Overcoming Climate Anxiety: Stress Management for Highly Sensitive People Facing Overwhelm

Todd: [00:00:00] One of my favorite things about doing the work of Byron Katie is not knowing where we will go and one of the places where this shows up. Especially is in the open sessions that I offer every week. These are free sessions where you can come together with me and do the work with me and ask any questions about the work and we really don’t know where we’ll go.

So your questions, your stressful situations, your ideas for what to do the work on. That’s what leads us. And it can be very interesting to experience not only the new directions people take us in, but what kind of discoveries we find when we do that. You can listen to the recordings from these open sessions in this podcast, but you can also participate in these sessions and bring your own questions and bring your own stressful situations to work.

And we can do that together. To make that even [00:01:00] more enticing to e everyone. And to thank you for participating, I also offer a $50 Canadian dollar coupon to anyone who attends 10 of these open sessions. So for every 10 sessions that you attend, you’ll get another coupon and you can use that with any of the products that I use.

So to participate, go to the work as meditation.com, and then open sessions.

Client: I am thinking of the comfortable life that I’m having where I am here in the north, and I am thinking of the Ukraine War where people were also having a comfortable life and then it changed. So I see. Okay. It’s possible here too. 

Todd: Welcome to Wiggle Room, a podcast where we start with stress and look for ways to turn it around.

And in [00:02:00] this particular session, we’re gonna be looking at an interesting topic of climate change and the stress that can. Bring on, and one particular participant does the work on the stressful thought related to climate change, and I think you’ll find it interesting to follow along as we do this work.

This is coming from the recording from my open sessions, which we do every week. And you can join in those open sessions and bring your own questions or bring your own stressful thoughts to, to do the work on by going to the work as meditation do com. I’m Todd Smith and on the program today, we will not only be looking at climate change, we’ll also be looking at a.

Way of working with feedback when people give you negative feedback or when you need to give somebody some negative feedback and the stress that can come up with that. And I’ve written an article on this and I’ll be reading that towards the [00:03:00] end of our program. This podcast is about something called the work of Byron Katie and the work of Byron Katie, if you’ve never heard of it before.

Is a way to question any kind of stressful thought, and it’s our stressful thoughts that keep our hearts closed and keep our minds closed and keep everything shut down. So when you begin to question the thoughts that are holding back the heart and the mind from expanding, then what naturally happens is new perspective, new opening, new shift of experience.

So that’s what this podcast is all about. I call it wiggle room because it only takes a little bit of wiggling to begin to see that opening and that space begin to show up. So I hope you enjoy it and we’ll start here with our recording of the first of the last open session that I’ve recorded.

And this is always an unedited recording so you can experience this just as we did when we were doing the work together.[00:04:00] 

Client: Okay? If nobody else has anything, then I’m having a thought. It’s about this new climate report that came out a couple of days ago. And like yesterday evening, I just suddenly felt like big sadness of that it is actually, coming now, all these things. It’s not in the future.

It’s now. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Client: So yeah, so I thought maybe go through that one because Yeah. It’s a stressful thought. 

Todd: Okay. Yeah. Okay, so it’s actually coming now. Is it true?

Client: Yeah.[00:05:00] 

Todd: Yeah. And can you absolutely know it’s true. It’s actually coming now. Climate change.

Client: Yeah.

Todd: Yeah. I saw the report. So how do you react when you think it’s actually coming now?

Client: I feel both fear and I feel sadness. I’m thinking of the comfortable life that I’m having where I am here in the north. And I’m thinking of the Ukraine War where people were also having a comfortable life and then it changed. I see. Okay. It’s possible here too. Things can change. And I’m in the part of my life where I’m like, getting older [00:06:00] and been through all this with children and career and stuff like that. And but I’m thinking of the children of my child who’s 27 years old. She hasn’t got any children yet, but my nephew and niece has children and and I really see, this is happening and it is happening for them.

And I also feel a kind of a sadness because us human beings, we have known about this for a long time and even now people don’t really take it seriously. A lot of people around me anyway. Still. Politicians, they just keep talking and talking out in the well. Then we are gonna be in 2040 or something like that.

And, okay. 20 14, 20 50 it’s gonna be too late. We are not here, there, it’s not [00:07:00] possible. Yeah.

