Climate Knocking at Our Door: How to Integrate Climate into Our Sense of Self

Climate has historically felt like something “out there” for many of us, unrelated to our sense of identity and not included in our personal narrative as anything more than a backdrop for the “real story” of our lives. Now that climate is knocking at each of our life’s doors, refusing to remain in the background, many of us are unsure how to respond. We wonder whether we should integrate climate into our life story and sense of self, and if so, how. This article explores how the four F’s of trauma play into our response to climate’s knock and how parts work can help us move past feeling threatened to feeling resourced and empowered.

Productivity, Potential, and Holistic Thriving

The focus on productivity is important for certain tasks at certain times, but it’s only one part of a holistic expression of our potential. If we conflate productivity with potential, we lose out on many rich aspects of our full selves, such as joy, rest, play, unstructured exploration and purposeless creativity. Trauma, culture and internalized ideologies can prime us toward a dysfunctional relationship with productivity, and thus with our understanding of our true potential. Jennifer explores these themes and shares resources for change in this article.

How to Discover & Be Guided by Your Highest Nature Values

To consciously engage with nature and the challenges of our time — ecological destruction, climate crisis, global social unrest — we need to have a clear sense of our nature values. When our action is rooted in our highest nature values, we are able to powerfully and sustainably mobilize our gifts, resources and energy toward meaningful action and positive change. Discovering our highest nature values is a process, and this article shows us how.