathan Safran Foer. Subsequently, Stella sponsored her to sail across the Atlantic Ocean with an initiative called Sail To The COP. This then lead to Unite For Climate Action – a project Tori worked on with LAC youth climate experts to share their stories and experiences with German government officials in 2020.

Tori is an intersectional consultant for companies and global brands who are seeking expert advice from a voice of authority on topics spanning across climate activism, environmentalism, mental health and inclusivity across all marginalized communities. Tori launched an initiative called Bad Activist Collective, in which she started with her two friends, discussing how to navigate the pressures of perfect activism in an imperfect world. As well as this, Tori is writing a book titled “It's Not Just You” - a theoretical, emotional and practical space for unpacking the nuances of what we have come to know as eco-anxiety and climate grief, all within the context of a climate justice framework. www.toritsui.com IG @toritsui_

About Reimagine and the Climate Grief & Growth Series

Reimagine's mission is to help all people face adversity, loss, and mortality, and channel the hard parts of life into meaningful action and growth. www.letsreimagine.org

This event is part of Reimagine’s three-part series “Climate Grief & Growth” in March 2023. Planet earth is in hospice and its inhabitants need grief support. Climate change is relentlessly producing more disaster, death, grief, and anxiety. We are actively destroying the environment, both with intent and negligence. Governments and corporations have ignored warnings from scientists, spiritual leaders, and activists. But despite it all, there’s comfort in our collective struggle. In this series, we will learn ways to grow in the face of climate grief by learning, practicing mindfulness, and taking action. Topics for discussion and practice will include regulating feelings of despair and finding purpose in acts of service and civic engagement.

About Good Grief Network

Good Grief Network is a nonprofit organization that started in 2016. We bring people together to process collective grief, eco-distress, and overwhelming feelings concerning the collective planetary crises. By building individual and community resilience, we empower people to rediscover their agency and engage in meaningful actions.

Using a variety of modalities such as embodiment, group sharing, deep listening, and co-visioning, Good Grief Network creates brave, emergent spaces where people process their heavy emotions, learn new skills, reconnect on all levels, and actively build communities that are invested in intentional relationships, healing, and growth.