Navigating Climate Anxiety and Uncertainty: A Guide on Writing Your Way Through it – Yale Climate Connections

If you’re reading this article, it’s likely you’re one of the many people who are worried about climate change. There’s also a good chance you’re looking for news about solutions happening in the world. But have you considered that one source of resilience lies within your own experience? Writing about climate emotions won’t change the crisis itself, but it can help you process the uncertainty and navigate the weight of it in a meaningful way.

It’s natural and healthy to validate, honor, and express one’s emotions. Climate emotions are no exception, but if you’ve tried, you know: It’s difficult. Climate change is an ongoing, complex reality that understandably can evoke depression, anxiety, and grief.

These emotions aren’t something bad to ignore or suppress – they’re part of how we process and respond to a changing world. As Panu Pihkala, a leading expert in eco-anxiety research, says, “Climate emotions are related to resilience, climate action, and psychological well-being and health.” By acknowledging them, we create spaces for both understanding and growth.

Writing, like any creative practice, is a powerful tool for emotional processing. Writing is here for us when we’re ready to turn towards our climate emotions and begin to move through them.

Writing as a tool for navigating climate emotions

I chose the term climate emotions instead of climate grief or eco-anxiety after a conversation with writing instructor and environmental activist Shankar Narayan. He recently taught a class titled “Blue Sphere, Imploding: Writing with Climate Emotions,” and explained why he broadened the language: “I re-titled my class from climate grief to climate emotions because of how diverse climate emotions are. It’s easy to say there is a lot of grief associated with climate change and just leave it at that, but really, there is a whole rainbow of climate emotions.” 

To help students explore and articulate their emotions with finer nuance, Narayan often refers to the Climate Emotions Wheel from the Climate Mental Health Network. He believes that understanding the range of our true, lived experience of climate change is critical: “It’s how we cope and heal.”

Writing from the I perspective makes space for this deeper understanding. It allows us to center our own lived experience rather than simply adopting the dominant narratives we’re told about climate change. 

“Writing deconstructs the we and centers the I,” Narayan said. 

There is no universal experience of climate change. The collective we conceals the vast differences in experience across geographic location, race, culture, gender, and class. Writing allows us to observe this personal I in action. Creative writing creates space from the process of thinking, and in that space, the writer may become more consciously aware of their thoughts. In that space, one may observe the behavior of the mind, notice the patterns of thinking, and interrogate the self a few levels deeper. Writing is a tool to help us get to know ourselves a little better.

Journalist and writing instructor Michele Bigley, who writes frequently about climate emotions, describes writing as a way to work through feelings without interruption: “Writing is a great tool for exploring and processing anything. You have a clear space to explore anything without being interrupted by real life. You can unspool ideas, contradict yourself, and have permission to explore.” 

Facing, not avoiding, complex climate emotions

Writing may assist in confronting the climate emotions we may otherwise avoid. And avoiding them doesn’t make them simply disappear.

“What we tend to do is a combination of paralysis and distraction, which doesn’t help tamper or lessen the emotions,” Bigley said. “It’s like if we didn’t grieve for the loss of a loved one, the emotions would find a way to come out – in our bodies or by having unhealthy habits.”

Narayan echoes this point, emphasizing that creative practice sustains not only our well-being but also the work of those engaged in climate and ecological action: “Creative practice is important for sustainability of work around climate change. To continue on, we can’t lose ourselves in paralysis. Understanding our sense of paralysis is key to also understanding that the paralysis doesn’t have to rule us. We can actually find ways to move through our climate emotions. Avoidance is a terrible strategy.”

What’s more, Narayan said, “Creative practice becomes a practice of witness.” By bearing witness to climate-induced suffering – whether our own, others’, or the more-than-human world’s – we cultivate empathy and are more likely to act.

Action in this context doesn’t have to mean joining a direct action or resistance movement. One of the most effective climate actions is to simply and skillfully talk about climate change. Writing helps us prepare for those conversations, bringing self-awareness, authenticity, and vulnerability into our communication, whether with friends, family, colleagues, or the public.

So then, where to begin?

Both writing instructors interviewed suggested warming up for writing with reading material. “Anything by Wendell Berry or Robin Wall Kimmerer – works that celebrate nature,” Bigley said. Shankur recommended the work of dg nanouk okpik, a Inupiaq-Inuit poet based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, as a starting place. You can also explore the poetry and nature collection at Poetry Foundation or dive into essays on ecology and the human experience in outlets like Emergence Magazine or Orion. Visual art may also ground and inspire the writing process. Similarly, a walk outdoors or a brief meditation in nature might offer the grounding inspiration you need.

Here are some suggestions to prompt your writing:

1. Explore an emotion. Pick an emotion from the climate emotions wheel. Write on how that emotion shows up in you, and how it has changed with time and context. 
2. Respond to a piece of writing. Read an essay, poem, or story, either from the suggested readings above or something of your own choosing, and respond to the central message, a particular line, or something else that strikes you.
3. Give your words an imagined audience. Choose another life experiencing the climate crisis and write a letter directly to them. This could be a loved one, a neighbor, a stranger, a politician, a powerful polluter, someone who passed away, someone unborn, you in the past or future, an animal, or a place. What do you want to say to them? What is important for them to understand? What do you imagine they might say to you? 
4. Add some feelings and flesh to an abstract concept. Write about a time you experienced the direct or indirect effects of climate change. Write about a person or a place that you love, and how that person or place experiences climate change. Get specific with the details of the experience and lean into the senses.
5. Let your interests and natural curiosity guide you. Some writers find inspiration by focusing on a specific creature they feel drawn to. I’ve recently experimented with choosing a creature I feel a strong connection with and beginning the writing process with a few videos, a poem, or an essay featuring this creature. For example: watching a few videos on YouTube of the grey whale, reading “Disentangling a Grey Whale,” by Maya Khosla, and then writing to the sounds of the whale song.
6. Consider sharing. Throughout our conversation, Shankur emphasized the need for community. “The more people dive into parsing apart their own climate emotions, the more they realize there is a lot of overlap in the emotions people are feeling.” While solitude is sometimes necessary for deep writing, sharing your reflections with others can help name and process feelings in a way that resonates beyond yourself. Many people withdraw when confronted with strong climate emotions, but finding or building a creative space with others can be an integral act of bearing witness.

An ongoing practice of reflection and release

Choosing a prompt, setting a timer for 25 or 30 minutes, and pushing through discomfort are common tips for journaling – but of course, half an hour is hardly enough to unpack the emotional complexity of climate change. Climate change is ongoing, making processing related emotions a lifelong process. Taking time, even occasionally, to sit with your emotions in a structured way can help lighten the weight of them, bring clarity to the chaos, and create meaning in the midst of uncertainty. 

There is no right way to feel. There is no right way to write. Write uninhibited, let go of spelling, grammar, or trying to get it “right.” Let the words flow and follow wherever they lead.