Find a class

Articles

What we’re contemplating, doing, and reading.

“Reconnection: Meeting the Climate Crisis Inside Out” – A new report from the Mindfulness Initiative

Lisel Joseph | June 16, 2022

On May 4th, 2022, the Mindfulness Initiative released their latest policy report, “Reconnection: Meeting the Climate Crisis Inside Out.” This report centers on a neglected aspect of the climate crisis: the “endemic disconnection from self, others, and nature” at its root, and the relevance of mindfulness and compassion in addressing this core issue. The report highlights emerging research linking sustainability with internal transformation and exploring the relationship between “inner” and “outer” work in addressing the climate crisis.

 

The Mindfulness Initiative is a UK-based policy institute working with politicians around the world to promote mindfulness, compassion, and other “qualities of the heart and mind” as central considerations in public policy. Jane Chun Ph.D, Compassion Institute’s Program Director for Health and Systems Transformation, crossed paths with the Mindfulness Initiative through shared work with the United Nations Development Program’s (UNDP) Conscious Food Systems Alliance (CoFSA), a program focused on transforming food systems by addressing entrenched values, and was invited to serve as a reviewer on the “Reconnection” report.

 

“The report is extremely timely and important,” Jane says. “While some actions to mitigate global warming have been helpful, we’re still not making progress at the rate we need to. We need to seriously consider how our worldview and mindset are leading to decisions that are harming the planet, and ultimately ourselves. This report is an important contribution to that conversation.”

 

Jane highlights the powerful role of compassion as outlined in the report: It’s key to “moving us beyond the rhetoric of what we need to do [to combat climate change] to get to the root cause: seeing ourselves as separate from nature.”

SHARE