Hey, thanks for listening to Reversing Climate Change.

I'm your host, Ross Kenyon.

Before we get going, I'd love to tell you a little bit about our sponsors.

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I would love it if you could listen for just a minute while I tell you about Phillip Lee LLP and our bionics.

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We assume it's the background, we assume it's the mechanics.

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Go check out Phillip Lee, our other sponsors, our bionics.

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Thanks for listening and now I will go into the show itself.

Thanks for your time.

Here it is.

Hey, thanks for listening to the Reversing Climate Change podcast.

I'm Ross Kenny and I'm a carbon removal entrepreneur.

Before I tell you about today's guest, if I could please ask you to open your podcast app right now.

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Today's show is with Ariela Cook Shonkoff.

Ariela wrote a really interesting book called Raising Anti Doomers.

How to bring up resilient kids through Climate change and Tumultuous times.

Oh.

If you work in climate carbon removal, if you just care about it, it's a difficult space to remain resilient in the face of.

If one doesn't have a good grip on one's emotions, I think there's a real risk of being a difficult colleague, a difficult spouse, a difficult parent, and you deserve better than that.

Like you only get one life.

Therapy can be a big part of what it means to deal with a world that is, to put it lightly, imperfect.

Much of the conversation and advice that is given regarding emotions is that you're not necessarily meant to allow yourself to be ruled by emotions, but you're also not supposed to be so stoic that you can't feel them.

The goal is to sit with it.

It's supposed to feel the way that it feels, and your goal for feeling a feeling is to not run through it into the next thing, not to distract yourself with the next prestige drama or podcast.

This doesn't apply.

If you're listening to my podcast that's psychologically approved, I will make an exception for this specific episode.

You're meant to sit with it and feel it.

It's not always going to feel great, and that's OK.

The expectation that feeling should always feel good is a weird one.

I'm not even sure where we got that idea because basically anyone who works on feelings to any capacity, as far as I know, will tell you that's not a reasonable assumption at all and is not actually good for us to do.

The second-half of the conversation deals with how those lessons apply to parenthood.

I hope you enjoy.

That's enough of an intro.

Thanks for listening and here.

Is today's show.

Ariella, Thanks for being here with me.

Thank you for having me.

I'm glad to have you.

We haven't done a show quite on this topic yet and look it's about raising anti dumer kids, but I'm I'm basically getting a free therapy session out of you today.

For me, I think I think a lot of the advice in the book probably equally applies to people listening who I imagine many of them are adults and some portion of them are parents.

Where do we even start with the topic like this?

If you could only give someone 1 nugget, and granted you wrote a whole book about it, how do you come to grips with the impending sense of doom around climate, ecology, toxicity, any and all of those things?

I think you don't dive head first into it and you don't run, you know, fleeing like madly away.

The work is in kind of this cultivating of your ability to tolerate some distressing news, right?

Or distressing, like facts.

This is where we're at.

And trying to your best to, yeah, like develop your ability to tolerate, be with your emotions to, you know, find supports that are helpful for you.

You know, if it's social supports or your own kind of strategies for calming your nervous system, right?

So that would be the nugget is this, I call it the sweet spot of engagement.

So or the anti doomer sweet spot so that you're not going to veer enough in either direction to too much.

I think I probably could have substituted in there any traumatic or difficult subject area and you probably could have said said the same thing.

I associate what you said is very much a mainline therapeutic culture response, which is that you're not meant to run away from it.

You're not supposed to be engulfed by it.

You're supposed to sit with it though.

Yeah, OK.

Fair enough for us.

Criticism.

I think it's, I think it's good.

It's very sensible advice.

Yeah, no, I think, but I, I, I think it's, yeah, it's easier said than done.

And so, I mean, that was like the, the, the overview, but it, that's, I mean, that's the point of the book is to give, you know, lots of tools for how the heck do you do this?

We, but The thing is, is we, we know, yeah, in therapy and many different, you know, approaches to therapy, that there are ways that we can work with the body and the nervous system.

I, and I think that is the emphasis a lot in my book, work with creativity, the nervous system, with the natural world, some with the thoughts, some, you know, with cognition.

But like, there is, there's definitely a more holistic emphasis in the book of yeah, how do you, how do you kind of widen the sweet spot?

I mean, and to use therapisty language, you know, the window of tolerance right now, which you may or may not be familiar with, but yeah, you tell me.

There's a preconception, I think, with therapy, maybe not for those who have spent time in it, but that it is a heavily cognitive type of work.

You know, I think this probably goes back to classical psychoanalysis and laying on the couch and, and people are still somehow stuck in that.

But I think much of therapy is actually about getting people out of their head and into their bodies, because culturally it seems like we still live pretty much up there and neglect everything below the head.

Like you mean, you mean that there is this tendency like OK, therapy happens up in this region that the head in that in the prefrontal cortex that we have to like analyze and sift through and explain.

There's been a shift.

I think there's really been a shift in more cognitive based therapies or psycho, you know, analysis to this kind of more somatic orientation.

