Episode 56: Climate Change & Mental Health
“It’s really talking about transformation on all kinds of levels. And I think because we know this is an existential threat, it kind of opens the question, well, what would an existential level of transformation look like?”
A conversation with climate psychologist and author Leslie Davenport about eco-anxiety, eco-grief, and mental health strategies for coping with climate change. Released October 11, 2024.
guests on the show
Leslie Davenport
Leslie Davenport brings the role of psychology into interdisciplinary efforts that advance creative and effective solutions for climate change. Leslie is a founding member of the Institute for Health & Healing, one of the nations’ first and largest hospital-based integrative medicine programs. Her 25 years of medical experience developing an empowering and collaborative approach to resolving crisis has informed her community-oriented climate psychology model. Currently she serves in a climate psychology advisory role to Project InsideOut, One Resilient Earth, Climate Mental Health Network, and the Post Carbon Institute. Leslie divides her time between the Tacoma/Seattle and San Francisco Bay areas with offices in both locations. She is Program and Faculty Lead of the nation’s first Certificate Training in Climate Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies.
Leslie’s years of clinical experience culminated in the publication of the books: Emotional Resiliency in the Era of Climate Change, Healing and Transformation through Self-Guided Imagery, and Transformative Imagery: Cultivating the Imagination for Healing, Change, and Growth (Ed.). She was also a reviewer with the American Psychological Association, EcoAmerica and Climate for Health to help shape the document: “Mental Health and Our Changing Climate: Impacts, Implications, and Guidance (2017).” She has contributed a chapter to Existential Toolkit for Climate Justice Educators, Being a Therapist in a Time of Climate Breakdown, Integrative Rehabilitation Practice, and an essay for Parker Palmer’s book,The Heart of Higher Education.
Her latest books support kids and youth with tools for navigating a warming world by blending climate science, emotional resiliency tools, and support for engagement with a social justice perspective. All the Feelings Under the Sun, and What To Do When Climate Change Scares You: A Kid’s Guide to Dealing with Climate Change Stress, are published through the American Psychological Association’s children’s book division, Magination Press.
TRANSCRIPT
Faith Kearns
Welcome to Water Talk. I'm feeling a little bit rusty because it's been about a year and a half since we have put out any episodes of Water Talk, but it is great to be back with Sam and Mallika, and today we're going to be talking with Leslie Davenport, who is a friend and colleague of mine, who appeared both in my book and who I have participated in a few events with. She has a really, really interesting background, so we'll get into that a little bit with her.
But the reason that we wanted to talk with Leslie is that she specializes in what is generally called eco anxiety, climate anxiety, eco emotions. There are all sorts of names for this these days. And part of what happened was when Sam and Mallika and I started talking after having taken a bit of hiatus, and all were in different places, which I'll let everybody talk about, but I'm back home in Arizona, and I've been gone for about 25 years, and I'm not sure what I expected, but certainly the place that I came back to is not the place I left, and it is quite a bit hotter, as people know for Phoenix.
I'm not in Phoenix, but it is often making the news as the hottest city. And this year, I think, passed 100 days of temperatures above 100 degrees, which was a record of its own kind. So we just started talking about all the changes that we had seen in the places that we have returned to, and thought it might be fun to talk with somebody who really specializes in how to deal with the changes that we're all seeing. So welcome back, Sam and Mallika. How are things going with you?
Sam Sandoval
You know, for me, I'm doing well, similarly, I went for almost six months back home to Mexico City. I think this conversation came very natural that, well, we were talking, the three of us, about coming back home. Then we just started talking about the differences in climate and the things that we used to do that now, some of those are impossible. Back home in Mexico City, at least a week or two weeks, the temperature didn't come down. And it is different because we don't have air conditioning. So basically it is now a way to go buy some fans and also get used to being hot year around. So for listeners, temperatures, I'm not gonna disclose my age, but I was born in the 1980s and back then, 1980s 1990s we never got above 80-85, Fahrenheit. So 25-27 Celsius, we never get above that limit. It was very pleasant to be in Mexico City, where the lowest temperature was, I don't know, 50-55, Fahrenheit and the highest, 80. And now it's all over the place. We're hitting the 90s, the anxiety, the thing that we are experiencing in our lifetime, I don't know, Mallika, what? What were your feelings going back to Wisconsin?
