Tim Jackins at the Unified Goal on Climate Workshop, August 2023
There are many steps we need to take to play an effective role in ending the climate emergency. All the steps are necessary.
We need to discharge the early distresses that make moving [taking action] difficult. Among the most important are the recordings of isolation. To challenge these recordings means facing feelings that felt unbearable, so we have avoided doing that.
In addition to clearing our minds, we also have to do things in the present. We would like to leap into big effective actions. Some of that is motivated by our desperation. I think we need to build very solid foundations carefully, beginning with the people close to us. In particular, I think we need to challenge the effect of the early isolation on how we are able to connect with others.
If we are going to help build good societies, we have to be connected with everyone. We cannot do this for people; they have to do it with us. This means challenging the limits our distress tries to put on us. This means deciding to be open and friendly when we are too scared to feel friendly. This means deciding to try for a connection and be friendly when we are sure we will be rejected. (None of us look like we would welcome connection—most of the time!)
This means facing some of the unbearable feelings from our early isolation—not only doing it in sessions where we can discharge with support, but doing it out in the world where people don’t understand RC. This means deciding we don’t need that other person to counsel us in order for us to challenge our material. It means challenging our material as if we had power over it. We don’t need someone else’s understanding first.
We can go back and forth between having sessions on that early material, and challenging it in the present. It is an effective way to move forward.
Society, with its oppressions, has drawn lines between us all. We are divided into smaller and smaller groups. The message is that it is dangerous and unworkable to reach across to someone in another group, to make contact so we can see the humanness in each other, in and outside of RC.
It occurred to me that our situation is getting more and more complex. And when things get complex, we can get restimulated. The solution is to push against that restimulation and get more openly human with each other so we can see our humanness clearly. We can do this no matter how complex things get or how narrow our bandwidth.
It is clear that our institutions are incapable of the changes needed. The irrationalities embedded in them, especially those of capitalism, incapacitate them. We can’t wait for solutions from institutions that are struggling so badly. Those institutions helped create the irrationalities that caused this problem. If we want more effective responses happening sooner, something else has to happen.
PUBLIC OPPOSITION TO IRRATIONAL POLICIES
First we need larger and larger open public opposition to irrational policies. The distresses that are involved must be challenged. This means we have to go into open opposition.
Many, many groups around the world are trying to make this opposition more and more visible. I think all of us can be part of that open opposition. At the same time, we each have to decide what makes sense given the situations we are in. Some of that is considering how dangerous the irrational things around us are. We can still oppose what is going on, but we must think about how to do that.
A NEW SITUATION
I don’t know all the ways we should go into opposition. I know what we have been able to do so far. But this is a new situation in the world. This is different from any other struggle people have faced before. And doing what has been done before, even in a better form, may not be enough. We really must think afresh about what could possibly work.
If I asked this group what new tactics we should try, I would guess nearly all of you would say, “I don’t know.”
However, we do know it is possible to think afresh about any situation. So how do we get our minds thinking about new strategies and tactics in this new situation? Part of the answer is making connections with everybody we meet. The more different a person’s life is from ours, the more likely they will have thoughts we haven’t had.
We don’t wish to simply oppose the irrational policies being acted out in the world; we also want to help with the creation of rational policies.
The discharging that RCers have done and continue to do has made it possible for many of us to think about and discuss policies that could benefit everyone in the world and help stop the ongoing destruction of the environment. These ideas are useful and important, even if they are not full solutions to our situation. Openly and confidently putting forward these ideas will help others who struggle with distresses that have made it difficult for them to go against their feelings of discouragement, isolation, and hopelessness.
People can recognize good, rational possibilities, even when their struggles make it too difficult to find them by themselves. Providing a picture of what is possible, outside of people’s distresses, is an important part of leadership.
THE THINK-AND-LISTEN
Many of us remain hesitant to share our own thinking and wait to back someone else’s good ideas. Many of us have difficulty deciding to take our own thinking seriously.
Human minds work better when they have the attention of another mind. In RC, we use attention primarily to access the discharge process. However, with the attention of a counselor, we can not only discharge. Our minds can also think much more freely and openly. We can think without getting attention, but a lot of our thinking is hidden, and we dismiss a lot of it when we are by ourselves [alone].
I suggest that we occasionally use a part of some Co-Counseling sessions to simply have the counselor listen to our thinking. We have a structure for doing this—the think-and-listen. I wrote about this in the October 2023 Present Time, page 37 (www.rc.org/publication/ present_time/pt213/pt213_037_tj).