​You belong here if you —

• ​you're an empathetic or highly sensitive person (hsp)

• ​you are angry about the climate crisis and social injustices

• ​you are an environmental studies professional or student

• ​your climate activism is burning you out

• ​your daily life is so stressful that you don't have time to think about the climate / poly crisis

• ​you hate meditating

​Just kidding on that last one. Belonging Circles for Resilience are a warm feeling of comfort, cathartic, honest, and joyous.

​This is NOT group therapy. Facilitators are NOT clinicians. This is not totally woo-woo, but there is a small element of that. Here's what we'll do in the Circle, this January Third Thursday Circle will be hosted by Drew A.

​Mindfulness.

​Slow down. Pause. Notice where your breath is coming from. What do you see in this photo? The act of noticing details is helpful to calm overwhelm.

​What to expect

• ​Establish group agreements and safety

• ​Hear about building personal resilience

• ​Practice resilience skills

• ​A volunteer reads mood setting introduction

• ​Individual sharing, everyone has an opportunity

• ​Afterwards, go around the circle for individual follow-up reflections to add to what the individual originally shared.

• ​Practice skills again

• ​Closing reading or additional facilitator input

• ​Resource sharing by the Circle members / building hope

​A peer support circle, share or just observe.

​​​"The world hasn't ended, but the world as we know it has--even if we don't quite know it yet." Bill McKibben, founder of 350 .org and Third Act.

​​The Big Picture. Why should we acknowledge our feelings about the myriad social threats and the changing climate?

​​_The short answer: To avoid burnout. To find our strength. To put on our oxygen mask before attempting to help others._

​What is the texture of the objects in this image?

​A peer-group meeting for "clima-unity".

​​Coming together in a Circle like this one, gives each participant a chance to simply listen to perspectives of others. How do each of us as individuals take this into our understanding the natural and built world?

​Belonging Circles

​A safe space to process feelings about the uncertainties we face here in the Cascadian Pacific Northwest in the age of the climate crisis.

​This section contains some important additional notes about what to expect during our time together.

​Belonging Circles are intended to be a casual and relaxed setting for each participant to share their unique perspective, experiences, thoughts, and feelings about the climate crisis and the overall state of the world as the poly crisis becomes apparent. This is a space free of educating or persuading to any particular view or course of action. We will take turns deeply listening to one other and allow moments of silence for deepening as it naturally arises.

​In order to hold a space where everyone can feel as safe as possible to share deeply, it’s useful to listen without any cross talking. Cross talking can be understood as a back and forth dialogue, answering questions, opinion or advice-giving, and commenting of any kind upon what has been previously shared.

​The pause between shares can be used as an opportunity to notice if thoughts arise around a shared experience. Our natural impulses to give advice, opinions, share a resource, to comfort or console, etc. is highly discouraged and not what we are going for here, we should strive to refrain from these habitual impulses.

​For immediate distress, the number to text or call is 9 8 8.

​We hope to see you. Subscribe to this calendar to be informed of other Belonging Circles, facilitated by other Climate Moxies.

​

​Renee Lertzman