So I could say it for us people. As human beings that that we can’t see it and can’t. It’s it’s not it’s an ability that we don’t have. Somehow I see it

and mostly I just feel this sadness, this sadness that, I think that the sadness is mostly about this because I think the planet will still be here and everything will still, but it will be so changed and our life will be changed and there will be walls, people moving and not this comfortable life that I have had the privilege of having up here.

Yeah, so I fear the future. I fear the [00:08:00] future. Yeah.

Yeah.

Todd: Do you notice any. Sensations or feelings in your body. 

Client: It’s like a sadness in the chest

and the heaviness. And yeah,

giving up somehow. It’s like giving up. And I can’t be present. I can’t be present in, in what’s now in my life what’s going on now. Yeah.[00:09:00] 

And of course I can’t see that it is actually not possible to look into the future. It isn’t really possible. We can see that this will happen and, but things could be a little bit different than what we see, so it might not be that complete scenario.

Yeah. 

Todd: Yeah.

Who would you be when you hear this report on the climate and you didn’t think for sure this is actually coming now, or if you weren’t as caught up in that story that it’s actually coming now, who would you be if you weren’t holding it so [00:10:00] tightly?

Client: It is very difficult because, they talk about 2030 and that is seven years time. But who would I be without the story?

What first comes to me is that I would be ignorant. 

Todd: Yeah. I can go there. Yeah. And I think it’s important when answering this question not to, we’re not saying that it’s not true, we’re just saying, who would you be if you were not wrapped up in this story? 

Client: Of course when I hear the report, I just hear it and then I see, okay, but this is now, this is now but it is only like [00:11:00] yesterday evening that I suddenly got this fear and this feeling of sadness. So mostly when I hear it, it’s it’s okay. We know that. You know that for a long time. And I have a daughter who has a degree in climate change, so we’ve been talking a lot about it. And and I’ve been reading books we know and, so I think that without the thought, I’m still having it a bit at a distance. I think it, yesterday it just came to me, really, it’s now. Without the.

I think that without the fear, it’s it’s more just seeing, what’s going on and what [00:12:00] can happen. And we see it already around the globe there. And I,

I think somehow I embrace myself more for change. Things are going to change. It’s not gonna stay the same.

Yeah. 

Todd: Yeah. So with the thought, it’s more resistant to change or sadness that it’s going to change, and without the thought more getting ready for change. That Yeah. Is coming. Yeah.

Reminds me of if I was close to dying, I would say, I could say, oh my gosh, it’s actually coming now. And it could be very fearful if I’m resisting that. But if I don’t think of it as a bad thing, then I’m preparing [00:13:00] myself to, to change in that way, to move into a different. Whatever that is in death.

Client: It’s funny that you say that because I actually have the same feeling as my parents died my father late, late as my father. And this feeling of that some people that he died and there’s nothing I can do about it. It happened. I can’t do anything about it, and I got the same feeling, but this, it’s happening.

There’s nothing I can do about it. Yeah, exactly. 

Todd: So that feeling, it’s a feeling of powerlessness in a way. There’s nothing I can do about it. When I’m resisting it. When I’m wishing it would stay the same, then I feel powerless. I feel that anxiety, but if I’m not resisting it, if I’m surrendered to it.

I’m still [00:14:00] powerless, but it doesn’t feel like anxiety. It feels I’m open. I’m open. That’s 

Client: true. Yeah.

Todd: So it’s so interesting. We’re dealing with something factual. We’re dealing with something real and we’re questioning it, but we’re seeing how I hold that thing. Whether I’m holding it like this or I’m, holding it, like pushing it away or something where I’m trying to change it or whether I’m just holding it and open to where it goes, makes all the difference in yeah, my experience.

That’s true.

So how could we turn the thought around? It’s actually coming now, and what I’m thinking about is how can we turn around the way we’re holding it?[00:15:00] 

Client: So it’s it’s actually coming now. And how would you turn that around 

Todd: it? I don’t know. I’m just thinking like, how could we turn it around that would not try to pretend that it is not happening, but at the same time, would. Be a more peaceful way of experiencing it.

Client: Yeah. So it’s not sorry, just put it away. So it’s not like saying it’s actually not coming now it’s it’s actually coming now. I don’t know really how to move on with it. 

