Threshold Conversations: Audrey Martin

[00:00] INTRO

AMY: Earlier this year, I did something I’d never done before. I spent an hour and a half talking with a group of strangers about our emotions around the climate crisis. This is something that's happening all over the world right now, in person and online. Small groups of people who don't know each other are getting together simply to share feelings about climate.

These gatherings are called Climate Cafés, and I found out about them through my sister, Audrey Martin. She’s a Bay area psychotherapist, and one of the leaders of the Climate Psychology Alliance of North America—a large network of practitioners and mental health care providers working at the intersection of mental health and environmental issues. When Audrey first told me about Climate Cafés, I was intrigued. As a person devoted to reporting on climate and environment, I’m constantly bumping up against big feelings, in myself and in the people I interview. But those moments tend to come and go pretty quickly. It’s rare to actually stop and feel what we’re feeling about climate. And maybe that’s because it feels like we’ve got more important things to do. But I think it’s also because it's just hard.

What Audrey and other therapists are learning is that making space for our emotions around climate isn’t a detour from meaningful action — it can actually help sustain it.  So I wanted to ask Audrey: what does it mean to start facing our climate-related emotions? And why is it so hard to deal with this stuff on our own?

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AMY: I guess as a way to kind of open up the conversation, I want to just ask you about the work of not feeling our feelings about climate. What is that all about? Why are we working to not feel our feelings?

AUDREY: These are very difficult feelings to turn towards. I think a lot of times we don't even know what the feelings are. It's turning towards something that feels so complicated, so massive, and also so unknown to us. How do we engage with something at that level? I think the first thing that anyone encounters when they engage with their own emotions or reflections regarding climate is very intense fear.

And it's pretty hard wired in our species to when we feel afraid to, fight or fly away. And it's very hard to know how to fight climate change. I mean there's, there's actually important ideas and energy in that. But the more kind of intuitive response for most people is, let's get out of here. That's too scary. Let's go away. Away from all that. And, we're all on this planet, so we can't go somewhere else. But we do often create other places to go in our mind, or in our contact with others, or in how we spend our time. Of course, every time we choose not to engage with it somewhere in our own personal psychologies, there's an awareness of that. And there's an effort also in not dealing with the reality of the climate crisis and all of its intersecting components that are part of the crisis.

AMY: Can you talk about your own experience of that? How you first took that in, or didn't take it in, and just your own experience with that dynamic of letting things in and pushing them out?

AUDREY: I would say for most of my life it's been more about pushing that out and not taking it up cognitively, being aware that the climate crisis was grave. And that there was a lot I didn't understand. And not being in an emotional position to really even dive into the science of it. It was just a lot of fear.

And I would say right next to it a lot of grief. And I'm not sure how I could even, how feeling it would even make a difference. But I think that for me, lack of other inputs on my daily life during the, the pandemic in some way gave me enough space and sense of containment. And then I live in Northern California and there were some very serious fires.

And so having days where there was no sunlight and the world looked red, you know, kind of brought that home at another level. Living in an area where I have go bags packed for the fires during fire season, all that just kind of helped in some way, penetrate my denial. And I think that there's stages to that.

And so the initial stage of feeling it emotionally is something like a cracking egg, where a lot of feelings come rushing in. And I was lucky enough to have supports around me that allowed me to talk about it with other people, have space to feel my feelings, and also to have space then to not feel those feelings.

And so that's my own experience of feeling more contained and also more able to touch those feelings and not feeling like it knocked me out or rolled me over. But in a way gave me more energy to stay engaged and keep doing more. And the grief goes on, and the disappointment and the worry and the anxiety are part of this.

But now I accept that as part of my experience of being in reality. And so what was once sort of forbidden, within my own system, now has a channel that's acceptable and open and carries something like hope. And then I became involved with this organization who was very much thinking about how do we bring personal reflections and all that's happening on our internal psychologies into this arena, which really helped me feel like there's a path here.

AMY: So what is a climate cafe? How do you describe it?

