The climate crisis is overwhelming. So terrifying and complex that denial can be the only way to cope.

On a practical level, there are so many possible actions to take! So many lists of things to do.

How do you choose? And even worse, how can you feel you are making a difference?

What if you really knew that everyone’s bit mattered, no matter how big or how small, because we are all connected, because every action affects everything else?

What if your quiet breaths standing before an ancient redwood were just as important as the US President calling the world to action? We cannot predict the butterfly effect.

What if you could find YOUR bit, connected to the deepest source inside you?

What if you could find your bit?

What if you could follow your own unique process, and be a climate hero in your own way?

I don’t remember when I first became aware of climate change. I know it wasn’t even called climate change back then. It was greenhouse gases and global warming.

I do remember sitting in a crowded auditorium in 1988. It was dark, we were spellbound. David Suzuki, renowned scientist and communicator had packed the house down under, in Melbourne, Australia, to tell us about the risk posed by rising greenhouse gases. The risk to the future of life on earth. He showed gorgeous visuals of our planet and its precious biosphere. He spoke about love. He spoke about acting to protect what you love.

It was early days but the world was taking it seriously and pressure was building.

The climate emergency wasn’t in any way certain back then. The Anthropocene had not yet become a thing. We weren’t actually seeing the destabilization of our weather patterns, unfolding in real time, as we are now.

In 1988, the impact of greenhouse gases on the climate was a risk and a prediction. I didn’t need convincing about the science. I was a physics major and I understood the mechanism of global warming and the nonlinear dynamics of the climate.

I remember Suzuki asking us: if there was a reasonable chance that something bad was going to happen and we could avoid it, wouldn’t it be smart to act? After all, he said, we buy insurance for possibilities that are much, much less likely than this one.

Suzuki was a wonderful, powerful speaker. Charismatic, eloquent, entertaining, confronting. With voices like his, I felt no doubt that change would happen. How could it not?

Scientists at the first ever climate conference in June 1988, called for a 20% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. This Conference on the Changing Atmosphere brought together more than 300 international scientists and policy makers from 46 countries in Toronto. And in that same week, James Hansen of NASA cautioned the US Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources about global warming caused by human greenhouse gas emissions.

But almost immediately it seemed, our global focus turned to a war about oil.

I remember the gut clenching moment in 1990 when I heard the news about Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and the U.S. decision to go to war.

I remember exactly where I was. I was getting off a tram, listening to the radio on my walkman, at a busy inner Melbourne corner, Sydney Rd and Moreland Rd.

It was a declaration of war on a place and people far from my home, called in my name. A military and political struggle to control a key source of industrial wealth and power. Like every war it would result in atrocities against innocent people.

I don’t know what is really true about why or how things happened.

But I do know how it felt in my body.

The news took my breath away like a punch. It brought overwhelming waves of rage and grief.

It was the horror of war. And, I knew in my gut that this would also derail action on global warming.

Instead of the international team effort we needed to eliminate the threat posed by greenhouse gases, attention turned to a war over the control of fossil fuels.

I don’t mean there was an organized conspiracy to avoid climate action. But the frantic desperation of a fight to maintain power at all costs did the trick.

Power struggles are counter productive. We all know that. But avoiding them is easier said than done.

When you feel alone, you fight to hold onto whatever power you have, because vulnerability is terrifying.

Our brains are hard wired to focus where we are vulnerable, not where we are strong. Our default setting is to act from our victim experience. To focus on defending our weaknesses.

This plays out whether you are an individual person, or an organization, or a nation state.

And I heard it over and over again from our political leaders. We can’t act because we have to protect ourselves.

In Australia they said: we can’t take action on greenhouse gases because it will hurt our economy. The U.S., China and India are the big emitters, they said. We can’t do anything until the others do, they said.

So round and round and round we went. Three decades of climate negotiations.

Power struggle is more compelling than the harder work of resolving a conflict.

But there is something to harvest because fighting activates our power.

Truth is? We do need to activate our power.

We need to access the deepest source of power and renewable energy that exists.

Our own living process.

Our leaders cannot do it without us

I’ve thought back many times to that moment I experienced with David Suzuki.

I felt such immense gratitude for the power of leadership. A scary thing was happening, but we could turn it around, just like in the movies.

I felt the same uplifting gratitude for the incredible Greta Thunberg, who has inspired a global movement of young people, who has been welcomed at the highest seats of power. Whose voice has been heard.

And I trembled with appreciation, unsure whether to laugh or sob, while watching Don’t Look Up, the satirical film portraying the insanity of our denial. Could anyone have put it in a more persuasive way?

Yet we have passed 1.5 degrees of warming. We have entered the era of dangerous climate change. We are living in the climate emergency that was predicted.

Over and again, I hit the hopelessness and disappointment of realizing that leadership is not enough. No matter how smart, compassionate, powerful or inspiring.