I think of Peter Levine, you know, his some of his research and somatic experiencing and all the different there's to other orientations as well.

And so there, there was a shift to more this idea that, yeah, the body houses and, you know, emotions are embedded in the body in that the nervous system and the trauma response.

And it's actually activated all the time.

And we have them on smaller scales, right?

Like if we stop short and, you know, don't want to crash into the car in front of us, you know, let alone like some more major stuff if we're afraid for our safety or safety of others.

And so, yeah, I do think that there's been a shift in in that direction.

And I think that, yeah, for me and my work, I mean, I can just speak to it is, but there's a lot of body based work.

I mean, I, I'm very, I'm integrative.

So we're also talking through there, you know, but sometimes when I'm meeting with clients in my office, it's making suggestions of like, maybe we do less of this, like talking, talking brain to brain.

And maybe we take a little detour and maybe, you know, I, I'm, so I'm an art therapist, so there's art supplies and maybe, you know, and so I, I invite my, my clients and sometimes I'll even say, you know, because there can be nerves around it.

Like, I don't know, this is new for me.

I don't know, just like to really demystify it and open it up so that it feels accessible because it's just a tool for growth, for healing, for, you know, Yeah.

Grappling with difficult emotions, right And so anyway, just to say that I do think there's been a shift in more in this direction.

And one of the I'll add on in the climate psychology field, one of the things I'm appreciating is how different there's different orientations like melding together and shaping the field.

And it's been interesting to witness.

So you have, you know, different evidence based, you know, orientations or yeah, I could be a mind, mind, mind or body based, you know, orientations.

And there's kind of trying to figure out some of the best ways to support people on coping with, you know, climate distress.

If.

Someone comes in and they're they have climate anxiety.

I think one listening might think that the way to work through climate anxiety is to do something that is talk oriented and that you're going to untangle this knot in your brain.

And how does it work if you are doing art at the same time or you're doing art instead of verbalizing everything?

Does the emotion get processed in the same way?

Is it better somehow?

Like why do we think everything has to pass through the linguistic part of our brain?

Is that just me, by the way?

Like I think that I know it's not true, but it's it's like in my head.

Is it, is it just you that's what that's that goes 10s in that direction well.

I, I have a podcast.

So like, yeah, I, I process thing verbally.

This is what I do.

But I also know that it's not the only way, but I privilege it to such a high high extent.

No, I feel like you're, you're the norm.

Like and in terms of yeah, even people I I meet with, yeah, absolutely.

I think there's comfort in that and people are used to that.

So the typical client that comes in is like just like you're us, right?

They're like ready to talk, talk, talk and we might start there.

I mean, that's, you know, that's kind of where, you know, I might start a session, but there comes a point where I might say, Hey, you're feeling some big feelings about this.

How would it feel to, you know, maybe make a little art around it or something?

And that could be the first session or it might like lead up to that, you know, the next session.

But what what happens is there's like a toggling between the two.

So if you're all up in your head and you're all, you know, kind of intellectualizing things, they're actually not necessarily tapping down into your deeper emotions.

In fact, you can stay up and like the soft denial of intellectualizing, right And not, you know, coming down and and really feeling what's going on in my body.

Oh my God.

And it's even it's those emotions that can lead to actual action.

You know, there there's, you know, studies that show, right, eco anxiety, it can be correlated with or is correlated with, you know, taking more action and doing something about it.

And so there's, there's a missed opportunity if we stay up in, in our minds trying to make sense of everything versus coming down.

And so that's what I'm doing with.

And, and I can tell you when I, when I sit with a client and I'm thinking about, OK, I had a client draw his, you know, it was like his emotional suit that had to do with climate distress.

And it was, you know, fascinating.

I'm sitting there.

And then at the end, I kind of checked in about how he felt in, in creating and while creating, what emotions came up.

And then you even look at this separate, the separate, you know, it's like a separate entity from you.

It's come out of you, but there's a separation and there's an opportunity to see things differently and, and like and, and see the and kind of talk through metaphors.

So I'll, I'll often explore the art with my client.

And with that client I did.

I'm looking at this kind of soup and hearing his story about it.

And it deepens the work in my, in my humble opinion, you know, is the, this is the work I do.

So of course I'm biased.

Yeah.

As a layperson, I think about something like like CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy as a set of techniques where you're, you're examining your beliefs and feeling, is this truthful?

Like is this likely to happen?

Do I have anxiety about something that doesn't make sense?

And like playing it through your head and writing out how this might be and would it actually be as bad as I think interrogating your feelings in this way?

How does something like that work when the sources of anxiety are real and potentially as bad or worse than you think?

Like if you think climate is going to be an area that's going to cause much grief this century and and beyond, it almost seems like some of those techniques, like, do they do they even still work?

What do you, what do you do to, to manage, you know, grief ahead of time?

And just like what do I do with my family and where should I live and questions like that?

