As people grapple with climate change, new spiritual caregivers are stepping in: eco-chaplains

As climate change becomes more of a lived reality for us all — ahem, ahem, hottest winter on record — more of us are experiencing climate grief. A sense of loss, an existential anxiety about what’s to come.

Well, a new breed of spiritual caregivers are stepping in to help, and they’re called eco-chaplains. The care they offer is for anyone — from those who are involved in the climate world like environmentalists, activists, community organizers, the journalists who cover it — or even disaster survivors. Think of it as landing somewhere between professional pastoral care and spiritual practice.

Nikayla Jefferson is one of them. She’s a Buddhist eco-chaplain as well as a writer, and she wrote about eco-chaplaincy recently for Yale Climate Connections. The Show spoke with her more about it. She said her story with eco-chaplaincy began in 2019 when she was working as an organizer for the Sunrise Movement, a political action nonprofit focused on climate change.

Full conversation

NIKAYLA JEFFERSON: When you're working on an issue like climate change, it's not long before the existential elements really begin to sink in. And I found myself really, for the first time, grappling with something like mass extinction and the end of life as I know it. And I was, you know, I'm 29 now, I was 22 at the time, and there was just felt like no ground beneath my feet.

I felt like there was no place I could go to sort of like process this grief and kind of come to terms with things. So I had a spiritual crisis of sorts, and through the journey of that, that's how I found this program and finding an inner commitment to help others who are having some spiritual, existential challenges stemming from this transformation of our planet that we're experiencing right now.

LAUREN GILGER: So it seems like you discovered this maybe sooner than most folks, because this is, you know, becoming, I think, more recognized now, this idea of climate grief that you're describing, this existential crisis that many of us are trying to grapple with.

I don't think most people kind of identify what that is. How did you come to terms with it? Like when you started studying this, have you resolved this for yourself or is this ongoing?

JEFFERSON: No, this is absolute, I don't know anyone who's resolved it. It is a lifelong journey. You know, one I'll be in for as long as I'm a human on this planet Earth. But I feel like now I've arrived in a place where I feel grounded and safe and secure enough in myself and the people around me and this land that I'm on and my home that I feel a certain degree of confidence that I'll be OK kind of no matter what heads my way.

GILGER: So let's talk about being an eco chaplain and what this looks like and this kind of emerging field that seems pretty small still. I think it's interesting that this is coming as like a religious or spiritual kind of guidance as opposed to like from the counseling psychology world in a more secular way. And it seems like this is, you know, an interfaith practice.

JEFFERSON: What I love about eco-chaplaincy is we're really just trained to be really great spiritual friends to whoever may come our way in need. And I think we all sort of make use of our individual gifts and abilities and lean into whatever life experiences that we've had up to this point. So, I mean, some people lead like nature-based workshops for groups. may guide like an earth-based meditation, leading a ritual or a ceremony.

And this can be from like a wedding day up to like honoring a landscape that was lost after a wildfire. People may show up and support activists and organizers as they're working on a campaign or a protest. Eco-chaplains really just go wherever there is a need and they show up as a spiritual friend, the best they can, and it looks different for everybody.

GILGER: So talk about what it is that you hear from folks who seek out this kind of care. Are they depressed? Are they anxious?

JEFFERSON: Yeah, I think there are some people who are really aware that their anxiety, their grief, the distress, the pain that they're in right now is related to the climate and ecological changes. But there are some people who are carrying pain and grief that is related, but they're unaware.

I was talking to Chris Goto-Jones, who's in this piece. He's a psychotherapist and also a chaplain of the traditional variety. But he was telling me that a lot of his clients may come in about something, you know, about a relationship or a job. And when they begin to unpack the grief or the anxiety or like a sense of loss, climate change is lingering somewhere in the background.

And he told me that once he kind of names and normalizes eco anxiety or grief, it really gives people the space to open up about it in a way they felt like they haven't been able to either because maybe there's a stigma around it, maybe they weren't aware of it.

GILGER: Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. That's interesting. One of the things that came to mind for me here when I was reading your piece and also just kind of thinking about this topic is that I know many people, I think, around my generation, like the millennial generation, who have decided not to have kids. And they'll say because of climate change, because they're too scared about the future of the world. I mean, do you see things like that come up in conversation?

JEFFERSON: I mean, yeah, I'm one of them. Absolutely. There's just no right answer. And as the eco-chaplain, I'm not there to give somebody an answer. I'm really just there to create space for them to find an answer for themselves.

GILGER: Yeah. So, I mean, do you mind telling us personally, when you think about the idea of having children, what does that bring up for you? And I'm sure those are common themes in the work that you do.

JEFFERSON: Yeah. I mean, on one hand, I really try to stay in the present, but when it comes to the topic of children, I can't help but jump like 40 years down the line here and imagine for better or worse what life could look like on this Earth. And the imaginations, they go both ways.

Either we've really figured it out and we're living in this time of wonder and abundance and possibility, or things have taken a turn for the worst. And we're living in a moment right now that I feel like it truly could go either way. So I feel like my answer to this question is really going to be shaped by whatever happens over the next three to five years.

GILGER: That's really interesting. It does feel like a moment like that. So let me ask you then, as you're trying to hear people and be with them in these moments and help them come to their own conclusions about how they would like to address this issue, can you, do you often try to encourage them to take action in small ways?

I hear a lot of people say that with climate change, like, you know, do the things that you can do in your own community and that will help you feel better about this big existential problem because it is in the end, like not a problem that each of us individually can solve.

JEFFERSON: Right. I will say as an eco-chaplain, I really try to hold not being prescriptive. You know, I don't want to tell anybody what to do. I think when you try to tell somebody what to do, often you encounter walls. But I also think that, you know, doing something, it feels good. It's empowering. Being with others when you're doing something, you know, it feels good, even better. So I feel like oftentimes I don't need to tell anybody to do that.

I think if you allow someone to follow the wisdom within for enough time, I think a lot of people end up there eventually on their own. And when you arrive at something on your own, you feel so much more, it feels like your own truth. And I think people being grounded in their own truth and acting from that truth is, I think it's one of the most beautiful things that I can do.