What my mom dying taught me about climate change.
9/14/23
At first glance, I never thought I’d put those two things — my mom dying and climate change — in the same sentence. Turns out there is so much connection between the two.
Nine years ago today my mom passed away from Stage 4 pancreatic cancer. In a matter of months, she went from a healthy active mom and business owner, to gone. Our family is still shook to this day.
Next year it will have been 10 years and that “marker” is already giving me quite a bit of anxiety… it feels so far, yet so real, so palpable. I did things no 28 year old should ever have to do and saw things that I will never be able to unsee.
So what does my mom dying have to do with climate change?
Turns out, quite a lot.
Our world is on fire.
I hope I am not the first one to tell you this, especially after a summer like this past one … but our world is in a load of hurt.
If you aren’t paying attention to or affected by this pain and suffering, you are willfully ignoring it.
If you think you can continue your day to day lives as normal, unaffected by what is going on in our natural world, you are misguided.
If you think you, your work, your family, your kids are somehow removed from nature, our natural worlds, and their interconnected webs and thus wrath, you might want to brush up on science.
If you think it’s just a bunch of crazy people sounding false alarms, think again.
(Until you have read an IPCC report, you can’t form a rationale argument against what is happening. Here ya go…you’re welcome)
As our planet warms, the destruction continues (just yesterday over 5,000 — and counting — people died in flooding in Libya).
And this ongoing destruction has fueled growing climate anxiety, or eco-anxiety.
This is defined as, “fundamental distress about climate change and its impacts on the landscape and human existence. That can manifest as intrusive thoughts or feelings of distress about future disasters or the long-term future of human existence and the world, including one’s own descendants”
It is estimated that 30% of Americans experience climate anxiety and has given rise to an entirely new field of psychology.
The anxiety, pain, fear, anger one feels towards the death of a loved one, what I felt during and after my mom’s passing, is exactly what many are feeling towards the loss of our habitable world, the loss of a stable eco-system, one that is not just deteriorating, but moving towards extinction.
The Grief Journey
The grief journey is never linear.
It can be suffocating, intoxicating, depressing, maddening, even motivating.
But what we know for sure is that one does not progress linearly through the stages of grief. Nor should one.
In the following months and years after my mom’s passing, I felt it all.
I was depressed. I considered taking my own life.
I felt angry, I felt sad, I felt hopeless. I felt I had lost not only my mom, but a best friend, someone that helped me make sense of all that was the world.
I felt isolated, I felt closer to others I hadn’t been close to in years. I leaned on friendships — some rose to the occasion, some surprised me with their kindness, support, and care.
I screamed at the top of my lungs on multiple occassions. I hit pillows with all the rage I had In my bones. I sang and danced like never before.
It wasn’t until numerous anxiety attacks (3 to be exact), a visit from the paramedics, a trip to the cardiologist, that I began to realize this grief was either going to be my downfall, or I could try to channel it into something more, motivation, something worth living for.
And this is what many around the world, myself included, are feeling with the affects of climate change.
The World As It Is
Many are going through their own grief journey with the state of the environment.
We feel angry at those not acting. We feel hatred towards oil company profits and government inaction.
We feel sad that our kids won’t inherent the same ecological stability that we were so fortunate to have.
We feel depressed at our collective inability to really give a shit — enough to create the action needed at every level, from self to global.
We feel stressed the F***K out about what to do with our kids futures, where to live, what to invest in, and how possibly it can feel like so many are willfully ignoring the truth…
We feel a growing sense of anger and find it harder and harder to keep that anger in check, to funnel it into proactive action.
I’ve been working in the climate space for the past 15 years and connected with folks around the world grappling with these emotions.
One of the most genuinely nicest people I’ve ever met, told me they were considering damaging trucks and gas guzzling cars in their neighborhood. These are not just “hippies” having these feelings and range of emotions.
These are real people. People that care enough to feel.
Your Feelings Are OK.
I learned many things in my own grief journey, subsequent group and individual therapy. But one that has stuck with me the most, resonated the most, and felt the most helpful is that your feelings are just that, YOUR feelings.
You are entitled to your feelings. You are OK to feel angry, depressed, sad, and mad. They are afteral, your feelings.
An analogy given to me during therapy was to think of yourself as the sky and your emotions as clouds/weather.
Severe storms form, cause destruction, come and go. There are sunny days. There are cold days. But the weather comes and goes, the weather does not define you, just as your emtions do not define who you are. After a rage of emotions comes and goes, you are still you. Perhaps altered, but just like the sky, still there.
What I see in the climate space is more and more individuals expressing their emotions, their anger, their frustration.
But I also see much discussion from within climate “circles” prescribing what and how to do with these emotions. That anger is not ok, that we must be above frustration. That we can’t ever let these emotions get the best of us.
But as someone who felt grief literally take me to my knees, I know these feelings are ok. We must give them space to breath, to course through our veins, to be processed, let out, and recognized.
Your frustrations around climate change, your anxiety, your anger at those not doing enough, are totally valid.
And you are not alone.
The Work Ahead
After deciding to do my best to let the grief and despair I felt from my mom’s death motivate and fuel me even more in my work and life, the real hard, challenging work began.
It has been incredibly difficult, not always easy, and with the support of many I felt I was slowly able to get on the right path. I’ve since gotten married, had two boys of my own, and launched my own company in my mom’s honor. And while I am proud of that path, it’s looked a lot like this:
my grief journey
And that is ok because it is my journey.
Your journey may look totally different and that is ok too.
So while we are here, I encourage you to let those emotions out. Lean into your climate anger, your climate anxiety.
Because it is in those emotions that two things will happen: You will find out who you truly are and you will be able to begin the work of healing, of motivation, of change.
Thanks for being here.
Z
Read original article on Medium:
https://medium.com/@zachweismann/what-my-mom-dying-taught-me-about-climate-change-f89e6b659dea