You just tagged on a lot of questions at the end of that one, but I think that you were talking at the beginning about reality testing and like, you know, can you say like, can we test like this thing?

Is it really going to be that bad?

And, you know, whatever that may be, But as you say, in the case of climate change, it really is that bad.

And so that how did those tools work?

I mean, I think a lot of.

Yeah, a lot of folks come in here or the folks that I meet that are coming in with those challenges.

It's a lot of it's about validation of their feelings of their experience.

Like someone said, I'm, I just want to know, I'm not crazy.

I can't talk about this with my other therapist.

I mean, that's interesting.

Not all therapist, you know, well, you know, so I have this more climate aware orientation and not not all therapist are there or have done the work or you know, are are expanding that part of their practice.

How do you manage feelings around climate when they're not?

Like, you know what happens if I wear the green shirt and everyone thinks I'm the biggest idiot around And you're like, well, that's clearly like you're overreacting.

Or like, let's let's contextualize this differently or think about likelihoods.

What It is just like bad things are coming and I feel bad about it.

I mean, I think one of the interesting there's there, you know, the Yale Climate Center communication, what is it?

Yale Center for Climate Communication, you know, has shown that there is increasing numbers of alarmed folks.

Yeah, Americans like the alarm segment has increased or, you know, the concern segments have increased.

And so we're actually, many of us are concerned, but there's, yeah, there's this, there's this thinking of like, well, you know, if I other people aren't talking about it.

And so I'm not going to talk about it either.

So we're not talking about all that.

We're really feeling at the side.

And so you hear it.

You know what you, when you say that, it's like, it's really understandable.

Yeah, We, we, we're, and it's, it's like human nature.

I think this like to right look around and take some cues from social cues and, and stuff that like, but it's not going to get, you know, how do we move the dial that way for all kind of agonizing within ourselves, but we're not able to connect and even just be real.

And so I think I, I like Catherine Hejo's work around the climate, you know, fostering climate communications.

I'm like, you don't even have to use that word.

I mean, she talked a little bit about how like that word is triggering climate and so and can be, you know, politically very it's very much a political word.

And so can you talk about well, God, it's dry and it's you know, or it's been, gosh, the rains are really affecting, you know, this or that or can or like this is scary.

We're having hurricanes every season.

Can you have conversations right about what's happening without using language?

You know, that could be potentially like create more divides than bring people together.

And ultimately we, if we come together and just admit like we're all pretty like many of us.

And it's if you look at the global statistics, it's even higher as to how many people are alarmed, concerned, you know, and about climate change.

And so we're all feeling that, or a majority of us are right, but we're just not talking about it.

I'm someone prone to peer into the abyss, and I find it to be useful sometimes, but I think I stay there a bit too long.

And I think the climate movement in general has a lot of toxic positivity in it.

I think a lot of that is related to the people who are working to commercialize technology.

There's do you remember like when Bernie had like already deeply lost the Democratic primary?

And there was like that, this is how Bernie can still win.

And it became increasingly deranged as it became like less and less likely.

Like just like there's like the math doesn't even make any more like it's not going to happen.

And sometimes climate stuff feels like that where I'm like, are we going to figure this out in time?

Because we were already the model that I was using for it was the Indiana Jones, the walls coming down.

He grabs his hat, basically comes down right about to crush his arm.

And we're like barely made it.

Now we're rolling back policies.

We're losing years and years here.

And I'm pretty freaked out.

I'm still doing the work.

And having that amount of agency does make me feel better.

To what degree that it's a purely personal therapeutic benefit rather than a societal benefit.

Open question.

Because we also just like may not actually pull this off.

We might be living in a climate change world that's really chaotic.

And I just, I just bounce between those those kind of two things where I'm like involved in my work, having agency and feeling productive and helpful for everyone.

And then occasionally I'll read something or or look at something and be like, do we need to move?

Where is the safest place in the world in the coming decades?

Like which countries are going to survive and which ones are not going to do so well?

Give me some advice like how do I?

How do I deal with that?

I actually want to.

Maybe this sounds funny, but I want to commend you because I actually feel like even if you can.

We'll do that.

Actually, maybe let's.

Stay with that.

I'll join the line, but you're not, You said you have some like maybe tendencies to get like, yeah, spiral down, but you don't stay there.

You're not stuck there.

You're not in that rigid mindset of like you've given up and you've written things that like, you know things off and you're going to go create a bunker, you know, for your family somewhere and not run your podcast.

So I actually think that you're that's, yeah, I think that toggling between the states of like this is the, you know, this is how the world is.

And I want it to be, you know, like what, what can we do to to, you know, improve?

Can things get climate change, get the climate change movement, you know, actually moving forward being, you know, efficiently making change?

How can we get the government to act or world governments to act, But certainly our own, which is now moving in the opposite direction.

So you're asking those questions periodically.

I think that keeps you on the edge.

And then you kind of are able to, OK, you bring that whatever into your podcast that you bring.

But then I'm guessing you find some way to like what, yeah, what are you doing?

Maybe I put this on you or I can talk, I can also share.

