Self‐compassion as a tool for sustained and effective climate activism

The Anthropocene has arrived. Our current geological epoch is marked by human existence as the leading force within the earth's environment and climate, operating well beyond the planet's natural dynamics, resources, and limitations (Lewis & Maslin, 2015). Climate scientists and activists alike have experienced and documented how climate changes have unleashed increasing ecological unsustainability (Gordon et al., 2019). Documenting the current and anticipated ecological disruptions has caused some scientists to question whether they are narrating a trajectory of irretrievable loss, perhaps not the science they signed up for as idealistic graduate students (Stern, 2021). Attanasio (2020) argued for broadening climate sciences' traditional “dispassionate observation” mindset to consider the observer's (experiencer's) existential distress, inflicted upon them through witnessing in vivo the ravages of the climate crisis and its irreversible losses to the environment, in turn, heightening their own sense of personal mortality (Wolfe & Tubi, 2019). Psychological science has underscored multiple ways in which people keep their emotional distress at bay by avoiding proximity to reminders of their own mortality (Pyszczynski et al., 2015). In particular, when individuals' work requires such proximity, it can lead to unsustainable emotional stress (Talmor et al., 2019). This stress is elaborated by the self‐protective altruism model according to which people are motivated by existential distress to behave prosocially as a means for stress reduction. However, when the object of prosocial engagement is simultaneously a source of existential distress, the latter will motivate one to avoid proximity despite their perception of moral obligation (Hirschberger, 2013). Similarly, climate activism triggers both prosocial engagement motivation and avoidance motivation of insurmountable existential threat. This discrepancy, I presume, undermines climate change professionals' capacity for continued engagement with their work which is perceived increasingly as a cause of emotional pain and suffering (Park et al., 2020). Indeed, climate activists also struggle with multiple features of psychological injury, including grief, anxiety, and burnout due to their witnessing of irreducible environmental destruction (Gordon et al., 2019). Furthermore, there is growing consideration among some climate activists regarding what they can and should aspire to if and when it is “too late,” and the bulk of these damages are irretrievable (Moser, 2020). Researchers in psychological science have also been studying what enables people to maintain optimal functioning and cope with ongoing, work‐related stress (Seligman, 2018). Their findings have underscored that proactively fostering resilience is an optimal strategy for occupational stress management (Deci et al., 2017). Furthermore, unsuccessful stress management at work is the primary source of burnout as opposed to individuals' predispositions toward psychopathology (Maslach & Leiter, 2016). Over time, systematic, preemptive resilience training has been implemented across multiple occupations at high risk for psychological injury and burnout, such as pediatric caregivers (Neff et al., 2020), law enforcement officers (Fleischmann et al., 2019), and firefighters (Denkova et al., 2020). Considering that the experience of loss is part of climate activists' professional experience, the ability to optimally cope with it is a necessary professional skill, and its development should be implemented as part of climate activists' professional development and discourse. Self‐compassion (SC) is a focus of much interest in psychological resilience training as a way of relating to one's experiencing self, particularly when struggling with a harsh experience (Germer & Neff, 2019). It entails three main components that overlap and mutually interact: self‐kindness (with its self‐judgment counterpart), feelings of common humanity (versus isolation), and mindfulness (in contrast to over‐identification). Self‐compassion reflects an experiential, nonjudgmental acknowledgment that all humans are flawed and live within certain irreducible limits of what can be fulfilled in life (Neff, 2003a, 2003b). Self‐compassion entails self‐ regulatory skills such as a capacity for perceptual attention regulation toward threatening and aversive details within one's environment (Yip & Tong, 2020). When faced with an existential threat within their environment, participants with sufficient SC skills allocate their attention so that they are more effective in responding to them as opposed to being overwhelmed and engulfed by them (Gerber & Anaki, 2018). Drawing on this understanding, SC has also been applied to caregiving, considering its providers confront daily multiple and ongoing existential stressors embodied in human sickness and suffering. The reliance of health professionals on SC directly contributed to their burnout reduction by upholding a sense of personal meaning experienced through their caregiving despite the perceived incompleteness of what could be restored in the wake of tragic loss (Gerber & Anaki, 2021).