10-Steps to Personal Resilience & Empowerment in a Chaotic Climate
…Because how we live in this time and place matters. The Good Grief Network’s unique 10-Step program aims to help build personal resilience and empowerment while strengthening community ties to combat despair, inaction, and eco-anxiety on the collective level.
Find a Meeting
Salt Lake City, Utah Branch
(Spring Series Closed)
First Unitarian Church of Salt Lake City569 S 1300 E, Salt Lake City, Utah 84102
Contact: Adair Kovac, adairkovac(at)gmail(dot)com
Ogden, Utah Branch
(Spring Series allowing drop-ins)
Weber County Library 2464 Jefferson Ave, Ogden, Utah 84401
Contact: Steve St. Peter, nextstepsustainability(at)gmail(dot)com
Brighton, England, UK Branch
(Spring Series Closed)
More Information Here
Denver, Colorado Branch
Coming Soon
Vermont Branch
Coming Soon
Summer Session Sign-ups
Join the next online summer session, hosted by Aimee and LaUra!
Bring the “10-Steps to Personal Resilience & Empowerment” Manual Home To Your Community.
This comes with two hours of digital facilitation help from cofounders LaUra Schmidt and Aimee Lewis-Reau.
Manual ($100)
Discounted Manual ($50)
Resources To Dig Deeper Into Each Step
We’ve curated a wide variety of writings, audio, and other media we specifically recommend for those at each step in the 10-step program.
Overall Recommendations
Articles
In Facing Mass Extinction, We Must Allow Ourselves to Grieve by Dahr Jamail
The Miraculous Hope Of Climate Realists by Erika Spangler-Siegfried
Facing Extinction by Catherine Ingram (Audio version)
We Need Courage, Not Hope, To Face Climate Change by Kate Marvel
Beyond Hope by Derrick Jensen
Forget Shorter Showers by Derrick Jensen
Dark Ecology by Paul Kingsnorth
The Axis and the Sycamore by Paul Kingsnorth
Neoliberalism has conned us into fighting climate change as individuals by Martin Lukacs
Human and Planetary Health Part I: Facing the Crises by Daniel Christian Wahl
Human and Planetary Health Part II: Going Upstream by Daniel Christian Wahl
Human and Planetary Health Part III: Improving Planetary Health by Daniel Christian Wahl
Human and Planetary Health Part IV: Restoring Ecosystems in the Century of Regeneration by Daniel Christian Wahl
Books
Climate — A New Story by Charles Eisenstein
A New Republic Of The Heart: An Ethos For Revolutionaries by Terry Patten
Active Hope: How To Face The Mess We’re In Without Going Crazy by Joanna Macy & Chris Johnstone
Who Do We Choose To Be: Facing Reality, Claiming Leadership, Restoring Sanity by Margaret Wheatley
Be The Change: Live Well & Spark A Climate Revolution by Peter Kalmus
Radical Joy For Hard Times by Trebbe Johnson
Hope In The Dark by Rebecca Solnit
Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl
Learning How to Die in the Anthropocene by Roy Scranton
Coming Back to Life by Joanna Macy & Molly Brown
The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible by Charles Eisenstein
Beyond Hope by Deb Ozarko
The Age Of Overwhelm:Strategies for the Long Haul by Laura Van Dernoot Lipsky
Video
The Hidden Promise of Our Dark Age by Joanna Macy
Beyond Anxiety and Depression… A Call to Awakening! by Jason Silva
Why I Think This World Should End by Prince Ea
Living Into Being by Joe Brewer
Poems
Let This Darkness Be A Bell Tower by Rilke
Wild Geese by Mary Oliver
Summer Day by Mary Oliver
Clearing by Martha Postlewaite
Thanks by W. S. Merwin
The Peace Of Wild Things by Wendell Berry
The Breeze At Dawn by Rumi
Music
Step 1: Accept the Problem and its Severity
“We have to do something braver than just try to save the world we have known, we must accept the fact that the world we have known is going to change in hideous and damaging ways.” – Bill McKibben
“Acceptance does not mean surrender. It does not mean resignation. Acceptance means I am finally available to the entire spectrum of creative responses.” – Trebbe Johnson in Radical Joy For Hard Times
Articles
The Miraculous Hope Of Climate Realists by Erika Spangler-Siegfried
In Facing Mass Extinction, We Must Allow Ourselves to Grieve by Dahr Jamail
The People Paradox: Self-Esteem Striving, Immortality Ideologies, and Human Response to Climate Change by Janis L. Dickinson
Climate Reality Check: After Paris, Counting the Cost by David Spratt
Facing Extinction by Catherine Ingram (Audio Version)
Transforming Despair: An Interview with Joanna Macy by Mary NurrieStearns
Beyond Hope by Derrick Jensen
We Need Courage, Not Hope, To Face Climate Change by Kate Marvel
What Lies Beneath: The Scientific Understatement of Climate Risks by David Spratt and Ian Dunlop
Perspectives on Recent IPCC Findings:
Planet has only until 2030 to stem catastrophic climate change, experts warn by Brandon Miller