But like there's, there's tools you're doing to to stay regulated, to stay hopeful to, you know, I mean, I, I like to think of it the North as the North Star, hope as the North Star.

And we're all and just orienting to it and reorienting to it over and over again, no matter what's going on so that we don't give up.

But but yeah, I think you're doing a good job.

That's.

Nice to to hear the biggest psychological or maybe spiritual question that I have with regard to this is I, I end up feeling some amount of pre panic or thinking of which parts of the world are going to be safest.

Like it's a it's a big expense and logistically very difficult to move kids and family and change professional licensure and, and do these things and you're like, where actually should we go?

But then I end up feeling some amount of guilt to it too.

Where like, how would I feel if I, yeah, let's just pretend I'm I'm right.

It's going to be bad enough for those concerns are are very valid and I would hate to be proven right about that.

How would I feel if I ended up in the gated community before the walls came up and everything became really bad?

Is my job to look after my family and put them somewhere safe?

Or should I be a humane voice inside of a community that's collapsing or changing or however bad that in this scenario we're imagining it's bad?

What's actually the the role of someone like me?

I don't know that either psychologically or spiritually or both, the role is just escape.

But I do I do toy with feelings of escape.

How healthy or unhelpful or whatever.

What is it?

How should I contextualize that?

I appreciate this question and yeah, your honesty about it.

And I guess what I felt the same way before and I wrote about this in an article, Yeah, about, you know, should we get in an airplane and fly out of the area 'cause it's wildfires are bad, you know, when I was experiencing my own eco anxiety.

So I guess what I want to say is it's a really natural human response.

It's, it's the reactive response that we've what we feel under threat.

So it's, it's, you know, maybe it's the flight you could call it, or rather than guesting and fighting.

And we had, you know, you're talking about the added, the addition of a family, you know, to look after your kids, you know, or I don't know if you have how many kids you have, you know, your job as parent is to protect them, right?

And, and so it's a very natural response.

And if you it's like, again, I know this is annoying, but staying with it, right?

You don't always give into that first impulse because then we're just, you know, you want to find actually, this is another little therapy model that might be helpful.

What's called wise mind?

Do you know this one?

Dialectical behavior therapy.

I don't know about this this wise it.

Is, yeah, it's DBT.

It's reason like, you know, rational thought and emotion.

And imagine the Venn diagram and they're overlapping.

And that little overlap is called wise mind.

So that means you are thinking rationally and you're feeling your feelings and it's this little sweet spot, right?

And so, yeah, I think that if you flee, maybe, yeah, perhaps you're giving into your, your fear, right?

The adrenaline or the.

And so maybe that's, that's not as helpful.

And so, but, but the work you're doing sounds a lot like wise mind work.

You know, where you feel and, and you're, you know, you're, you're somebody I don't know and I'm using you.

I hope it's OK.

I'm like shining the light back on to you.

But you're, you have connection to your range of feelings.

It sounds like to do with what's happening.

You're not numbed out.

You're feeling the feelings.

And then there you are also taking action and doing something.

You have a podcast and then you might be doing other work, you know, I don't know.

But that's exactly like channeling anxiety or distress into action, right?

Is is hope?

Is that in itself is hope.

And that models for your your child, you know, something that can be done, right?

What what can be done?

And if everyone's doing that and there's, you know, we create or like many people are doing that, then we have a a stronger social movement in that direction, collective action.

So yeah.

So the good thing about my big hodgepodge of feelings is that I'm feeling them, exploring them.

Sometimes they are coming out more strongly, other times I don't feel the need to dwell on them so much.

And somehow that all means that by miraculous therapy math, I ended up being a well adjusted person.

No one's ever accused me of that.

How did you conjure this result?

Yeah, I mean, I, I do think so.

I'm not, I'm not making this up.

I, I think you're, you know, I'm thinking it now about the Doctor Yana Johnson's climate identity.

Gosh, like.

All we can save and the.

Yeah, but she had.

Yeah, she just.

Anyway, it's like this like another Venn diagram, but it's climate action.

Was it the?

Thing that I see her oh.

She, it's like a way of, of configuring like what to, what to do when people are like at a loss, you know, and don't have direction and they feel like bowled over emotionally and like, I, I, I should do something, I want to do something, but what do I do?

And so examining your, your skill set, talents, maybe what you want to do or, you know, where you, you know, and then kind of coming up with or, you know, a direction that and then, and then being able to take action and move forward and, and have an identity so that you can actually sustainably engage in climate work.

And you know, of course it's a it'll, you know, it's a lifelong endeavour that will take, you know, some tempering and stuff like that or modulating, but, but it gives you the direction.

So I think you, you know, you're there.

So congratulations.

But you, I guess I, but, but I want to validate your, that part of you that's like, but what?

But what do I do about the Dumor feelings?

And they're still there.

I think that, yeah, on a spiritual level or existential level, like that's just that's that is life.

And it happens to be this unique existential threat that is climate change.

Yeah, I don't.