AUDREY: So a climate cafe is a 90 minute facilitated conversation offered by people who have training in understanding climate emotions, group psychology. A very simple conversation. Usually it's a group of between 5 to 12 people. And, there's a couple prompts to help people kind of tune in to their own reflections. It's a conversation that's personal in nature. It's not a conversation that's about advice giving or setting up strategy or creating an action plan, or deciding what's right and what's wrong.

It's a place to think about one's own personal, climate related emotions. In the company of other people who are doing the same thing. And the purpose of that, really, is that it invites a safe place to begin reflecting and talking about climate experiences without a lot of pressure. One group only. So it only happens during that one time.

So that doesn't feel like there's a lot of weight to, you know, carry on the conversation. It just gets things started.

AMY: Yeah. I did my first Climate Cafe a couple of weeks ago, and it was very interesting to experience the difference between knowing that a lot of people in the world are very concerned about climate. Billions of people probably in the world. I can sort of know that intellectually, but it's very different to come into a room with seven people.

It's like these people, these particular people care about climate. They're here. They made time in their schedule to just show up with their feelings. People who I'm never going to see again. And I found that just really moving. And it was surprising to me, honestly, the difference between knowing it intellectually or even knowing it, not just intellectually, knowing it among people I'm close to in my life.

But having this, this kind of circle that you walk into, that it's like, this is what happens here. This is the reason for this gathering, is to try to let feelings come up.

AUDREY: It's a really different thing to feel anxiety or grief and feel like you're the only one, or you're all alone in those feelings. That perpetuates a sense of overwhelm, that perpetuates a person needing to move more into denial, to not directly engaging. But if there's a sense like, oh, that person seems to be having feelings similar to me, that instantly soothes because, I mean, I think on a very primal level in our species, we gain comfort from knowing, you know, there's group, there's others.

AMY: Yeah.

AUDREY: There's hope in that. And there's also just a sense of, of, inherent soothing. Yeah. So it's a really good way to begin to, to onboard into feeling these, difficult emotions.

AMY: It was also kind of disorienting because it is so open. It's not like coming into some kind of process where it's like, we're going to move you through five different stages. And what do you think about that? It was very open, almost like scarily so, like, wait, what's going on here? And at the same time, I loved that.

And I wonder, can you speak to that about why the climate cafes are set up to be so sparse in their structure? Like, what's the reasoning behind that?

AUDREY: Well, that's a great question. And, I can tell you my understanding of why that is. The climate cafes are based on a model that was first developed for people to talk about death, death cafes. And so they were really set up to hold grief. And the Climate Cafe model, while not exactly a duplicate of the Death Cafe, is is born kind of of that format.

And what we know about grief is that it's incredibly individual and incredibly personal and looks very different from one person to another and looks very different from one hour to another. And so the climate cafes are designed to catch people above all else, to give them room to authentically connect with where they're at within themselves. You know, the format isn't feel this now. And now we're going to all do this together, and then we're going to all tire shoelaces and go do this certain kind of work. When someone signs up for a climate cafe, they're not known to each other, nor are they known to the facilitators. So it's not a therapy group, it's a conversation group. And because of that, it can't dictate sort of states of mind or particular outcomes.

And a big part of this whole process of turning towards one's climate emotions, I mean, there's things we're talking about that are conscious, but there's also a lot that's unconscious for all of us around this. And the climate cafes are designed to give room to all of that, not just what you can cognitively name. One thing that's super key in anything connected to climate emotions is to not think that everyone has to be feeling the same thing at the same time.

This is a complex environment and a diverse environment, from a cellular level on up. And so to assume that everyone's going to be feeling the same is in a way turning away from one of the main lessons that I think are embedded in this painful crisis. Make room for difference. Don't assume everyone's on the same page. Let people move at their own pace.

AMY: We’ll have more of my conversation with my sister, Audrey Martin, right after this

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[12:55] BREAK

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AMY: I know we've, we've touched on this in various ways already. But I just want to ask really bluntly: why reflect? 

AUDREY: Well because it's because you're a person.

AMY: Yeah. But most of us go through our lives with a whole lot of time barely reflecting or not reflecting at all. So what's your what's your case for? Make the case for a reflection.

