Integritus Prime

My work is at the nexus of wellness and climate change through the lens of behavior change. I call this approach Personal and Planetary Wellness. It’s been a massive couple of weeks with many new clients, and lots of major shifts for existing clients. Also the very humbling realization that sometimes, I can’t help someone because the fallout from their patterns is too much.

The other day, I was reflecting and this topic popped into my brain: the relationship between trauma and climate change. Might sound unlikely but it’s the opposite: the two are in bed together, and it’s abusive. Here’s how:

1. Others inflict trauma on us: We all sustain trauma from others in some way, whether it’s from physical, sexual, verbal, or emotional abuse. This is remembered by our bodies and needs to be released. For more, check out my book on trauma: From Abused to Empowered: Recognizing and Releasing Behavior Patterns that come from Trauma.
2. We internalize trauma: Usually, our level of self-love and self-worth is low because no one teaches us, so we take in the trauma as truth. We begin to attract similar experiences and our relationship with ourselves becomes worse, often resulting in addictions, anxiety, stress, and worse.
3. We feed on dis-ease: One of our addictions is sometimes food-related. We engage in emotional eating, become addicted to sugary, salty, and other types of foods and beverages, and our bodies become home to chronic lifestyle diseases like diabetes, heart disease, obesity, and others.
4. We ingest trauma: Through our dietary choices, we support the torture and slaughter of billions of animals every year, and we ingest their fear, terror, and anxiety, assimilating that into our bodies.
5. We inflict trauma on others: We begin to live reactively, becoming triggered by our interactions at home and work. Our stress worsens. This is exacerbated by our diet and other lifestyle practices. It becomes a vicious cycle. 
6. Trauma amplifies through social systems: As we act out our trauma collectively, our religious, political, economic, military, medicine, and many other systems show signs of toxic patriarchy: destruction, aggression, bullying, misaligned incentives, greed, violations, sexism, abuse, tribalism, and corruption.
7. Our trauma hurts our surroundings: We ingest junk foods and drinks, which are produced in ways that harm nature through plastics, toxins, pesticides, and so much more. So, as we hurt ourselves, we hurt the Earth too.
8. Our trauma hurts the climate: As we destroy our insides with trauma from our past, and from animal-based foods, we begin to destroy the planet and the climate. There is a deeply disturbing relationship between our trauma, animal abuse and agriculture, and climate change. Globally, about half of greenhouse gas emissions come from industrialized animal agriculture.
9. Climate change traumatizes us: Climate change is a threat to our livelihoods, our homes, our health, and our safety. There is injury, death, and displacement to humans and other species, which creates lasting trauma and post-traumatic stress. Disasters in particular provide fertile opportunities for abusing marginalized and vulnerable members of society. Climate change can exacerbate many social and environmental ills, creating compounding adverse effects.
10. We seek balance: We are lonely, depressed, and anxious creatures craving connection. The very connection we need, we are destroying actively, and this is evident with accelerating climate change, extinctions, and lifestyle diseases. The foundation for this reconnection is self-love, and healthier communing with other people, animals, and plants. Universal love, compassion, and quality time in nature are essential to achieve this balance – a feminine flow to counter the overbearing masculine energy we see around us.

We’ve come a long way in the right direction even though it may feel like doom and gloom most of the time. One example: UNEP recently gave Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat the Champions of the Earth award in the Science and Innovation category, for shifting society away from animal-based meat, which, in addition to being inhumane, is inefficient and destructive. Now that’s a sure signal that international understanding is improving with regard to what is causing climate change and how we can shift our behavior. Another example: UNICEF is funding projects to provide sanitation devices to affected communities in the Pacific region, where I am working at the moment. We must work to both mitigate and adapt to climate change in tandem. Time is of the essence.

Personal and Planetary Wellness means healing ourselves and our connection to the Earth’s cycles, including the climate system. Our diet and other every day personal and professional choices are intimately connected with the climate. We hold the power for change in every moment, in every decision. This is why I chose to study and work with behavior change tools about 12 years ago.

We are the change – our internal transmutation offers the highest healing for all life. The alchemy of us at our prime, collaborative leadership that balances opposing forces – this is Alchemus Prime.

How climate change and trauma are related. Photo credit: Pineapple Supply Co. on Unsplash.