I feel like denying that has often felt worse than allowing yourself to stare into this and feel the feeling of, yeah, this work may come to naughty with my maybe day late in the dollar shore and really bad things happen and we could have avoided it have we all acted sooner?

But we didn't, and I'm concerned by that.

But then I'll see post on LinkedIn.

Sometimes that will be very much like making it inappropriate to feel that feeling or somehow saying that it's a betrayal to indulge in any sort of feelings of calamity.

And I don't like that.

I don't think that's a good take.

I don't even think it makes us better at our work either.

It's it's good to know the stakes of what we're doing and some ways I find it to be energizing.

Yeah.

Where did you hear that?

Like not so indulge any of that.

A lot of the takes that do well on LinkedIn tend to be toxically positive in a way that they'll say like, we're still making amazing progress.

Things are still somehow great.

It's like the Bernie can still win thing.

I'm like, it's like, fine, progress is still happening, but right, I don't know.

Not not enough to solve all of my concerns really.

But then it like kind of shames you out of being like, this isn't enough for me.

I don't think this is good enough.

I yeah, I I totally understand that.

I guess the maybe just to reorient to to the therapy world for a second, like one of the most I think helpful supports there is or these climate cafes.

Which are these have you heard of these climate cafes?

I'm about.

Nut cafes, but I imagine there's some more nut.

Of death cafes OK, so anyway, I think you know, in the start in the UK and they've made their way, you know, we have an affiliation with climate psychology alliance there and then there's climate psychology alliance North America here, which I'm part of.

But the just that there's a space A climate cafe is off there can be virtual, they can be in person and there's a facilitator and it's 2 fold space for people's, you know real feelings, their grief, their sadness, their anger, their their fears, whatever even moments of joy or like whatever, whatever comes up is welcome.

And then there's a holding tank and space for it to really validate, validate that because you're right, like toxic positivity.

It makes me think of the opium, which I mentioned in the book goes, it's going to be fine.

Someone's going to, you know, work it out and it'll all be OK.

You know, like, ah, OK, that's also denial.

What?

Like, you know, there has to be, I think, 1 foot in and 1 foot out of this whole thing so that, you know, on a personal level, 1 foot into the muck of the emotions, 1 foot grounded in reality.

I imagine some part of your work is probably about disappointment with family members in that similar way.

What do you advise in in cases like that I.

Think we have to.

This is a really challenging time to even have a sense of, I mean, reality because of what's happened in, you know, to these alternative facts and, you know, news sources which are not.

Yeah, not, you know, are not based in fact and reality.

I mean, it's very confusing.

And so it's actually easier than one might think, you know, to get caught up in it.

And so I think it's holding a little bit of grace for that.

And then and I think it's also, you know, you don't want to cut these people out of your life if we if we start doing that, like this is family.

So at the end of the day, you know, can there be ways to, to, to find common ground to maybe create safety for a conversation.

But where are your, maybe there's some ground rules of like not taking it, you know, of, of OK, let's, you know, let's not talk.

We don't have to use climate change, but like what are like, let's talk about how we're feeling because there could be, it could be shared experiences there.

Like I'm kind of freaked out.

Or I mean, in this case it sounded like, OK, maybe this is great.

But I think that there, there's got to be some, you know, finding common ground and, and some attempts to, to stay connected and repair.

Easier advice to say than to to take.

Maybe it's like hard to, yeah, now I have to have a, a St.

patience essentially.

Now it just falls into a lacuna where it's like, well, there's no script for this.

So anyway, back to the talking point that was on TV recently, like can I have to keep dealing with this person?

I don't know.

That's been that's been a hard one.

I think also just part of therapy and and maturity too is recognizing that older family members and aunts and uncles and parents are like, they never had that great of a sense of control.

They they never had as much of a grip on living life as maybe it looked like when you were a child.

And then you grow up and realize that the world is run by people who have no clue what they're doing.

And it's like it barely works at all.

And it's a sort of a miracle that things do kind of work at all.

And that's been AI.

Don't know.

I imagine that's a fairly universal lesson of maturity.

It doesn't necessarily always feel good either.

And you aspire to, OK, I'm not going to fall into the same traps of delusion and self deception that these people clearly have.

And I can see it clearly.

I'm sure I've got.

Those too though I'm sure my kids will eventually look and be like God.

Dad of us has really had a terrible blind spot with this.

So disappointing.

It's, it's interesting.

I, I actually talk a lot about this in the book and about relating to Greta Turnberg because I felt like that when I, you know, I'm not the same, but like, I had my version of that when I was, you know, young.

And so there is this reckoning of like, all right.

And I, you know, what the heck are the adults doing?

Why don't they care more?

That's how I felt.

Why, like, why don't they care more?

You know, we and like we recycled and we did the things, but like, but like, why aren't they like making this their passion and their life's work?

Like, you know, and then, yeah, like you say, you get, you enjoy.

It's like you, you come into the adult world and yeah, it's a bit of, it's a mess.