Todd: Maybe something like it’s actually coming now and it’s okay. [00:16:00] Okay.

Client: First of all, it’s okay because it cannot be stopped. So it’s a fact I’m not in power here.

It’s actually coming now. It’s okay. Also, it’s okay in the sense that there will be changes, but I don’t know what changes. I don’t know how it will affect me and my. Loved ones which of course is the close ones to me.[00:17:00] 

I don’t know. Of course. So many people are going to suffer in this and

but it’s okay.

What comes to me is that it’s okay because we need a change. Us people need a change

because we can’t continue as it is.

Yeah.

Todd: Yeah. Do you have 

Client: any 

Todd: idea? It takes an open mind. It takes an open mind to find these [00:18:00] examples. Yeah, and that’s what I’m witnessing here is your open mind. This is how is it okay that something like this could happen? Something in a way catastrophic for the planet, something very strong. It’s like us standing at death store and saying, how’s it okay that I die?

We’re asking. A big question and it requires an open mind to even consider that. But I’m hearing in your response exactly that. You can 

Client: say that, when you’re dying, the body is not working anymore. It’s not possible to continue in the body. It’s too old, it’s too sick or something.

Maybe you can put that on to the planet somehow that that it is being too exploited, with the all the resources and and our little, headless [00:19:00] way of or thoughtless way of of living and demanding that life should be going on like that.

Yeah. 

Todd: So nature says it can come this far, but no further. It’s enough and the balance has to come back the other way. So it may be nature’s way of balancing things when humans cannot, when they get out of control. Then they get balanced somehow. And 

Client: that’s a very, 

Todd: and we don’t know what that will look like.

Client: And that’s a very good way to see it, because it’s not a punishment. It’s nature. It’s a nature law that how it goes. Yeah. Like with the body, when the organs stop functioning, you have to leave it. 

Todd: Yeah. [00:20:00] Yeah. And there can be suffering in the body if the organs are not functioning and death is coming.

Can be suffering sometimes. So it can be suffering in the world also. Is this is whatever way is not working is dying. All we’re doing here is just considering different ways of looking at this. Ways that are less stressful to us, that’s what we’re, yeah. Looking at.

And you can go to the actual opposite statement. It is actually coming now, and we could try the turnaround. It’s not actually coming now. And we have to keep in mind that all likelihood it is, but since we’re here play with it, is it actually coming now? Is there any, anything on that level that is [00:21:00] not a hundred percent?

Client: Of course, 2030 and that’s, where it just fell in, it’s in seven years time. Not much in the planet’s lifetime, but yeah, it’s not now. Yeah, 

Todd: It’s now in a, when you’re talking millions of years, it feels like now. Yes, a hundred percent, but it’s actually not right now. And what is the it?

It is actually coming now. Do you know, do we know exactly what it will be? 

Client: Of course. What I have in my mind there is the picture of war, fight about food and places to be. And and of course it’s not now again, but. It might not be in seven years time either. It might be in 20 years time or that things like that could happen and it might not even [00:22:00] happen at all.

If there’s atomic war, everything will go out immediately.

Todd: It’s possible, right? So when you really look at it, we don’t really know exactly what will happen. We have images of fighting for food and yeah, places to be, and that may happen. It may not happen, right? There may be just an explosion and it’s over, or it might be. Even if there’s, could there be any alternative that turns out not to be war, even though food is completely scarce?

I don’t know. Is it imaginable?

Client: Somehow where I live, it’s like unimaginable. That’s that there could be war.

Yeah, it’s 

Todd: yeah, [00:23:00] 

Client: but then again seeing Ukraine, so it’s and other places, where wars break war breaks out, it’s suddenly from a peaceful life there’s war. 

Todd: Yeah, it’s certainly possible. You put people under enough stress. The war will break out. It makes sense in a lot of ways, but it’s not a hundred percent sure because sometimes you put people under a lot of stress and they come together in some way or they find a different solution or who knows.

So all we have, what we’re saying here is all we have is probabilities and possibilities. Of what can happen, but we don’t know for sure and what happens in the mind, ’cause we’re actually doing the work for our own internal experience. When we’re doing this work, what happens is the mind [00:24:00] imagines something and then is suffering in it before it even happens.

