Zen for climate leaders and my first Substack Live

Britt Wray & Katharine Wilkinson on a mindful week at Plum Village

Hello dear community!

I’ve recently returned from a global climate leaders’ retreat at Plum Village that was co-organized with Global Optimism to service climate professionals with the internal supports for transformation we need to do our work with a brightness of mind despite the trappings of despair, grief and overwhelm that lie all over the field. Plum Village is the Buddhist monastery that Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh started in rural France in the ‘80s, which has since launched a network of affiliated monasteries around the world and hosts 10 000+ visitors a year who travel there to learn and practice the art and spirituality of mindful living. This newsletter has shone a light on Plum Village’s teachings before, and their teachings have been a significant form of internal support for me for years based on virtual and off-site retreats I’ve attended, but I’d never been to their headquarter hamlets before in France. That was powerful.

Now I don’t want to sound over the top or anything, but was a very impactful and possibly even life changing week for me, so I’m going to be doing my first Substack Live next week reflecting on my experiences there alongside fellow retreat participant Dr Katharine Wilkinson. You might know her from her work with Drawdown, her TED talk on how empowering women and girls can curb climate change, her bestselling climate anthology All We Can Save or her nonprofit the All We Can Save Project. She also has a new substack called Human on Earth.

If you’d like to join us to get our raw and honest reflections on what Plum Village showed us and how it connects to climate work, please join us here for a Substack Live (i.e. real time engagement with video) next Thursday October 30th at 3 pm EST for a 30 minute dialog on this topic.

Photo by Jay Castor on Unsplash

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World’s largest climate distress resource hub

I hope you’ve been enjoying the new Unthinkable Resource Hub. If you haven’t come across it yet, it’s our biggest undertaking to date, where we’ve built and released the world’s largest and growing repository of vetted resources for climate distress which you can freely use here: https://www.unthinkable.earth/resource-hub.

Grist featured it last week and wrote:

“The resource hub compiles hundreds of tools — books, podcasts, contemplative practices, support groups, climate-aware therapy initiatives, and more — into one searchable database for people to find what’s most useful to them. There’s also an option to fill out a short quiz about your feelings, goals, and identity, and receive a tailored “care package” of the resources that most closely align with what you’re looking for.

I filled out the quiz, clicked around, and found myself gravitating toward a page of guided meditations from the Climate Mental Health Network, an essay about climate emotions from an ER doctor, and a link to find more information about climate cafes — something I’ve heard about but never participated in.

The team will keep adding to the database every month, Wray said, vetting additional recommendations as they come in from partners and people who use the hub. Although it is extensive, it’s not exhaustive — and none of what the hub offers claims to be a panacea for climate anxiety.”

We’re not promising quick fixes of silver bullets with the Unthinkable Resource Hub. We’re offering grounding, tools for coping and acting, a sense of community, and connection to the outputs of a plethora of good humans stepping forth to support others with the “cosmic agony for the world” feeling so many of us are shouldering. We’ve identified resources for target audiences, like disaster survivors, first responders, activists, climate scientists, youth, parents and caregivers, and sorted resources according to themes (ex: peer support, art and poetry, books, podcasts, contemplative practices, climate conversations, workshops, etc). We hope you’ll dive in, benefit, and share it widely.

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An additional offering

Our friends at the The Impactful are getting set to launch their ‘being + doing platform’ - a digital community where collaborative doing meets collective being. The platform is a place to further your impactful work, projects, & career while also supporting the mental and emotional challenges that come with the times we find ourselves in.

They are seeking a few select companies to join their company pilot program. In exchange for offering valuable feedback and testing of their being + doing platform, they’re offering complimentary services from their specialist network (205 folks from 35 countries) on anything from branding, marketing, design, to sustainability strategy. Reach out to Zach and his team at hello@theimpactful.com if you are interested in learning more.

And a new book

When I give public talks, I often include some slides about how to find ways to take authentic climate action that meets you where you are. Several of the resources I pull on for those slides come from Ryan Hagen, who started the popular Crowdsourcing Sustainability newsletter years ago. I got a sneak peek at Ryan Hagen’s new book, “Your Guide to Climate Action” and I’m super excited about it. It’s loaded with practical guidance, resonates deeply, and is easy to read – perfect for anyone who cares about climate and wants to help change the systems they’re a part of. Relevant for readers of Unthinkable, it includes a focus on channeling climate anxiety for action. (Sorry that the link is Amazon but that’s where it is available). https://www.amazon.com/Your-Guide-Climate-Action-Making-ebook/dp/B0F7LTZTRT

Given the number of incoming requests for promotion, we can no longer sustainably plug other people’s projects in the newsletter (as we long did with our ‘Making Waves’ section) and are sorry to say that this will be the last time.

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That’s all for this edition. Hope to see you back here on Oct 30th at 2 pm EST for my Substack live with author Katharine Wilkinson.

Have a beautiful rest of the week!

-Britt