Master of Two Worlds: Negotiating the emotional terrain in your sustainability work

Pacific Time-USA

This workshop combines tools of emotional intelligence with specialized knowledge drawn from ecopsychology. Psychologist and consultant Thomas Doherty will describe the complex pathways to environmentally significant behaviors and ways to work with positive & negative emotions to foster collaboration and creativity and avoid push back. Thomas will illustrate how emotions regarding sustainability and environmental issues result from the interplay of our underlying values, beliefs about the state of the planet and our own capabilities, resulting expectations of our self and others, and real-world constraints. This knowledge provides strategies to work with diverse stakeholders and handle responses like apathy, denial, anger, and despair with compassion and confidence.

A special focus of the talk will be on the inner terrain: The emotional resilience of agents of change themselves. Dr. Doherty will introduce the personal sustainability work he does with his clients and describe how he uses the “Master of Two Worlds” metaphor drawn from archetypal hero’s journey to provide a supportive model for change agents who carry a vision of sustainability and labor to foster their vision in their families, organizations, and communities.