AUDREY: Great question. Well, whether or not you're reflective, you're having experiences. That's happening. And if we're talking about the climate crisis, in some way or another, each of us is aware this is happening, even if you're in denial about it in the weather, the, geopolitical connection, migration connection, all these things are happening. So if you're a person, at least in the Western world, who receives news, this is happening.

And, whether or not you're taking it in your system is absorbing it. And if you're not reflecting on it, it's taking energy to not engage with it, to push it down or push it away or turn towards something else that requires work in your mind. And that work done over and over and over takes some of the mental energy that one could be using, doing all sorts of other things.

It actually makes the operational space within one's mind less and less. As you work harder and harder to not feel, to not reflect and to not engage with it. And that can lead to anxiety disorders, panic attack, depressive states. Ingrained hopelessness, less creativity, less energy to do basic life, less relationality. Less freedom, ultimately less authenticity.

It just collapses the space to operate and live because, as much as we wish it was different. This is what's happening. And engaging with it is part of being, a fully functioning person in the world today. And it's hard to engage with it, but it's, kind of the work of our times to make a space.

And reflection gives energy, especially if you can do it in a way that feels contained. And, not alone. And that's where the climate cafes can come in and really serve a purpose.

AMY: That's a really good advertisement for reflection. I'm in. I think I'm going to start reflecting now.

AUDREY: Mix it up, Amy.

AMY: No but seriously I even though reflection is important to me, hearing you lay it out. Why it's important, why we need it. I mean, obviously everything you're saying applies to reflection in general, but it really relates to climate and environmental issues where it is so overwhelming and so disorienting, and the pressure, the internal appeal of not reflecting or not thinking, not taking it in is so strong. I guess it just makes it all the more important.

AUDREY: Yeah. It's a little bit of a secret that turning towards those things that are so scary, that are so unknown creates relief. As is often true for, for things that are dreaded. There's a sense of okay I faced something or I did a little something there, even if that's not fully in the conscious realm, the system feels it.

AMY: Well, I think you have facilitated a bunch of these at this point. 

AUDREY: Yeah. Many.

AMY: Have you had experiences where you've seen different groups kind of turn it into very different types of things, or do they all kind of have a sort of a similar pattern.

AUDREY: They all have a similar format, but every single cafe is different and unique because it's very much a co-created experience. And so who attends that day is how the cafe will be and how people feel at that particular time of the cafe. It would be, I would say, unusual for everyone in the group to be feeling the same thing at the same time.

You know the groups have different spots. I don't think I've ever been in a climate cafe where like every single person is crying. Sometimes people might cry in a cafe and another person might cry in hearing it or things like that, but it's not, it's not. It's not just about, a release of emotions. It's really reflection on the emotions.

And so someone might go to a climate cafe and manage to say a few things. And that was great work. Like just to show up is a huge deal. I just see that as a great act of personal courage that can start a whole different channel of personal engagement. And I do see that very linked to one being able to do sustainable action.

AMY: It could feel to some people at different moments that like oh it's just it's a waste of my time, it's navel gazing. It's not doing something. But I'm really understanding from what you're saying, that it is connected to action, even if it isn't a direct cause and effect. I love when you said reflection gives energy.

AUDREY: It will give you energy and it's making me think about what Katharine Hayhoe has said, which is the most important climate action you can take is talking to other people about your climate experiences, because, this is how we gain momentum to act. And if you are unable to deal with your own feelings about it, it's unlikely you'll bring it up to another person. And the more it's part of our regular zeitgeist, our regular considerations, our regular relationality, the more regular action becomes part of what we do and how we orient towards this.

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AMY: If you want to learn more about climate cafes or sign up to attend one online, a good place to start is the website for the Climate Psychology Alliance of North America. You can also find a directory of climate aware therapists there, if you want to meet with someone individually, or get connected to in-person climate cafes happening near you. Look for the link in the show notes, or just search for Climate Psychology Alliance of North America.

CREDITS

Threshold Conversations is produced by Sam Moore. Our music is by Todd Sickafoose. I’m executive producer Amy Martin. Thank you for listening, and for considering making a donation to support this show at thresholdpodcast.org.