I’m in my third year of a clinical psychology doctorate and writing my dissertation on denial of the climate crisis among psychotherapists and among patients, and how to better integrate an ecological perspective into psychotherapy. I was a member of Mindful Direct Action (we would go to climate marches and meditate) before COVID. I do conflict mediation internally for Sunrise Movement Bay Area.

I have done two long-term therapies. I started doing SN Goenka-style Vipassana six or seven years ago and just left the tradition. Before that, I had a committed hatha yoga practice.

The most important areas of my life–my spiritual path, my climate activism/love of nature, and my profession–need to be united. I want a spiritual practice that emphasizes collective wellbeing through creating structural change in our society, as opposed to a solely individualistically-oriented practice. I want to engage in activism work in ways that are sustainable and make me less angry. I want to define myself professionally by my ecological advocacy in order to help merge different disciplines so that they can most effectively address the problem and counter the fragmented specialization that keeps us all distracted.

Sunrise Bay Area, Mindful Direct Action, The Wright Institute, my patients who suffer more as the result of an unfair system, my partner who also wants to be more engaged in this type of work.

Yes, except for May 15th because I will be on retreat in Arizona.

Yes, especially because it is already becoming so integrated into my professional life that this just feels like continuing existing momentum.

Kritee connected me with Divya because we are both solo appliers. We seemed to share a lot of the same values for joining the course and communication styles. We discussed commitment to the course by asking about how much time and energy we wanted to dedicate, we evaluated each other’s mental health readiness for the course, and we discussed how we would interact if there was conflict (given that we are currently a group of two). We also discussed the fact that given that we are currently a group of two, we are in a somewhat vulnerable position if one of us does not follow through.

Will you record the first session on May 15th, since I (and probably Divya as well) will be missing it due to both being on retreat? Also, this is may be outside the scope of the course, but it occurs to me that due to the advent of the internet since a lot of the movements described in the description, activism may need to look slightly different today and I’m curious about that.
Also, we’re still figuring out our team, I guess.