Climate Change & Collective Trauma
Lab Cycle Oct 2020 - July 2021 Report
Facilitators
Louise Marra & Jens Riese
Trainees
Hans-Ulrich Streit, Nancy Jane, Scott Ligertwood
LANGUAGE
English
Description
We started out with a group of 60 participants and completed with 30 participants. We met for 10 group sessions between October 2020 – June 2021. This lab explored the collective trauma emerging from our disconnection from nature and the living planet – and from the resulting crisis of Climate Change. We sought to feel and ‘presence’ how trauma shapes our worldviews and institutions in ways that separate us from nature and keep us from being able to respond adequately. How is extinction in the outer world reflected within us? We explored the notion of ‘inter-being’ and how reconnection and restoration of our relationships to the living world is vital. What is required for us to heal together? We explored these and other questions through the specific perspectives and experiences that participants brought to the Lab.
”I felt a deep connection to the people of the group which lowered my own anxiety. Knowing that other people engage in conversations and actions regarding climate change and trauma and especially the vulnerability and presence of everybody made me feel more hopeful about the future. It also created a sense of empowerment.”
Steffi J. 
“The two sessions where we were invited to share our personal experience of climate change were the most powerful - it felt wonderful to feel less alone in a very disconnected society.”
Deborah MEquity Practitioner, Advisor, Facilitator
“Journaling has never been so fluid and inspiring. Every sharing widens the sacred space connecting us and healing deep wounds.”
Alessandra C.Coach, teacher and writer
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We explored the following questions:
- What constitutes the historical background to our disconnect from the living planet and the current climate crisis?
- What helps us reconnect as earth to earth?
- How has our disconnection from the planet influenced the construction of identity for us as individuals and for humanity as a whole, and how does that, in turn, influence our ability to arrive at solutions together?
- How is the degradation of nature reflected around us and in us?
- How does our disconnection from the planet lead to the climate crisis, and to the cultural architecture and institutional barriers that influence our ability, as humanity, to find and implement appropriate solutions?
- Can we collectively create a coherent ‘we-space’ and a process of witnessing that enables a reconnection to the planet and a re-setting of how we approach and work with our climate emergency?
- What impulses for restoration can we feel in ourselves and our lives?
Our Timeline
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Moments of Challenge
- Impatience and urgency of participants and resistance to slowing down and to building the coherence inside themselves.
- Our topic is different to other traumas in that we are experiencing, repeatedly, the trauma of climate change in the present moment; it is not a past experience, it is current, but rooted in the past – as our time line showed – and it is increasing as we look into the future. Moreover, it is not only a human trauma for we are not the only species being directly affected by this. We need to feel into the earth as earth, and this is challenging and requires an approach that needs some adjustment given the above-mentioned characteristics of this topic.
- The modern industrialized lifestyle that is exacerbating climate change is still being lived and not fully owned as part of the problem. We are all in it, and our society is built in that way. The structural and systemic change required to shift this is beyond the capacity of the individual.
- Too few meetings and too many participants for this Lab.
- Not enough time amongst the Lab Team to build coherence in the team.
- Lab participants wanted less leadership and more trust in the group, which we did, whilst still holding safety and some structure. This became a nuanced dance which resulted partly in what felt like the trauma denial becoming expressed as anger at the facilitators.
MOMENTS OF GRACE
- A spontaneous act of restoration emerged from the process of trauma integration
- A collective connection to Mother Earth that we all experienced was full of grace
- Building the timeline and first landing it
- The earth connection practices that we all undertook
- Some of the meditations
- Allowing the wall of built up despair to have space and time in the first two meetings
- As facilitators we found a beautiful way to work together through the challenges
INSIGHTS
- The nature of this trauma requires a different approach due to the distinct features of this topic, as mentioned above.
- In the future, we would suggest providing for more experiences of reconnection, a focus on reconnection to earth as earth, expanded 3-synch to include the web of life, stronger focus on practices and sensing what we can relate to.
- The timeline is powerful and in this Lab it came too early. It also requires more sessions.
- In the future, some changes would be needed for the flow and structure of the Lab and the number of participants, which we would limit to maximum 20 people and biweekly meetings.
Our Lab Team
Louise Marra
has post graduate qualifications in environmental management, public policy and Jungian and Transpersonal psychology. She has trained with Thomas Hübl for many years including through the Pocket Project. She is an executive coach and group process leader employing many different modalities including somatic therapies. She works mainly with diverse groups of leaders on transforming patterns of the past and leading for systems change, within us and within the whole. She has worked for Prime Ministers, boards, NGOs, corporate teams, public sector and philanthropy across the globe in emergent practice, social innovation and leadership. She is deeply connected to the living planet and all its beings, and is part of the Ngai Tuhoe tribe in New Zealand and is passionate about reconnecting people as nature.
Jens Riese
works as transformational coach, trauma therapist, leadership trainer and social change facilitator. He has been supporting government, NGO and company leaders, as well as communities through transformations for 20 years. As Senior Partner at McKinsey he co-founded and led practices for sustainability, economic development and centered leadership. Jens supported more than 20 countries and 50 companies in designing and implementing plans for a more sustainable and resilient economy. He pioneered the use of lab approaches to engage diverse stakeholders from all sectors in social change and crisis recovery, incl. in Tanzania, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone and Papua New Guinea. Jens has been studying intensively with Thomas Hübl and has hosted some of his online events. His therapeutic training includes IFS, NARM, NLP, LCP, somatic and team coaching. He has a PhD and research background in developmental and evolutionary biology as well as environmental management.
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