We don’t know for sure it will happen. It might happen differently. Something is probably going to happen. I don’t know how or what, but. The mind goes to those worst case scenarios and then gets really scared by those images, and now I’m suffering even before it happens, so that this period of suffering is now longer than whatever is actually going to happen.

That’s true.

So it’s we don’t have a lot of wiggle room. We have seven years maybe, but we’ll take whatever wiggle room we can get. Let me have, let me just postpone my suffering a little longer. Until, yeah. I cannot avoid it. We can even go closer and like even if I am running out of food and there [00:25:00] is more, even then it would be different work, but.

Do I have to suffer? Suffer is an internal thing. My body might be in pain. My body might be starving, my body might have problems, might be dying, but am I suffering? And for me, the suffering comes when I get caught up in the fearful story or the sad story or the powerless story about it.

That I have always some control over. That’s something I can always work with or work on, and that can allow me to face anything, including my own death, including the death of our planet. If that happens, death of our species, whatever happens, it can allow me to face that in a more. Gentle or more [00:26:00] peaceful way.

It doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen. It just means how do I experience it? That’s what we’re doing when we do this work. 

Client: I really like this. Seeing that that it’s like being prepared to change. There’s a change coming. Be prepared to that. Yeah. That’s all. 

Todd: Yeah. We’re getting the signs and the, we’re seeing the research we’re seeing.

It’s coming. It’s coming. Big change is coming and, 

Client: okay. 

Todd: Just be prepared and don’t be too surprised and then. If my mind is open in that way, I can meet change, and change is not always easy, but a lot of good can come from change too.

If you would like to [00:27:00] participate in open sessions like the one you just heard now, then go to the work as meditation.com and you’ll find the open sessions page there and you can see the schedule, you can learn how to sign up, and I’d love to have you participate as a, someone bringing your own questions and someone who may be interested in actually doing the work with me.

I offer this for free every week, and I even offer $50 for every 10 sessions that you attend, whether you actually say anything or not. And while you’re at the work as meditation.com, I also encourage you to go to the. Finding the door to inquiry book that I have. This is a book I wrote many years ago and it is really helpful for going from that place of, ah, I’m not sure how to do the work.

Not sure what the stressful thought is to getting a clear path to either writing a judge or neighbor worksheet or finding something. Some other [00:28:00] stressful thought too. Identify and question. So you can find that at the work as meditation.com under finding the door to inquiry.

Next, I’m going to read one of my newsletter articles called my Favorite Ways to Give and Receive Feedback.

Hey, your shop is disgusting. Why don’t you clean it up? This is not my favorite way to give feedback. My favorite ways to give and receive feedback. Giving and receiving feedback is a touchy issue for many of us. We all know the benefits of getting good feedback and having more eyes on how we can improve, but egos get in the way and lots of times valuable feedback becomes either a cause for argument or is avoided completely.

The reason is simple, the facts and the emotional interpretations. Get all mixed up [00:29:00] with the feedback. Here’s what I mean. Someone once told me that I needed more work on my writing, specifically, that I was making my stories overly dramatic. This was actually useful feedback, but my emotional interpretation was that I’m a terrible writer and I should never write again.

Unable to receive feedback. Because of my emotional interpretation, I was unable to receive the feedback and make use of it constructively. Instead, I rebelled against it. I was defensive and I stubbornly adhere, adhered to my way of writing until some point came when I actually forced myself to comply with the feedback.

But even then, I was resenting it. So this is pure emotion. But emotion is always connected with thinking. When I identify the thought connected to the emotion, I can question my thinking and free [00:30:00] up the emotion. These two go hand in hand. You pull one and the other comes along. A systematic way to do this is called the work of Byron Katie, which is made up of four questions and turnarounds.

By questioning the thought, I am a terrible writer. I could move through the emotional interpretation I created for myself and see things in a more balanced way. It became possible for me to see that I’m actually a good writer, but I may be using too much drama. Then it’s just a small adjustment and very welcome to the other person’s delivery.

In addition to the wounded egos, emotional interpretation mentioned above, there is another place where emotions get in the way of receiving feedback. This happens when the person delivering the feedback is coming from an emotional place themselves, for example, angry or [00:31:00] impatient or condescending.