Mallika Nocco
Yeah, just a lot of similarity to some of the things that you folks are mentioning, like this feeling of being home and being in the same place and being in a familiar place, but then just the uncanny feeling of there being a difference. And that's what's so hard to process about climate change, is it's not totally hitting you over the head all the time. It's this subtle shift, right, that we're feeling of more days that are warm. I was doing some yard work last week, and it was 90 degrees, you know, or 32 degrees Celsius at the end of September in Wisconsin, and that's supposed to be fall, you know, this is pumpkin spice season around here. Usually that part of it. And it's not just the one day, right? It's the whole experience of more days like that. You know, there are perks. My tomatoes are still rocking and rolling. I had a great garden year, I didn't think I'd be able to grow like super hot peppers, because they take so many days to ripen up. But I have like a ghost pepper plant that's done really, really well, like, it thinks it's in a subtropical place, maybe.
So, I mean, it's not all bad. I guess those peppers are really hot, though, I don't even know what to do with all of them, but definitely it's helpful to think about this uncanny feeling. And just even when I'm thinking about things like, what I want my retirement or senior years to look like, right? Like, how do I want to grow old? Where do I want to grow old, or talking with my parents who are aging like this old feeling of like, oh, we could retire and go to this place or that place, or just how you think about places is really changing, and I think that that is going to must be even more pronounced for people who are in younger generations than us.
Faith Kearns
Yeah, it's so interesting how the conversation has shifted from like, where are the best places that you could possibly go to feeling like there aren't, aren't any. Like, every place just has its trade offs, and the changes are coming for everyone.
Mallika Nocco
I'm excited, though, for us to explore this connection between, you know, climate change and mental health and some of the emotions and feelings that we're all going through. So Faith, can you just tell us a little bit about our guest that we are going to speak with today?
Faith Kearns
I'm definitely going to let Leslie describe her very long and interesting career, because it's evolved into a bunch of things that, on some level, people might think don't go together. Generally, psychologists tend to very much focus at the individual level. I think that's shifting a bunch in terms of the way that societal issues affect all of us, whether it's politics or climate change. But Leslie is really one of the people who started and wrote a book basically for clinical psychologists about how to interact with their clientele, their patients, about climate change, which just was something that the professional community wasn't taking as seriously as folks who wanted a therapist who could help them through that, and so I think it's great that we're going to be able to talk with somebody who really had the foresight to start working on that so early. Yeah, with that, let's go ahead and talk with Leslie.
In today's episode, we're talking with Leslie Davenport, a licensed marriage and family therapist who's been practicing for a few decades now. Leslie has had a career spanning from dance to her current focus on climate psychology. She has authored and contributed to several books, including her latest All the Feelings Under the Sun and What to do When Climate Change Scares You: A Kid's Guide to Dealing with Climate Change Stress, which is focused on supporting youth through their climate change related emotions. She is also the program and faculty lead of the nation's first certificate training and climate psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies. I've been lucky enough to work with Leslie on a few occasions, including talking with her for my own book. But without further ado, we would like to welcome Leslie to Water Talk.
Leslie, we are honored to have you as a guest today on Water Talk. I know my short introduction didn't do it full justice. So to start, we'd just love to hear a bit more about your very eclectic, interdisciplinary background and how you got to the work that you're doing now.
