I have just read all the current posts as well as earlier posts. It made for a thought provoking morning for which I am most grateful.
I am thinking of how I maintain the status quo and what it will take for me to move differently. Along side of this, I think of society’s response to climate change and what it will take for most of us or at least a strong number of us, to move differently. One can have awareness of the problem, based on good observations and clear thinking, along with the knowledge required to move differently and the emotional system can still be successful in keeping us stuck. To me, the emotional system is what prevents me from moving differently in my family and what prevents all of us from moving differently in society in terms of climate change. So how does one manage to self regulate and control the urge to be comfortable, close, and accepted. When Jim Edd talked of the research regarding nonuse, it really stood out for me. It may be the nonuse of the knowledge of differentiation and self regulation makes it harder to motivate oneself to use it.
I had a client I worked with for 18 months or so. She was stuck in all areas of her life and had recently been totally cut off from her son and only grandchild. She was imbedded in an impossible togetherness with her oldest daughter where neither was able to move independent of the other. In those 18 months, the client got more interested in herself and began to attend to her own health care, something she had ignored for 15 years. She also began to say no to her daughter and her behavior in relation to the daughter was somewhat less automatic than it had always been. She also began socializing with her peers and accepting invitations to social gatherings at her apt. complex. Prior to this, her socialization always involved her daughter. She was doing very well ……and than it all stopped. Her statements became more like they were in the beginning…..this is how it has always been and I am not going to change anything, most of all me. I tried to think of what I had contributed to this process and was careful not to pressure her to continue. I now wonder how my own stuck position is influencing my clinical work. I would guess the influence is subtle but there, nonetheless. How humbling is that.
Let me leave you with a quote from “This Changes Everything” by Naomi Klein.
“We always had hope that next year was gonna be better. And even this year was gonna be better. We learned slowly, and what didn’t work, you tried it harder the next time. You didn’t try something different. You just tried harder, the same thing that didn’t work.” – Wayne Lewis, Dust Bowl survivor, 2012
Thanks Ann. Any suggestions of what would constitute a list based on current evidence on things to do to reduce one’s carbon imprint on the one hand and are adaptive in the face of climate change on the other? I am paying attention to what i buy with this in mind more of the time and how I vote whenever possible and causes I support. I’m hoping Richard Branson of Virgin Airlines was not just blowing hot air when he suggested that carbon neutral flying would be possible soon.