U.N. climate report shows civilization is at stake if we don’t act now by Eric Holthaus
With the world on the line, scientists outline the paths to survival by Eric Holthaus
Climate scientists warn: Urgent action is needed to avoid planetary calamity by Nicole Karlis
The IPCC global warming report spares politicians the worst details by Bob Ward
Books
Active Hope: How To Face The Mess We’re In Without Going Crazy by Chris Johnstone and Joanna Macy
Mourning Nature: Hope at the Heart of Ecological Loss and Grief by by Ashlee Cunsolo and Karen Landman
Video
Why I Think This World Should End by Prince Ea
To Future Generations: Sorry by Prince Ea
Step 2: Acknowledge I Am Part Of The Problem As Well As The Solution
“Action feeds hope feeds action feeds hope. Because without hope, you’re not going to have action, without action, you’re not going to have hope. They feed each other.” – Heather Price
“Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach.” – Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Articles
Forget Shorter Showers by Derrick Jensen
Hope and Vision in the Face of Collapse – The 4th R of Deep Adaptation by Jem Bendell
Ways to help kids cope with — and help combat — climate change by Ronit Feinglass Plank
Earth Friendly Tidying Up inspired by Marie Kondo
Neoliberalism has conned us into fighting climate change as individuals by Martin Lukacs
What to Do When You Don’t Know What’s Next by Dawa Tarchin Phillips
A License to Be Human by Van Jones
Show Up With Hope: Anne Lamott’s Plan for Facing Adversity by Anne Lamott
Human and Planetary Health Part I: Facing the Crises by Daniel Christian Wahl
Human and Planetary Health Part II: Going Upstream by Daniel Christian Wahl
Human and Planetary Health Part III: Improving Planetary Health by Daniel Christian Wahl
Human and Planetary Health Part IV: Restoring Ecosystems in the Century of Regeneration by Daniel Christian Wahl
Books
Be The Change: Live Well & Spark A Climate Revolution by Peter Kalmus
Collected Essays on Evolution, Nature, and the Cosmos Vol. 1 by Loren Eiseley
Collected Essays on Evolution, Nature, and the Cosmos Vol. 2 by Loren Eiseley
Video
Audio
Terry Tempest Williams on Sacred Rage and the Battle for Public Lands
Poems
Wild Geese by Mary Oliver
Organizations
Step 3: Practice Sitting With Uncertainty
“No one can possibly know what is about to happen: it is happening, each time, for the first time, for the only time.” – James Baldwin
Articles
7 Ways to Deal with Uncertainty So You Can Be Happier and Less Anxious by Lori Deschene
Books
Climate – A New Story by Charles Eisenstein
Hope In The Dark by Rebecca Solnit
Paradise Built In Hell by Rebecca Solnit
Living Beautifully: with Uncertainty and Change by Pema Chodron
Comfortable with Uncertainty: 108 Teachings on Cultivating Fearlessness and Compassion by Pema Chodron
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
Audio
Falling Together” with Rebecca Solnit on OnBeing
Beyond Hope: Letting Go Of A World In Collapse with Deb Ozarko on The New Lifeboat Hour
Widening Circles with Joanna Macy on the Emergence Magazine Podcast
Video
Dr. Jem Bendell Keynote Speech at the UNCTAD World Investment Forum 2018
The Shambhala Warrior Prophecy by Joanna Macy
Organizations
Step 4: Confront My Own Mortality And The Mortality Of All
Articles
Yoga as a tool for self-regulation by Angela Wilson
Self Regulation Strategies by Jan Johnson
Learning How to Die in the Anthropocene by Roy Scranton
The Relevance of Deep Time by Joanna Macy
Terror Management Theory by Psychology Today
The People Paradox: Self-Esteem Striving, Immortality Ideologies, and Human Response to Climate Change by Janis L. Dickinson
Do doomsday scenarios discourage people from acting on climate change? by Josh Clark
The Existential Dread of Climate Change by Emily Green
Books
Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl
A New Republic Of The Heart by Terry Patten
Timefulnesss: How Thinking Like A Geologist Can Help Save The World by Marcia Bjornerud
Learning to Die in the Anthropocene by Roy Scraton
Die Wise by Stephen Jenkinson
Come of Age: The Case for Elderhood in a Time of Trouble by Stephen Jenkinson
Video
Audio
Meditations
Step 5: Do Inner Work
“Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.” – Edward Abbey
“Caring for myself is not a self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” – Audre Lorde, A Burst of Light
“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.” – Khalil Gibran
“The doors to the world of the wild Self are few but precious. If you have a deep scar, that is a door, if you have an old, old story, that is a door. If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door. If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door.” ― Clarissa Pinkola Estés