When the recipient hears the tone of voice coming with this feedback, he or she again, resists. This time, the resistance comes from beliefs about the giver. For example, he doesn’t like me. I must do what he says. I’m never good enough for him, and he has no right. When these thoughts are questioned, the actual feedback can be separated from the poor delivery due to the other person’s emotional state.

This takes a lot of stillness to do, but it is a skill that can be cultured through doing the work of Byron Katie. I’m a thousand times better at it today than I was in 2007 when I started the work. The result is that I can hear negative feedback, full of emotion and judgment coming from the other person, and more often than not, I can see two independent things.

First, someone having a hard time emotionally and two. [00:32:00] Some possibility or possibly useful feedback for me, which I will evaluate for myself on my own terms later instead of rejecting both the possibly useful feedback and the person giving it. I can often find compassion for the giver who’s dealing with some emotion of their own, and I can receive the feedback in a simple way that makes it seem like, oh, this could be a possibility for me to consider.

Not like I have to do it. It’s not a threat to my ego. I’m gonna take it in and see where it lands, how I like to give feedback when I’m on the other side of giving feedback. I also use the work of Byron Katie to be a more effective communicator. I like to separate my own emotional charge if there is any, from the feedback I’m giving.

Usually I want to give feedback because something annoys me. That feeling of annoyance will color the [00:33:00] way I actually deliver the feedback. I’ll be making it hard for the recipient to separate my emotion from my useful tip, so I like to separate the emotions and the feedback myself before beforehand.

This makes the feedback pre-digested for the other person. I also do this by questioning my feedback directly if I think he should clean up his shop. I go through the four questions and turnarounds of the work first, and then I let my emotions rail against this untidiness. But I do it first on paper and that’s very satisfying.

I let the emotion come out, but I’m doing it with myself as I’m doing the work. And then as I work through and start questioning these thoughts that are connected to the emotions then it leaves me in a space that is more neutral and where I’m actually probably okay with whatever happens. Either he [00:34:00] cleans up the shop or he doesn’t clean up the shop.

It’s not a really an emotional thing for me anymore. That’s what happens after I do the work, then from this neutral place without any charge. Then when I give feedback, it’s simple and free of emotional overtones. I find kind ways to give it, and I’m more fearless in giving it, and the other person is often better able to hear it.

It simply isn’t a big deal because it’s not a thing for me. Delivering feedback is enjoyable when there’s no charge in it for me, and I may also find after doing my work that I no longer need to deliver the feedback. I wait and see if it would truly serve the other person. And if they’re open to getting feedback, the tables have turned.

If I do give feedback, it’s out of consideration for them, not as a way of venting for me, because I’ve already vented. I’ve already vented onto paper, [00:35:00] I’ve already done the work. I’ve found a new perspective. I’m at peace. So now it’s just whether my feedback will really serve the other person or not.

Stress gives you the clue. The key to doing the work of Byron Katie is to listen to your stress. It will tell you what to question. I love to question any stressful thought on either side of giving or receiving feedback. I trust the stress to point me where I most need to do my work.

And here’s a quote from Byron Katie, and this is from her book. I Need Your Love. Is it true? Let’s look at the husband with egg in his beard. You can see him in two ways. First, when you think he’s flawed, oh God, there he goes with egg in his beard. Hey, stop. You have egg in your beard. What a slob. I don’t know what you’re thinking of.

Wash it off. Hurry, you’re late. Here, let me do that. [00:36:00] You’ve had your chance. Why do I have to point these things out to you? They’ll never give you that job. You can be so frustrating. Why did I even marry you? No, stop it. I don’t want to kiss you. Just leave me alone and get out of here. The other way is when you know that being flawed is simply not a possible, he’s going out the door with egg in his beard.

That’s so funny. He must be in a big rush to have miss something so obvious. I’ll wipe the egg off for him. As I notice a few of the reasons this happened for us, or at least for me. It happened so that I could see his beard in time to save the day, of course, so that we could laugh together as we imagine what the job interview could have looked like with egg in his beard.

I get to wipe off the egg for him, and that is warm and dear and funny and intimate. I didn’t think I had time to kiss him goodbye, and the dried egg made it possible. Interesting how [00:37:00] time opens up when you think there’s no time, and I get the credit for his new job.