In 1992, the Rio Earth Summit established the UN climate convention, initiating the process which eventually led to the Paris Agreement in 2015, achieved at least in part due to the extraordinary “stubborn optimism” of one of my climate heroes, Christiana Figueres.

It is not that we haven’t been working on it.

But we are not making the difference we need to make.

So what hope is there?

If David Suzuki, renowned and respected scientist, powerful speaker, charismatic and inspirational leader, could not make a difference, is there any point in the rest of us trying?

If Greta Thunberg, if Vandana Shiva, if David Attenborough, if Christiana Figueres, if Tim Flannery, if Robin Wall Kimmerer, if Al Gore … if all these incredible, powerful voices and so many others, could not make the difference …

Should we just concede? Give it all up? Party until the end? Accept that we have stolen our children’s futures?

You might be able to guess where I’m headed.

No single hero is getting us out of this mess.

It isn’t like the movies.

Each one of us has to take a starring role and do our bit.

Climate HeroYour Way

There is a bit that I have come to know is mine. It is a project I am calling Climate HeroYour Way.

What if each and every one of us has to be the hero, in our own way?

Climate Hero YOUR WAY is an experiment in the form of a community challenge.  

It is an invitation for folks who know there is an existential threat and want to make a difference, but are struggling to figure out exactly where to put their energy.

It is for you if you know there is a problem, but are getting blocked because there are so many ‘green things’ to do, so many actions to take.

There is no shortage of options.  But which action is right for you?  

Which one will make you feel that you are actually making a difference?  

It is easy to get hopeless about diligently recycling when the glaciers are disappearing, the coral reefs are dying, and the extreme weather just keeps coming. When political extremism is the new normal.

The escalating polarization in our communities seems to be mirroring the natural world. Things are getting hotter and hotter.  The teamwork we need seems to be receding as fast as the icecaps. 

It is easy to get lost in this moment that is both terrifying and overwhelming.

But what if you could find the thing that gives you energy rather than draining you?

Something powered by the renewable energy source of YOUR process?

And what if you could access this energy and transform power struggles into empowerment?  

What if you could find and do your bit?

Your bit does not already exist

The thing is … your bit is not a product off the shelf.

It is a bit that you must create. It arises from the unique shape of you.

Climate Hero YOUR WAY offers an approach and practices to support ourselves and each other through the ups and downs of an impossible challenge.

It is designed to help you find and create momentum, focus and resilience.

It is about how to feel more supported to show up for this climate emergency.

We have the opportunity to try

No-one knows if we’re going to make it.

But we have the opportunity to try.

And what I know for sure.

It is going to take all of us.

Not a handful of charismatic leaders.

Each and every single one of us, doing our bit.

The brilliant thing about that?

It is our opportunity “to live an incredibly meaningful life”.¹

And it has to come from the deepest place.

Because your bit is not a product off the shelf.

Your bit is your opportunity to live your most meaningful, most empowered life.

We’ve got this.

And the world needs us.

UPDATED:  

Join the free Climate Hero Your Way Challenge 

The Challenge includes a series of five Invitations to explore in your own time plus an integration exercise to help you bring it all together. Each Invitation offers ideas and experiential dynamic mindfulness practices, to help you connect to your deepest self and define your commitment to being the Climate Hero that only you can be.

Join the challenge to find your focus, to find your own unique way to be a Climate Hero, while gaining more access to the renewable energy source of your own process.  

A bit about me …

Hellene Gronda, Ph.D, MA, BA(Hons)/BSc. is a second generation Greek Australian, born in Athens, grown up in Melbourne, and currently living in Portland, Oregon where she serves as Executive Director of the Process Work Institute, helping people go deeper into the things that matter. 

She studied climate science early on and is a lifelong committed commuter cyclist, grateful to spend time in nature as often as possible, with the forests and the sea.

Hellene is a certified Processwork Diplomate, and an experienced educator, leader, facilitator and coach, who served as the Dean of the Process Work Institute’s Master of Arts academic program, 2015 -2020.   She has over twenty years experience in senior leadership roles for nonprofits and government, and enjoys helping people and groups to learn and develop, most of all.

Trained in depth psychology and embodiment practices, with a background in contact improvisation, professional massage therapy and fitness instruction, Hellene has been fascinated by using awareness to follow process ever since encountering Arnold Mindell’s Processwork when she was 16 years old.  

Her Processwork Diploma final project, Growing, Dying and Relating focused on the concept of edges, and her doctorate in Cultural Studies, Dance with the Body you Have, explored the significance of body awareness practices. Her research passion is the use of process oriented practices for sustainable social change toward a liveable future for all beings on earth.

Her free guide, Three Steps to Grow your Practice: A Processworker’s Guide to Marketing, synthesizes effective marketing techniques to help awareness practitioners make a bigger difference.

1. Tom Rivett-Carnac, Outrage and Optimism podcast, Are we going to be OK? Ep. 211, 2023 minute 46. ↩︎