Yet another excerpt of Joanna Macy’s essay in Roszak’s “Ecopsychology”:

1. Feelings of pain for our world are natural and healthy.
Not to experience it would be a sign of moral atrophy, but that is academic, for I have met no one who is immune to this pain.

2. Fear is morbid only if denied.
Despair, like any emotion, is dynamic—once experienced, it flows though us. It is only our refusal to acknowledge and feel it that keeps it in place.

3. Information alone is not enough.
We need to process this information on the psychological and emotional level in order to fully respond on the cognitive level. We already know we are in danger. The essential question is can we free ourselves to respond?

4. Unblocking repressed feelings releases energy and clears the mind.

5. Unblocking our pain for the world reconnects us with the larger web of life.