Leslie Davenport
Thank you so much. I'm really happy to be here. Well, you know, I love that you mentioned I started out in dance, because that was my very first venture into a professional role. And it's important because it might seem very unrelated and not relevant, but in fact, what I learned about creativity, exploring what's possible, the way our bodies, thoughts and feelings all interrelate to each other, remains a very vital part of how I approach climate psychology, not literally through dance, but by understanding creativity, imagination, possibility, ways to express ourselves beyond verbal, rational ways bringing more of our humanity forward. So I appreciate that.
I will mention that after I was involved in dance for 25 years, I was involved in health psychology, and I worked with the hospital creating a very holistic, integrative, interdisciplinary model where the best in Western science and medicine was blended with Eastern traditions, mindfulness and guided imagery, nutrition, body work. And I mentioned that because this interdisciplinary, holistic look aimed toward healing became the foundation for my original beginnings in climate psychology, how to transfer this to a systemic view toward our ailing planet, for lack of a better word, because we know it's very multi dimensional. So one thing has really led to another, even though, again, on the surface, they may look very different, but that's honestly one of the messages when I'm working with people, is use all the threads of your experience toward this work, because what we learn about ourselves and each other and systems and cultures are all a part of it.
Faith Kearns
Thank you so much for that. I want to draw out just maybe two threads, one of which is your work, which to me, was very groundbreaking in terms of trying to lay a foundation for practitioners themselves to be able to work with clients patients around climate change, which is something that a lot of people may not realize has been challenging within the field of psychology. So can you talk about where you started with that, and the book that you wrote, and just how that has evolved.
Leslie Davenport
Yes, so as I think might be true for many people who have gotten involved with climate change and climate solutions, I had one of those shocking aha moments, and this is a little over 15 years ago for me, where I'd always been following environmentally oriented studies and watching documentaries and all those things. But there came a day when everything I had been learning just coalesced into this shocking realization of the dangerous path that we're all on as it relates to our warming world and the multitude of impacts that are happening now and are going to continue to escalate for at least a time.
I decided, when that happened, that where it just went from information to this visceral understanding that I was going to do everything I could to steer my personal and professional life in that direction. And this was prior to anything like climate psychology being shaped, or even words like eco anxiety being common, and I started to look at that what I had learned in psychology about breaking through denial, processing complex emotions and grief, facilitating lifestyle changes, how to help support productive conversations that could become contentious, suddenly made perfectly clear sense to me of why this was not only helpful, but perhaps essential as one of the interdisciplinary threads in working with climate solutions. But I hadn't heard anybody else talking about it. So my first effort came through writing the book, which came out in 2017 called Emotional Resiliency in the Era of Climate Change for the mental health field, to try and get others on board to going, look, we're equipped with these resources. Let's find a way to join these conversations, be at the table. There's so much we can offer. And that's how I got started.
Faith Kearns
Yeah, all the way to having this new certificate program at CIIS, which is amazing, because I remember talking with you about the potential for doing that, and now, now it's an actual thing. So so
Leslie Davenport
You may know that at this point in time, none of the licensure tracks from counselors to psychiatrists, social workers, psychologists are required to have any training related to climate trigger distress, which is one of the reasons why the certificate training program was created. I'm hopeful that over time, that will change, but at this point, if someone comes in with eco anxiety, eco grief, it's a little bit of Russian roulette in terms of how prepared and educated the therapist may be because at this point, they're just a cross section of the general population. The unfortunate thing that has happened because of this is sometimes clients are blamed in the sense of saying, oh, this is, you know, generalized anxiety. You're making too much out of this, rather than starting with the validation that all these feelings are normal, in fact, they're even healthy, because they're an empathetic, attentive response to a really dysfunctional world right now, dysfunctional system and a painful one.
Faith Kearns
Yeah, I think it's that's such an important thing to say, because it can get really over emphasized that somebody's having an irrational response when it's really like, as we'll get into, I think some of the feelings we're going to talk about are perfectly rational responses to actual things that we're seeing change. During the presidential debate, for example, they raised the issue of climate change as a young person's issue. So I feel like there's just all this weight being put on young people, and they're certainly experiencing it that way. And is that part of why you decided to focus on youth is just that they really are feeling it, or just to give them tools from the very beginning to help them out?