But I mean, particularly right now, it feels more chaotic than, I mean, it was.

It's always been problematic in different ways.

But this is pretty chaotic.

Our current climate here.

Political climate.

I have some sympathy for it too.

I had a potential opportunity to commercialize some tech that is what is euphemistically deemed dual youth.

Do you know about any stuff like this?

Is this?

No, I'm actually I I'd love to hear though.

It's.

It can be used in lots of ways.

Dual use also means it's like military as well essentially is what I'm trying to say.

Oh yeah, I see.

But.

There's this tech that it was it was a sort of like drone adjacent technology.

I'm like, oh, this would be really great because it would allow for a lot of GIS like spatial informational systems to be improved.

It'll improve up time of drones.

Everyone obviously, right now is watching Ukraine and how drone warfare and autonomous swarms are going to take place.

And like, the next war is going to look a lot like Ukraine but be much deadlier.

It'll be like, you know, watching the Crimean War and then the civil war that came afterwards was much worse and expanded on those tactics and that tact, this sort of like more robust offering that was prestigious, like, cool.

But also how badly do I need the money?

And there are certainly cases where people will make the decision of, you know, what, like, almost no matter what else, like, I just need to do this.

So if it's going to be dual use and some of that use is not going to be necessarily what I care about, whatever my family needs to stay in their house and and be able to eat.

And that's like the most charitable interpretation of former generation not caring that much about the earth or something like that.

Like their concerns were making sure their family was taken care of in a more immediate way and that they have paid labor and they're able to be secure.

And I feel that too, which is a way of saying that we're back in that complexity zone here too, where it's like, cool, I'm sitting with it.

Sometimes it feels bad.

Sometimes you make a compromise, whatever.

Yeah.

I have sympathy for people who did not take the more abstract, high minded way in the past.

Are you doing that now?

Like, do you take every single High Road option presented to you?

Probably not.

Is that to me?

Yeah.

It's kind of to anyone, like I'll go first.

Like no, I do not do that.

Yeah, I just, yeah, I mean, I don't think I wouldn't want to, you know, I think people need to make the best choices and decisions for themselves.

So you could they're, they're, you know, and everyone has different perspectives and, you know, and, and ways of seeing things and then different circumstances.

So, but I think, I guess the, the one thing that I, you know, what, what, what popped up for me was values, the importance of aligning with values and what you were saying and like how you feel icky if you're not doing that.

And so there's more of that emotional ambiguity or like discomfort, but you, but you know, but then so you know, all you can do is is your best to follow those and, but keep coming back to those because we we all have the, you know, family values, cultural values, personal values.

And if that can be our anchor going to help guide us.

And even if it doesn't affect every decision that we make or we can't, like, you know, stay true to them.

Most of these.

Questions I've dealt with, I mean, granted, if you're if you're a youth.

Oh God, I sound old.

You're a young person.

You're.

A young person listening, then this applies to you because you're making decisions basically for yourself.

I imagine most people listening are adults making decisions for themselves, but this changes quite a lot when you're responsible for the upbringing of young people.

Do the lessons that we've talked about already, does that neatly apply in a one to one basis for like what you transmitted to me?

Should that be transmitted to children?

Is there some additional steps or ways of thinking, like how should we be preparing children for this world?

I suppose it it is similar in some ways, which it's always like this magic middle because I talk in the book about finding the right Goldilocks, you know, porridge for your child.

So yes, like it depends on maybe their age or their developmental stage or what they're going through.

Like, you know, life is stressful in the on the micro level.

Like, you know, you go to school, you might have some trouble, you know, with a certain subject or a certain classmate or, you know, there could be all sorts of pressures, you know, as a child.

So there isn't, there's enough going on.

I think that yeah, just finding the right, like as a parent, you know, finding the right time to maybe talk to your child and the right messaging.

And so that is going to there's no one-size-fits-all for that.

I what I use to make it really simple is the three VS voice validate and vision.

And maybe this is like the most actionable, you know, I can, the advice I could give, which is and, and, and none of it's, you know, like, Oh my gosh, I've never heard of that like brand new, but it's, it's just an easy way to to think about it.

So voices like really providing opportunities for your child to voice, you know, concerns.

And that might be even asking a direct question because sometimes parents are afraid of that.

But like, hey, what have you have you heard studied about climate change at all at school?

That's OK to ask, right?

You can, you can, you can ask the question and then, you know, there's opportunity to, to talk afterwards versus maybe they're afraid to mention it to their parent, right, to bring it up at all.

And they heard some scary stuff at school, which has been the case from my experience.

So that's voice is making creating a safe space for kids to talk and then validate would be right, validating that their real feelings and not trying to fix or solve problems, which parents often jump into.

And I'm guilty by the way of all of this.

But like just saying, yeah, it is, it is scary.

But you know, the nice thing about that is you can I, I, I'm borrowing Harriet Sugarman's work, which is empowerment points.

So for if there's something scary, you can also say, hey, you know what, like there's also some stuff that we can look at, some positive news or which just which is totally out there.

