Event Details: What do you feel when you see changes in your local environment? When you think about the state of the planet in general? 

There is a growing awareness of how living through environmental crisis can be traumatic, and can lead to experiences such as intense anxiety, grief, and despair. Research is increasingly showing how such forms of ‘ecological distress’ can have a serious impact on mental health and wellbeing. 

Whether you are an activist or an educator, a young person or a parent, or simply anyone overwhelmed in the face of ecological crisis, navigating this emotional landscape can be incredibly challenging.

This workshop offers an opportunity to open up to (in order to work through) these difficult emotions. Drawing from the facilitator’s academic research and lived experience, we will use self-reflective exercises and creative prompts to help you think about the specific emotions you might be experiencing. 

How might recognising these emotions—naming them, sitting with them, and/or sharing them potentially help us to find ways to live more gently with them… or even to shift them? Perhaps the distress might learn to sit with love, care, determination, and hope.

Through individual reflection and group discussion, the focus of this workshop is on cultivating a meaningful sense of care in times of crisis. It recognises that self-care, community care, and earth care are all related, and all needed for a healthy and just way forward.

FYI: Given the topic of this workshop, participants should be aware that heavy emotions or traumatic themes may emerge.

Meet Your Speakers:

Dr Susan Wardell - lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Otago

Jodie Jarvis - PhD student in Social Anthropology at the University of Otago

Cost: $25