Leslie Davenport
Yes, both, you know, for very good reason, it is the youth, young adults, who are experiencing some of the highest levels of distress. Because, naturally, from a developmental point of view, when we enter our teens, early 20s, it's that future oriented time of where do I want to live? What do I want to do? Will I start a family? And all of that is suddenly feeling very hijacked by climate change. And you know, again, reasonable frustration, anger at generations that seem to have dropped this in their lap to solve, so there's a very high need there.
As we get more into talking about how to work with the feelings, you're right, the younger that we all learn to do this, to develop emotional resilience, emotional intelligent tools easier, it will be. And I'm a big proponent of bringing this into schools. That's a side of the books that I've written is getting this material now used in the classroom because we were saying how therapists aren't well equipped. Well, neither are teachers who are working with these kids. A little bit of the climate science is being introduced into some of the school district, but often not with the emotional support that's needed as this subject comes up.
Faith Kearns
Yeah, well, let's hope that the folks coming up actually do have more access to that social emotional learning. I really am amazed by young people when I interact with them and they're where I was, you know, by the time I was 35 in terms of being able to deal with emotional material.
I alluded to the fact that Sam and Mallika and I started this conversation based on some of our own experiences. Mallika and I both have moved home. I moved home to Arizona. Mallika has moved home to the Great Lakes area, slash Wisconsin, and Sam was on sabbatical for a lot of last year where he grew up in Mexico City. And when we came back together, we started talking about all our experiences of being at home again. A lot of what came up was just how much things have changed. For me in Arizona, it's definitely hotter than it used to be, and I think that was true for Sam and Mallika as well, and there are other changes we could get into. But, you know, I'm just wondering on a pragmatic level, I know there's the term solastalgia and all these things, but on a pragmatic level, how can we start to adjust to the changes that we're experiencing in places that we thought we knew so well, but they're evolving.
Leslie Davenport
Oh, boy, you're really getting to the heart of the question here. And I will say there's not an easy answer. You know, in looking toward climate psychology, there's sometimes this underlying message of, please give me relief. Please give me the answer out of this emotional distress, and I'm sorry to report that really it's learning the skills to work with it, rather than being able to fully experience relief, because it's how we're programmed as human beings.
You know, we talked about these feelings being natural, and when there is the loss of something we love that's valuable to us, which can be the familiarity of an environment, the sense of seasons, places we love, and on and on, it goes. Trust in our governments, trust in the future, the way it may have felt some years ago. There's a natural grief reaction, and we know that grief isn't also just one feeling like sorrow, there's anger, there's disbelief. Can I talk myself out of this somehow? And it's only in working with these feelings that we start to come a bit to the other side, where it feels easier, but that grief is going to continue to be triggered. Grief is not linear. It is circular. We revisit these feelings, new things trigger it again.
I like to say that it's not so much that we're trying to get rid of certain feelings and only feel the good ones, but that healthy feelings are ones that flow, so if you are feeling anxious or sorrowful, the way you help them flow is first by acknowledging them, by feeling them, maybe sharing them with a friend, a therapist, writing about it, whatever those tools may be for you. And then they have less of a grasp on us.
I'll say for myself with having been deeply steeped in all of this for a number of years now, I’ll often read about a policy that didn't pass, that I was really hoping would, or something like that, or a new report, and I will often just burst into tears, and I will allow myself to do that, if I have the time and space to do so, and I'll just ride that wave. And in truth, it doesn't necessarily persist. There are other things that then come into my awareness and my engagement, and we do want to make room for all the parts of life and the natural world and each other that are there to celebrate, enjoy the experience. So it's flowing. We don't want to set up camp in our sorrow or set up camp in our anger or fear, but we also can't prevent them from arising.
