The Yoga Tree Stirling Ltd – How to be hopeful about the climate crisis
The Yoga Tree Stirling Ltd is a Social Enterprise that promotes physical, mental and emotional wellbeing through yoga, dance and other movement practices. They create a community by bringing people together for movement, art and wellbeing workshops.
“We hosted 3 workshops in collaboration with several facilitators. The overall title of the workshops was ‘How to be hopeful about the climate crisis’ and the workshops were as follows:
1) Are you worried about Climate Change?
This workshop focused on eco-anxiety and began with a conversation about people’s feelings, worries, anxiety around the climate crisis. We then had a storyteller who told nature stories and guided nature-based meditation.
The workshop ended with a collaboration with Paperboats, who explained their purpose and showed participants how to make paper boats that will be sent to MSP’s.
2) Consumption
Working in collaboration with facilitators that discussed re-purposing items that would otherwise go to landfill. In this workshop participants made items to be gifted or kept for themselves.
3) How to get involved
What are the next steps – working with facilitators to discuss how participants can get involved in climate action and how to take the first steps towards becoming a climate activist.
Participants in the workshops were provided with information about groups and sessions they could join to become more involved in activism. Our workshops were focused on individuals rather than communities, but we feel that participants can take ideas from the sessions to their own communities. Information was provided about sustainability and how people could think about this in everyday situations and choices
Participant feedback was positive, and people learned different ways to become active in climate action. One session focused on climate anxiety and participants fed back that they felt better knowing that other people felt as overwhelmed as they did. The session then focused on how to move through the overwhelm and focus on actions that participants could take now to feel more hopeful. Feedback at the end of the workshop was that everyone felt less anxious because they had ideas or actions that they could take immediately. We had feedback from participants in all 3 workshops saying they’d learned more about climate change from coming along.
We were hoping for a bigger turnout at all 3 workshops, however the 17 people that came were very engaged. I’m not sure if the day/time was the issue, or if people are more likely to cancel or not attend events that are free because they feel they haven’t really made a commitment. All workshops had tea/coffee and biscuits in order to promote discussion and create a relaxed, welcoming environment.
The main takeaway from these sessions for us was that people feel overwhelmed by the climate crisis and feel powerless to change anything. Running sessions where they can meet and engage with others who feel the same and also meet and engage with people who can provide guidance, information and contacts had a really positive effect.
To learn more about The Yoga Tree and any workshops they may be running visit their website here.