There's a lot of wonderful projects, you know, developments in the environmental world that just don't get as much attention because they're not in the mainstream media outlets as much.

But sharing those empowerment ways with kids can kind of help balance, you know, if they're in a very low place, some hope.

And the last B would be vision, which is like agency, really, and supporting, you know, your your kid and like developing, you know, a pathway to like take action or do something that feels good to them because they're, you know, and, and you can do that.

It could be like something that you do as a family.

It could be going to a protest.

It could be picking up, you know, trash at the local park, whatever.

But yeah, so that's that's one way to look at that.

What question about the validation step?

My, my child before I said something like, I'm scared of this and I know the correct response is not invalidation.

Well, there's no reason to be afraid of that.

Or like that's for babies.

That's sort of like a really pathologizing terrible way to respond to something like that.

But if it's more something like, oh, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm not scared of spiders.

I'm I'm scared of spiders too.

Do kids feel that as being like, oh God, there's no one at the helm?

Like even my kid look fear to that or is that sort of like, oh, this is a human like interesting.

Like he also has a feeling that is similar to mine.

Like how does a kid experience that?

I think, I think either, I think sometimes kids just like to be like, know that they're not alone and know that there's nothing, you know, oh, it's normal or something like that.

And so it can feel good because you could always say like, you know, I don't if you have a your Co parenting with a partner, like, well, you know, sometimes I have, you know, mommy or whoever, daddy, whatever, like help with the spiders and that I'm scared of those or something, you know, like, so I don't think there's AI mean.

I think, OK, I don't think there that's the wrong answer for that question.

I think that if your feelings are really intense and like coming out like, Oh my God, I'm so freaked out and it's yeah, maybe it's a bigger scale than a spider and we're talking about climate change again.

And those feelings are like coming off you like, you know, where the period your child can sense that, then that's then that can really have implications for them where they absorb, you know, the kind of trickle down emotions from the parents and then might be acting out or internalizing, you know, because they don't know what to do with with the excess of emotions and they're they're not feeling as safe at home.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, I've experimented with this too, where my upbringing was much more I doubt I am alone and having this family of origin experienced, but feeling emotions really strongly was not a, not a thing that we did as much.

And so if I'm grieving or crying or or upset about something, I try not to run from the room or hide it.

And even if I'm a little uncomfortable with it, I try to just like, you know what, you're just going to be brave and you're just going to some water's going to leave your eyes and that's fine.

And it's better to see your dad cry than than not.

But I I've also, it's funny, like seeing that happen, though it hasn't necessarily had the the reaction of like, oh, my dad's an emotionally like feeling person or like, is this scary?

Why is my dad's like really upset?

Is this, is this safe?

Is an adult in control right now or or not really?

I feel like I've I've experienced that more in that latter kind of way.

I'm not, I'm not sure how to deal with that.

And I'm at this obviously applies to climate tier too, because you don't have to climate.

Creep, but what?

Do I do with that?

I, I wonder how you kind of, yeah, go where you go from there because like if you, if you say something like, Oh my gosh, I'm feeling like some big feelings here.

How, how does that affect you when daddy has, you know, you know, these feelings shows these feelings.

Like if you say like, how do you feel about that?

Or yeah, I think it also could be, you know, you could also pause and say, listen, I want to talk to you about this more, but I just need to take like a 5 minute break and I'll be back.

And then, you know, you could come back and pick up the conversation.

And again, just just like normalize because because emotions are normal and we all feel them.

It's part of being human and, and like what good modeling.

And so you're saying he, you know, he might feel like there's no end at the helm.

There's no like, uh oh.

Like, like, is that.

That's the kind of feeling.

Yeah.

And.

So there's like a yeah, like a retreat.

There isn't like a, oh, I'm going to sit here.

It's more just like, OK, well, look at the time, like I should go play with my toys now.

I'm like OK, but you're.

Yeah, I mean, but you're modeling.

That would be a great example of modeling.

I got to just take a minute, take a beat, come back, be like, yeah, that's a big feelings, but I'm fine.

I'm fine now.

I'm daddy's the heck we're, you know, doing, you know, back in the helm.

So yeah, like something like that can work well.

Imagine for a lot of parents, they probably are dealing with like, yeah, there's actually not a great solution.

We're working on it.

It's an underdog kind of story right now.

And we're really trying or certain people on the planet are really trying and others don't care or actively hindering it.

And I also feel really uncomfortable and sad about the direction of what kind of world that we're leaving you.

Is that, is that good for kids to hear something like that?

Does that make them feel, I mean, it sounds validating if they're concerned by it, it can also freak them out if done incorrectly.

I think wisdom of knowing how to do this is probably really important.

I.

Mean I it's there is some, there's some element of like, I want to I don't want to cookie cutter this here and I want to be but but I, I would always one thing I always say is start really small and like simple and it's almost like your test.

You're just like seeing you're taking yeah, litmus test to see like, yeah, where's your child at with this information?

