Navigating climate-related emotions
When you let yourself properly think about the climate crisis, the feelings that emerge can be overwhelming. People often describe feeling shock, disoriented, debilitating fear, panic, powerlessness and despair. Sometimes there is disbelief—‘this can’t be true.’ Often people are angry. At times, there are terrible feelings of guilt and shame, particularly if you have resisted the facts for a long time. When family, friends and colleagues don't seem to share your climate concern, it can feel lonely and isolating. And as you consider the future, you may question choices around starting a family, career and where to live. You may feel fearful for future generations or experience a sense of loss—of an assumed future, of a sense of safety and security, or even a loss of identity. A deep sadness can emerge at the loss of species and landscapes, as well as communities devastated by drought, flood, storm and fire.
These distressing feelings are legitimate, appropriate responses to a global climate crisis. It doesn’t mean there is something wrong with you. Instead of denying this kind of pain, listening to it and giving it space is usually the best way to move past its intensity and live with its beat more creatively. Grief is there in some form for most people who grapple with the climate crisis. It needs to be talked about, supported, understood and lived through so you can gradually find a way to still hold hope, meaning and joy amidst the pain.
How do you deal with the uncertain future in front of us? We are here to support you. We offer both group and one-on-one/individual support, depending on your particular needs.
Upcoming groups
Collective crises require collective action. And the collective ecological losses we're witnessing invite us to grieve them together. Instead of allowing powerful political winds to use the climate crisis to further isolate us and attack our capacity to care, we can offer the opposite: solidarity, connection, compassion and care.
The group model we use is Good Grief Network's 10 Steps to Resilience & Empowerment in a Chaotic Climate, a social and emotional peer support program for people who feel overwhelmed about the state of the world.
In this 10-week program, we connect for two hours each week to process our overwhelming feelings, deconstruct and reimagine cultural narratives, build community, (re)discovering joy and meaning, and reinvest energies into meaningful efforts. Using embodiment exercises, journaling and group sharing, we create brave and emergent spaces that serve as practice grounds where people can safely try out new ways of being with ourselves and each other during chaotic times.
This is not a therapy program. And we are not here to offer advice. At each meeting, we practice deep listening and sharing—not discussion or debating—as we dive into the step of the week. We prioritize an intimate group experience, capping our group at 8-10 people.
In-Person Group: Barcelona, Spain
To Be Announced: October 2025 or January 2026
Virtual Group
Tuesdays, 15 July - 16 September 2025
7-9pm Central European Summer Time / 1-3pm Eastern Daylight Time
Facilitator: John Drollinger
Cost: We offer three tiers for payment (click Sign Up for details)
What is Climate Grief?
The emotions of waking up to the climate crisis are similar to those we go through following a loss: there’s the difficulty in believing it’s really true, the same sense of disorientation, the feeling of life being turned upside down. When we experience a loss strongly enough, our natural human response is to grieve. As we continue living with the climate crisis, we may experience a range of emotional responses to what has been lost or what may be lost in the future (i.e., anticipatory grief), including anger, despair, deep sadness, disbelief, doubt, denial, numbness, guilt and more. We hurt where we care; feeling climate grief means caring about the ecosystem and about species (including humans) who will be hurt or lost as a result of climate change. Our grief is a testament to being connected to something beyond ourselves.
Grief is an essential aspect of our humanity and is deeply embedded in our histories. We have rituals—often in community—to help us move through grief, to have it witnessed, honored and held by others. Grieving is an ongoing practice that invites us to turn toward the difficult emotions we're experiencing. It means talking about your sadness, your anger and your despair. It means letting go of old hopes and accepting what can’t be changed. And as you allow your sense of yourself and the world to slowly shift, you begin to see that life can continue to have meaning and purpose. Problems arise when we turn away from grief. Some may believe paying attention to our distress will make it worse, yet we find that causes realistic fear to turn into anxiety that won’t go away. It’s when people become depressed and hopeless, stuck in dread, or caught up in resigned nihilism or unrealistic optimism. Seeking support from others makes this much less likely to happen.
Grieving takes time and requires support. You're never truly "over it." And while grief won't ever go away completely, you can see it as an opportunity to reshape your life and live differently. You can come to value life and live its possibilities despite the uncertain and difficult future. Finding a path of action is crucial. Even if we can't prevent everything that may happen, we do still have power. We can rest in our conviction that something is worth doing no matter how it turns out. We can find our unique place in the climate movement ecosystem.
We find grief—and particularly, collective grief—to be a helpful framework for reckoning with and moving through the climate crisis. This framing may not speak to you, so whatever way you understand our current predicament is welcome. We're ready to support you.
Grief might save us by reminding us of our deep affection for the world, our deep love for the world, our inseparability, our entanglement with the world... We grieve because of what we love, even if it’s at a distance.
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- Francis Weller
Let's talk
John Drollinger, LICSW
john@embodiedstrategies.com
+1 240 839 1477