“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.” – Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum
Articles
A License to Be Human by Van Jones
Weaving the Path to Planetary Health by Joe Brewer
16 Tips for Avoiding Climate Burnout by Gillian Caldwell
It’s Time… To Do The Inner Work by by Aruna Ladva
Shadow by Carl Jung
Carl Jung, Shadow, and Self – Navigating Through the Complex Mechanics of Your Dark Side by Adrian Iliopoulos
Cultural Shadow Work by Alicia K. Anderson
America’s Shadow: The Real Secret of Donald J. Trump by Deepak Chopra
Books
Coming Back to Life by Joanna Macy & Molly Brown
The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible by Charles Eisenstein
Beyond Hope by Deb Ozarko
Dark Gold by Carolyn Baker
Video
Deep Adaptation by Jem Bendell
The Hidden Promise of Our Dark Age by Joanna Macy
Beyond Anxiety and Depression…A Call to Awakening by Jason Silva
Audio
The Poetry of Predicament Podcast with Deb Ozarko
The End Of Ice: Bearing Witness In The Path Of Climate Disruption with Dahr Jamail
Meditations
Yoga Nidra with Shannon McPhee: To Grow Connection
Yoga Nidra with Shannon McPhee: 31 Point Body Scan
Yoga Nidra with Shannon McPhee: For Healing & Growth
Yoga Nidra with Shannon McPhee: To get past what holds you back
How to Practice Tonglen by Pema Chodon
Poems
Let This Darkness Be A Bell Tower by Rilke
Organizations
Step 6: Develop Awareness of Brain Patterns & Perception
Articles
Common Cognitive Biases by Jennifer M Wood
How Our Brain Biases Prevent Climate Action by Matthew Wilburn King
It’s Not What You Know, It’s How You Think by Zat Rana
Books
Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
What We Think About When We Try Not To Think About Global Warming: Toward a New Psychology of Climate Action by Per Espen Stoknes
Don’t Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change by George Marshall
Video
Nature’s Lessons in Healing Trauma: An Introduction to Somatic Experiencing
Can we create a new reality with an awareness of our two minds? by Lee Smith
Practical Psychology: 12 Cognitive Biases Explained – How to Think Better and More Logically
Limitations of the brain by Sentis
Step 7: Practice Gratitude
“Finding beauty in a broken world is creating beauty in the world we find.” - Terry Tempest Williams
“The work of the mature person is to carry grief in one hand and gratitude in the other and to be stretched large by them. How much sorrow can I hold? That’s how much gratitude I can give. If I carry only grief, I’ll bend toward cynicism and despair. If I have only gratitude, I’ll become saccharine and won’t develop much compassion for other people’s suffering. Grief keeps the heart fluid and soft, which helps make compassion possible.” – Francis Weller
Articles
How Gratitude Changes You and Your Brain by Joel Wong and Joshua Brown
Books
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
Finding Beauty In A Broken World by Terry Tempest Williams
Step 8: Take Breaks & Rest (As Needed)
“Caring for myself is not a self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” – Audre Lorde, A Burst of Light
“Every person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for. On that day we need to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us.” – Maya Angelou
Articles
Activist Burnout Is Real – And You Probably Need to Read These 4 Ways to Manage It by Aliya Khan
Preventing Burnout in the New Era by Alessandra Pigni
The Busy Trap by Tim Kreider
Allow Yourself To Take A Break From Activism If You Need It by Neyla Downs
Sustainable Activism & Avoiding Burnout
Books
The Age Of Overwhelm:Strategies for the Long Haul by Laura Van Dernoot Lipsky
Video
Step 9: Show up
“The moment that you feel that, just possibly, you’re walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself, that’s the moment you may be starting to get it right.” – Neil Gaiman
Step 10: Reinvest Into Meaningful Efforts
Articles
By Reconnecting With Soil, We Heal the Planet and Ourselves by Leah Penniman
Beyond Sustainability? – We are living in the Century of Regeneration by Daniel Christian Wahl
Books
Coming Back to Life by Joanna Macy & Molly Brown
Radical Joy For Hard Times by Trebbe Johnson
The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible by Charles Eisenstein
Be The Change: Live Well & Spark A Climate Revolution by Peter Kalmus
A New Republic Of The Heart by Terry Patten
Who Do We Choose To Be: Facing Reality | Claiming Leadership | Restoring Sanity by Margaret Wheatley
Buddhist Economics by Clair Brown
Video
Why I Think This World Should End by Prince Ea
To Future Generations: Sorry by Prince Ea
A Swedish Teenager’s Compelling Plea on Climate
How Beauty Can Save Us by Jason Silva
Meditations
Yoga Nidra with Shannon McPhee: To Hear Your Inner Truth
Audio