Get To Grips With Grief - A Conversation With Caroline Hickman

In this episode of Force of Nature, Clover sits down with Caroline Hickman, an “eco-psychotherapist” who has committed her life to understanding the relationship between mental health and the health of our planet. They discuss the mental gymnastics we perform to make sense of the world; the role of grief and loss; and how we can begin to face up to climate and ecological crisis without losing our marbles.

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Episode Timestamps:

01:58 - 08:53
How young people are responding to the climate crisis: despair, dystopia and eco-anxiety.

08:53 - 11:32
Have we won the war on denial? Fight, flight, freeze… and fib. Understanding our coping mechanisms.

11:32 - 16:25
Technology will not save the day: why our need to control, heroic culture and anthropocentrism are at the root of our planet’s problems.

16:25 - 20:25
Investing in an alternative future: preserving what’s of true value; rekindling the connection to self, each other, and nature; and restoring our mental health.

20:25 - 22:28
Why we must rekindle our moral absolutism, stop numbing ourselves, and own up to our responsibility.

22:28 - 24:34
The role of story-telling and imagination to find light in the dark.

24:34 - 26:56
What young people really want from their education - creating global empathy for global solutions, and writing modern myths for the new world we’re creating.

26:56- 30:41
Why change starts with acceptance - how we can come to terms with grief, and surrender ‘old hope’ to hold the tension between despair and optimism.

30:41 - 37:16
Why it’s essential to meet the monster in your closet and befriend failure if you want to save the world.

37:16 - 41:26
Depression and anxiety are not ‘bad things’ to fix. We can uncover the gifts they have to share.

41:26 - 46:04
Closing the polarity gap: building bridges with the people we disagree with, and how we can stop unconsciously disempowering ourselves.

46:04 - 48:33
Learning to accept, forgive and love unconditionally. Stepping into discomfort, and finding the beauty in suffering.

48:33 - 49:13
Will the climate crisis be our redemption?

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Top Quotes From The Episode:

“Mess your own life up quite a few times, and then you learn. Because that brings humility and it brings a sense of humour because it helps you survive, and it brings a bit of creativity.” - Caroline

“Accepting what we've already inflicted on the planet, and what we're continuing to do to our planet, is too hard or too confronting for a lot of people. And so we keep dancing this little dance on the side, and detracting from what's really happening.” - Clover

“We need to start weaving new narratives for the new world that we're developing. I know it's full of struggle and hardship… but I also think that there are opportunities to create things now, which maybe weren't available to us before.” - Caroline

“Start to find the beauty and the benefit of suffering because to suffer means to be touched by something… that sense of connection is probably the only thing that really carries meaning at the end of the day.” - Caroline

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About The Guest:

Caroline Hickman is a psychotherapist who teaches at the University of Bath and is a member of the Climate Psychology Alliance (CPA) for whom she is creating a series of podcasts on Climate Psychology & Eco-Anxiety - “Climate Crisis Conversations - Catastrophe or Transformation”.

Caroline is researching children and young people’s feelings, including eco-anxiety and grief, about the climate and biodiversity crisis. She has developed a methodology to uncover and explore different stories, narratives and images around our defences against the 'difficult truth' of