Faith Kearns
You and I actually met at Renee Lertzman’s house at a regular salon when she was holding a series of salons for folks who were interested in this topic. And it feels like, since that time, that was probably a decade ago, and since that time, it really feels like there's been a pretty emergent, still small, but also this real blossoming of folks, Sarah Jacquette Ray, Britt Wray and many others working on this stuff. What has it been like to participate in this growing recognition about the mental health implications of environmental change?
Leslie Davenport
Yes, it's really exciting. You know, as we talked about at the beginning, I felt a bit like a lone voice. There were a few other people, but you're right, it has just really accelerated in, I'd say, the last five years. And now there is the Climate Psychology alliance of North America and an international version, as well as the Climate Psychiatry Alliance. And these are networks and coalitions of practitioners wanting to be trained, helping evolve the field, collaborative learning opportunities, starting to articulate the competencies from this as an emerging specialization. And it's just wonderful to see it so flourishing.
I want to mention, too, you know what you're saying about the accessibility of therapy? You know, one of my perspectives is that absolutely every discipline and institution needs to do a reckoning and a reevaluation, including the field of mental health and psychology, especially in that case, around accessibility, you know, cost. In the training program at California Institute of Integral Studies, one of the things we promote is something I call gorilla therapy, and it's the idea like gorilla gardens, where the community just takes these unused parking lots or empty spaces and helps them flourish with food, with beauty coming together as a community effort.
I would like to see, and I'm helping to promote, a creative brainstorming around how that can happen with therapy, rather than people having to have insurance and going in this one on one quiet little room, there'll always be a place for that. There's certain types of work that really benefit from that setting. But how can we bring the tools to where people already gather? You know, what if there was this free drop in session at the YMCA or some other gym? Where people weren't didn't even know it was happening, but they saw the sign and decided to check it out. Or there were these after school green clubs for kids, or people were trained to lead a simple resiliency practice to open a business meeting or a book club. Not everything has to be done by therapists, but therapists could be part of equipping communities, civic leaders, faith communities, to bring some of these tools where people are already gathering, and I'm a huge proponent of that.
Faith Kearns
Yeah, it's been interesting to watch the evolution of people talking about individual therapy as a model. You know, there are people I've seen say that, you know, just in terms of, particularly climate change, there just aren't enough practitioners, and even just that the burnout that practitioners themselves have been feeling during COVID and all these different things, that we need to revisit that model of individual therapy, which is super interesting to me, because I certainly have benefited from individual therapy, and I've always found group processes a little hard, you know, I think some people gravitate toward it and some people don't. But I think community around it is so, so helpful. I'm actually getting ready to do training this week for a bunch of science folks who want to talk about environmental trauma, both theirs and the communities that they work with. And there is always this second of like, wait, I'm not trained in this. But then you're also like, I'm really trained in the experience of it and trying to work with it and all of that. So it's an uncomfortable but interesting time.
Leslie Davenport
Yes, well, you know, I've experienced the other side of that, of not being formally trained in environmental sciences, but I've really taken up the effort to be very climate literate and to remain climate literate. And so I think it's the flip side of that when it comes to some of the supports, the emotional support.
Faith Kearns
Yeah, and just even the teaming up too, right? Like, I've definitely partnered with mental health practitioners as the scientist, and yeah, I think that's a super helpful model. So, you know, again, on a just a pragmatic level, digging a little deeper around the youth issue. Do you have practical advice? I mean, you know about interacting even with college age students who are maybe 18-19, years old? Yeah, just how those of us who try to support young folks can help them the most or be supportive.
Leslie Davenport
Yes, well, you know, opening a conversation and keeping it open is one of the best things we can do. Katharine Hayhoe often talks about how talking about climate change is so important. We need the actions too, but it brings it out of the shadows. It's still somewhat disenfranchised, especially climate emotions. To talk about it with friends, with family and so to say, I feel this too. I'm curious what you're experiencing. I want to know what questions you have, let's explore this together and keep that going and honestly, that can start at a very young age.