And then you know what to do next from there, like if it's in a way because, well, it might be like that's enough for now.

You might have this.

You're going to really pay attention to his cues.

His signals is non verbal, you know, like how like how do even ask him like what do you think of that?

And then, you know, if you know, you could share a little bit more, do you want to hear more or not really?

And maybe let's talk about this another time.

But like you really don't.

I think that the mistake that parents can make is too much too fast, like scare that can really scare and overwhelm kids.

Feeling like you need to rattle off like the state of the world to I mean, just a put yourself too in your like, I do this sometimes.

I'm like, gosh, when I was, you know, 9 did I want, did I need to know everything about like, no, I didn't, you know, But so you start small and you can build up rather than like once it's out, it's out.

And of course you only have so much control because there's Internet and the teenagers get into all sorts of other things, you know, have access to information in different ways or through their peers or teachers, right.

But so then you're then you're having to kind of help ground and maybe even reframe if if there's too much info that has been, you know, has like his overwhelmed your child.

I think it's interesting too of how you then go on to parent and you're like, you're like, this informs how you parent to some, right.

Like, I mean, I had a similar experience to you growing up, like when no one was talking about, you know, this and that.

But I'm making a different decision with my kids and my husband's totally from like a Berkeley, you know, Sherry, Sherry emotional family.

So like they're, but like we're, they know, they know quite a bit about, you know, some of that like like the birds and the bees and stuff like that.

But yeah, with climate, I like we're, you know, it's actually, it's kind of interesting.

We've had conversations in the car about like something which was up here.

Like I don't even know how they were tracking it, but they were.

Which just shows that kids are always paying attention and listening.

I got that like I think I got this from Dan Siegel originally.

That's.

The window of tolerance.

Guy, I don't recall that that term, but yeah, very much like like push pull dynamics and information sharing with kids too.

We're like, they asked for it like, yeah, oh, do you want to know more about this or are you curious?

But not just like treat them like an adult at the dinner table and we share like everything terrible about the world so they can become little adults ahead of their time kind of thing.

But also not hiding things, but also not trying to make them your peer or I.

Know, I know.

I general, I always go I, what I do is skew towards generalizing.

Like you can be general.

You don't have to share so much info.

Yeah, there's a word.

There's a word going on.

I mean, it might not be appropriate to share with your child any more than you know that.

Yeah, there's a word going on.

It's really sad.

I mean, that's a lot right there, yeah.

It is a lot right there.

Yeah, I guess it's what, what more is that 70% of what they need to know probably and maybe some details like are the details helping?

Do you need to see the the carnage or know how the modern weapons tear bodies apart?

Do they need?

All that info, No, I mean, and just again, put yourself, I did really like put yourself back there.

Like how would you have felt hearing all the details?

And you know, I do hear from kids a lot that life is so complicated.

There's just, I mean, parents like, yeah, there's so much access to stuff, but like, you know, we as parents can help with that, help them navigate it a little by by not maybe not increasing their information overload or sharing or oversharing about difficult like hard life trips.

Yeah, I remember.

So one of the, I have a strong memory of being on a Boy Scout trip when I was probably like 10 or 11, maybe even like 9.

And I remember the kid I was sharing a tent with was telling me about World War 2.

And all I remember him talking about is just like, and there's this guy Hitler.

And he was, he was pretty mean and whatever.

I was like captivated by this and like, I went home and watched her watching The History Channel.

But like, the level of understanding of that was like, Hitler was mean, which, yeah, not like that.

That actually is probably 70% of what happened.

Like that dude was pathologically extremely toxic to put it lightly.

But yeah, but like, that was the general, right?

Yeah, for a.

9 year old like that was enough or I'm like, OK, now I can like trickle out from there and that's fine.

I didn't necessarily need every.

I think anything more than that at that point might have been like, oh God, like the world does this to to its members, like this is what happens.

I don't know if that's an exact perfect fit, but nine year old brains kind of do work like that.

Like it's harder than we think, but also.

But yeah, that's enough.

But they're not like, yeah, they can't maybe sift through things and quite yeah, they're not, they're not there.

Their brains have not developed to the extent of our brains so.

Ariela, thanks for letting me ask you questions.

Basically to my benefit and to no one else's.

Unless they're me, I, I hope.

People.

People listening can generalize out from my unique psychology.

There's a lot of great advice here and in the book too, about how to raise kids that are, you know, like properly adjusted in a climate changing world.

Thanks for for doing all of that work.

You're welcome, Ross.

I'm I'm.

Yeah.

I hope it's helpful to people.

I mean, that's why I wrote this book, because, you know, it's a help support the parent club.

Yeah.

Great.

And if people want to pick up a copy, it's everywhere, right?

All the normal book places.

It is, and you can certainly order a copy from my website, ariellacookshankoff.com and welcome to follow me on my social media or check out my Psychology Today blog as well.

The link to all of those things during the show notes, go check those out.

Thanks for being here, Ariella.

Thank you again, Ross.