Discharging on Climate Change Is Affecting
How I Think about My Whole Life
At a recent workshop we worked on the topic of climate change. Discharging about it, I noticed it was odd that, while I think climate change is real, I have done little about it. I decided to have at least one session a week, for twelve weeks, on the subject.
In the second week I found myself talking about a Japanese comic series. In it a vast spaceship parks itself over Tokyo. Mostly it does nothing, but occasionally smaller craft emerge from it and are shot down by Japanese forces. The culture is increasingly militarized, and there is an atmosphere of rising anxiety and paranoia. With all this literally hanging over them, and surrounded by adult irrationality, a group of young women try to live ordinary lives. Two things struck me about the story: (1) it was a metaphor for young people facing climate change, and (2) it reminded me of when I was in Belfast (Northern Ireland) from 1970 to 1977.
When I started discharging about it, it occurred to me that my experience of Belfast and how I got through it were affecting my response to climate change. I’m surprised at the grief and fear that have surfaced about those years, and even more surprised at how resistant I feel to accepting how much this undischarged hurt has limited me and distorted my life. I don’t remember ever having to fight such a strong feeling of denial that I’ve been hurt.
I don’t know where this is taking me, but I wanted to pass on how discharging on climate change is affecting how I think about my whole life.
Bristol, England
Reprinted from the RC e-mail discussion
list for leaders of Irish-heritage people
Morris—Discharging on Climate Change Is Affecting How I Think about My Whole Life—Counseling Practice—PT 196, July 2019