It's like, when we go to younger kids, it's like, any of the scary topics for parents, you know, drugs, sex, death, any of those where it's like, well, I don't want to raise this topic, because I'm not sure what to do or how to deal with it. So it's that sense of you know, let me know what's on your mind. I'm curious too. Let's keep revisiting this and listening for the cues that kids bring. Because with climate change, one of the things I've seen happen quite a bit is kids pick up little bits of information that is often out of context and can be more distressing if they don't have an opportunity to talk it through.
For example, kids who might hear a news story about a wildfire or a flood and are afraid to go to sleep at night because they don't know that that's happening in a different state. I mean, sometimes it's simple things like that. But if there's already this invitation to conversation that this is important, I'm interested in this too, we can figure it out together. Then it can move in whatever direction it needs to move more information, more emotional support, more involvement in community action, as a family.
Sam Sandoval
We've been talking here about climate change, but water is part of climate change. I've used water as a way to have some relief, going to the ocean during the pandemic, to get away from all the things that we were experiencing, or going to a river and walk along the river and have that, but at the same time, sometimes comes the opposite, right, which is like your favorite river, it went through a fire. And now you're seeing all the fires and the river that has just been now affected by it, the lack of snow or the drought, the drought is always a perennial burden. So do you have any advice for people who might be feeling some pain around things like environmental grief or some of that?
Leslie Davenport
Yes, thank you. You know it has become more complicated, right? Where nature or the outdoors has been this place of refuge for centuries, right? And now it is compromised in these ways, because it's often, as you've stated, a painful reminder of what is happening. So it relates to what we've been talking about before. Of, you know, moving to this place, or visiting this place that has always been home, and yet it's not the same anymore.
So one of the things I can suggest on a practical level is that it's okay if you're taking this need to self care break to conscientiously, if it's possible, choose an area that still carries a lot of beauty, ease, comfort. You know, it's not being in denial. It's being intentional, especially if we're involved in this work, it's really okay and even really important to again, enjoy, celebrate, be part of the places we love. It helps fuel us. The love of places is part of what our work is about. And so to be able to enjoy that, to let joy be there, not get lost in the work that we're doing.
One of the things I teach kids and adults is something I call the worry time, and it's related to this, where rather than all our concerns and awareness just being pervasive and filling up every part of our thoughts and feelings is sometimes to intentionally learn how to contain it. So with kids, they learn to pick a time. Might be after school, from three to 3:20 they're just going to be with their worries. They're going to write it out, maybe they'll have a chance to talk it out, draw it whatever it may involve, and then they close it up until the next day.
What they do in between their worry time is the biggest part of the practice, which is if at six o'clock their brain starts spinning in their distress, they remind themselves, tomorrow, at three, I'm going to focus on this, and it helps them free that up. And so the parallel is with what we're saying about places to visit, it can be that it doesn't have to fill our time with the areas of distress, the areas we're trying to restore, some of it can just be life and pure enjoyment to refuel ourselves for the work.
Mallika Nocco
These are such great points. And Sam, I'm glad you asked that question. I was thinking about it, because I think in addition to those of us who are working with youth and young folks, I think a lot of young folks are listening to our podcast too and thinking about, you know, how to process all of the information. Because I do think that there's a moment right, late high school, the beginning of college, like late teens, early 20s, when all of a sudden you really start to learn some of the specific scenarios that might be headed our way, right? So it's like a lot of information, and then processing it is challenging too. And I appreciate that.
I've noticed that there have been a few moments while talking to you where you've presented a vision for what a future work environment could look like, where we're integrating some of these ways to or tools to process our feelings about climate, or even a vision for what future classrooms could look like when this information is being presented. It's not just a dump on folks. So related to that, where are some of the places where you see even more possibility in this space between mental health and climate change? And then, what do you think are some of the biggest challenges in this space that we have yet to overcome.
