North-Central Alberta (Westlock, Athabasca, and Beyond)
WELCOME!
MY CHILDHOOD (ME, FAR LEFT) AT ALDO LEOPOLD'S SHACK
"One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen. An ecologist must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise.”
- Aldo Leopold, visionary conservationist, A Sand County Almanac, 1949
My parents are ecologists - my dad of eminence and my mum with artist eyes. They raised me amid academia and wild things and a deep sense of belonging to the natural world. I inhaled the interaction between plants and animals and the place they call home. My community. Our living planet. The balance of nature, my parents explained.
But the balance was in trouble, I sensed even then.
MY ENDLESS QUEST
As the years passed, those troubles grew. I pondered solutions, studied ecology, worked in the field, and grew disillusioned. Then, I dug deeper. Rigorous pursuits. Growing concerns. Added education and scientific research ... until, in time, I became a women's mental health therapist. "Women's therapy's a long way from wildlife ecology," an old friend once mused. But I'd dug through the layers and I'd found gold!
That gold was women. Women's wellbeing! I'd come to grasp women's wellbeing as foundational to Earth's recovery. Only when women live satisfying, connected, resilient, and empowered lives can we collectively and effectively heal this planet that sustains us.
THEN CAME CLIMATE CHANGE
= human-caused global warming and associated mass extinctions plus other ecological disasters
Today, I am a women's counselling therapist, specializing in trauma and working (mostly) with rural women. Rural women - a culture with unique experiences, perspectives, values and connection to the Land. As a rural woman myself, I cherish my life in Alberta's countryside. But, daily now, I witness climate impacts and ecological damage that pierce my heart.. Here, at ground zero, it's up close and personal.
So, yes, I know the anguish of climate change. The uncertainty, frustration, and anger. The horror, terror, and despair. And sadness and grief and depression and anxiety. Accordingly, I'm reaching out to like-minded others.
And I can tell you first-hand that healthy connection helps!
MY HEARTFELT OFFERING
As a concerned citizen and established trauma (and addictions) therapist, I'm now offering the healthy connection and appropriate therapy needed to navigate the trauma of the climate crisis. I'm providing the support required to openly express concerns, locate resources, explore issues, heal wounds, and find the right path. And always, too, I am helping clients learn how to calm both their body and mind.
That is, I am offering climate-trauma therapy that helps frayed nervous systems - body-based (somatic) therapy. Body-based therapy for body-based trauma - appropriate support! It asks not what's wrong with you but what happened to you and listens to your body's knowing as well as your words. It is science-based and informative, gentle, and effective.
In fact, it's how I help to protect our living planet today - one nervous system at a time. Because body-based therapy regulates our nervous system and heals our wounds (not just symptoms), it fosters lifelong change. Important! It also promotes wellbeing, healthy relationships, and resilience - and, therefore, a satisfied, connected, empowered, and resilient life.
LET US LIVE CONSCIOUSLY
Critical, too, is a body-based lifestyle. Body-based living allows us to experience life as it's meant to be experienced - from an inner world of ease, calm, and self-awareness. Our nervous system is regulated; our personality patterns balanced; our energy contained; and our brain online. We think clearly, choose thoughtfully, decide intentionally, and act deliberately. We are awake, aware, and engaged. We are "conscious!"
To live consciously is to live fully. It is to be aware and intentional - to live in the present, learn from the past, and create the best possible future. It's the secret to living our best life and the key to saving our one and only living planet. Moreover, it's how I now live my own precious life.
BODY - MIND - SPIRIT
LET US MAKE CHANGE
Indeed, I'm doing my very best to live consciously. And you can too! Our healthy planet requires our healthy selves.
From our individual wellbeing comes our healthy future. More specifically, from our individual wellbeing comes the healthy relationships, local connections, community participation, and collective action required to forge the sustainable future that we - myself, you, our children, our children's children - that all of us need and deserve.
BODY - MIND - SPIRIT - COMMUNITY
COMMUNITY AND LAND ETHIC:
According to Aldo Leopold's "Land Ethic," community includes not only humans but all other parts of Earth as well. That is, community includes the soils, waters, plants, and animals - The L:and - and signifies the intertwined relationships between people and land.. Thus, care for people cannot be separated from care for the Land.
In other words, a land ethic is a moral code of conduct that stems from these interconnected caring relationships. (Almost)directly from aldoleopold.com.)
BODY - MIND - SPIRIT - COMMUNITY - LAND ETHIC.
A BIT ABOUT CLIMATE tRAUMA
With unimaginable challenges bearing down, it's no wonder anxiety, depression, fear and sadness, anger and despair are on the upswing - even denial, the "fawn" of to the Fight-Flight-Freeze-Fawn survival response. These all are natural responses to stress and trauma. As a result, it's no surprise we're seeing more and more .relationship struggles, too, and communication problems, domestic violence, substance abuse, decision-making challenges, and life transitions.
It's not weird, no!
In fact, it's anything but weird. It's understandable. It's the understood impact of trauma on our nervous system. It's our body's natural response to the overwhelming and uncontrollable event called climate change.
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."
- Margaret Mead, cultural anthropologist
PHOTO ABOVE
Four-year old me with my family at the (now celebrated) Leopold Shack
* Photo Credit - my dad Dr. Lloyd B. Keith