Leslie Davenport
Well, I think in terms of the possibilities, you were alluding to this as you were naming the question, is that the solution is more than just moving around the pieces, but it's the structure remains the same, right? Like, how do I just cope with all these bad things that are happening? Right? It's really talking about transformation on all kinds of levels. I think, because we know this is an existential threat, it opens the question, well, what would an existential level of transformation look like, and it sounds scary, but I think it also means, how are we still learning to be human? What are the parts of us that have become cut off because it's been educated out of us or devalued that if we brought back into this integrated way of living, how we would view each other, how we would view our interactions with the natural world, and I mean, we could name a lot of possibilities.
I talked about the importance of creativity and imagination, intuition, body based, somatic knowing, ancestral knowing, collective knowing, visioning for the future. I mean, there's so many doorways that could open that could then guide us toward much more life affirming structures. So I recognize this isn't a specific vision, but it's the path to and I think there's a lot of interest in this, even things like the growing interest in mindfulness and the way that's moved again out of a yoga studio and into places like classrooms and businesses. So I'm excited by the momentum that I'm seeing in a variety of places for this.
Mallika Nocco
I really relate to the embodiment portion as well, because I love to dance, and it's a big part of who I am in my life and what I need. Yeah, we have a lot of dancers, apparently, on Water Talk, Sam is agreeing, and I think that it is just such a different way to interact with the environment and with other people, and it really is a different way to process your surroundings and to feel so I understand what you're saying, that it also can help you to access different parts of you. You know, it opens up a different side of you. I totally agree with that. But what about the challenges? I don't want to let that go either. So like, what keeps you up at night? What are you thinking? Like, oh my goodness, how do we handle this?
Leslie Davenport
I think the challenges in part, especially as it relates to climate emotions, is a big one as I've been redefining what emotional resiliency looks like in the face of climate change. So a conventional definition is you're going along with your life, all your stresses and responsibilities and day to day things, and then there's either too much stress or some big event happens, and it knocks you out of your window of tolerance, your zone of resiliency, your ability to cope and resiliency is how quickly can you get back to where you were before? The reason I don't think that works with climate change is that we know that there's not getting back to, we're on this escalating trajectory. The ground is shifting under our feet. We need a nimbleness. We need an expansive approach.
So now I'm saying that perhaps emotional resiliency is cultivating the ability to remain empathetic, present, grounded, open, flexible in the face of increasing distress, and I say that's a challenge, because who the heck wants to hear that? Let's just be with more not because we're not working on change, and you know, all of those things too. But as that's happening, we're all going to be experiencing higher levels of distress. And unless we cultivate those abilities, then we will get pushed into a more reactive states, whether that's a lashing out reactive place, aggressive or it's checking out, numbing out substance abuse type of side of things. So I say it's a challenge because it makes sense and yet to choose to practice being with more is not as appealing as things that just feel fun.
Sam Sandoval
And thank you for bringing also that other tool, and all the ones that you are leaving with us, the ideas being intentional in some of the things that we do for relief, not only dumping facts, but it also includes part of the emotional feelings, and the mindfulness about this. We always like to end our podcast by asking you if, if there is anything else that you want to share with us or and the second one is, how can we help the work that you are, that you are doing?
Leslie Davenport
I think I'll speak to the second one a little more, that might help the first question, which is, you know, the work I do has often come in response to requests that have come to me. So for example, I've talked about training the mental health field and helping schools develop curriculum. So what I would like to leave as an invitation is that if, in hearing this, if you or someone you know, or an organization you're with recognizes the need for something like this, feel free to reach out to me. I don't know if I'll be available, but I'm really good at connecting you with other resources, organizations, people doing that support work, and the easiest way is through my website, which is just my name, leslie davenport.com, and there's a way to send me a message.