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The RITA Summit

RESILIENCE IN THE ANTHROPOCENE

AUGUST 8-10, 2023

Resilience In The Anthropocene

3 Days | 3 Keynotes | 9 panels | 3 Contemplative Practices

The RITA Summit was a 3-day online summit in August 2023, organized by Loka, that brought together researchers, academics, experts from communities most impacted by environmental devastation and climate change, clinical psychology practitioners, and contemplative leaders to discuss eco-anxiety and climate distress within a framework of inner, community, and planetary resilience. The event had close to 1700 registered participants and the rich dialogue amongst presenters and with participants inspired the creation of the Psychology of Deep Resilience course. We continue to partner with many of the researchers and experts today.

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What Do We Mean By Resilience?

Resilience is the capacity and the condition whereupon individuals, societies, and ecosystems are able to adapt to, withstand and recover from adversity and trauma caused by a variety of threats and stressors. Resilience does not imply that we go back to the way we were in the past but that we can still thrive in the conditions that make up the now.

What Do We Mean By Anthropocene?

The Anthropocene is an unofficial unit of geologic time used to describe the most recent period in Earth’s history during which human activity has had serious and negative impacts on the planet’s climate and ecosystems. It is often described in fatalistic terms but there is no reason why the Anthropocene cannot refer to a time where humanity reverses its actions to protect all life on earth.

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The three-day event focused on:

  • Understanding the psychological and emotional impacts of the environmental and climate crises through an intersectional and justice lens.

  • Learning from contemplative practices, clinical and counseling psychology, nature based and Indigenous wisdom traditions to cope and even thrive in uncertain times.

  • Collaboratively designing a new framework of inner, community, and planetary resilience that sustains us all.

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Daily Contemplative Exercise

Mindful of how the issues addressed in this convening could be emotionally taxing and triggering, Loka offered contemplative exercises each afternoon between the second and third panel as rest, respite, and reset for our participants.

Gratitude

We are able to offer free registration for this convening due to the financial support of our donors, and would like to thank them and our other supporters for their invaluable generosity.

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Speakers & Moderators

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Helen Adams

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Yuria Celidwen

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Elissa Epel

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Kailea Frederick

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Adrienne Hampton

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Rev. Fletcher Harper

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Melissa Ho

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Tisha Holmes

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Michelle Johnson-Jennings

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Sará King

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LaUra Schmidt

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Britt Wray

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Dekila Chungyalpa

Susan Clayton

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Leslie Davenport

Richard Davidson

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Prentis Hemphill

Kyle X Hill

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Diana Liverman

Dominique Malebranche

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Brian McInnes

Damaris Miller

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Jyoti Mishra

Musonda Mumba

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Kayly Ober

Tamara Toles O’Laughlin

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Lama Rod Owens

Rev. Bobbi Patterson

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Jacqui Patterson

Panu Pihkala

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Mingyur Rinpoche

Paul Robbins

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Carmen Alonso

Manuela Ruiz Reyes

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Beth Sawin

Juan Santoyo

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Farhana Sultana

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Mary Evelyn Tucker

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Christy Wilson-Mendenhall

Jennifer Uchendu

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Schedule

AUGUST 8-10, 2023

Conference schedule detailing events and topics for August 8, 2023, including keynote, panels, and exercises on resilience and sustainability.
Schedule for an event on August 9, 2023, titled 'Exploring the Emotional and Psychological Impacts of the Environmental and Climate Crises,' including sessions on keynote addresses, panels, mindfulness exercises, and discussion groups.
Conference schedule titled 'Embodying Resilience in Uncertain Times' with sessions on resilience, mindfulness, and spiritual practices, including speakers' names and times.

Resources

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Eco-anxiety

The American Psychology Association defines eco-anxiety as “the chronic fear of environmental cataclysm that comes from observing the seemingly irrevocable impact of climate change and the associated concern for one's future and that of next generations”. It has become a catch-all phrase for a range of emotions including grief, anger, frustration related to the environmental and climate crises.

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Solastalgia

Solastalgia was coined by the philosopher Glenn Albrecht as "the homesickness you have when you are still at home" and refers to the distress produced by negative environmental change among people who identify with and are directly connected to their home environment. These emotions are exacerbated by their feelings of powerlessness and a lack of control over decision-making processes regarding the change.

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Climate Distress

Climate Distress is an emerging term that casts a wide net across all negative emotions around climate change and refers to a range of emotional intensity from discomfort to chronic distress. It attempts to incorporate other popular terms including ecological grief, described by researcher Ashlee Cunsolo; existential distress as articulated in palliative care; and pain for the world, the concept framework developed by Joanna Macy.

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Inner Resilience

The American Psychological Association (APA) defines psychological or inner resilience as the process and outcome of successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences, especially through mental, emotional, and behavioral flexibility and adjustment to external and internal demands. Inner resilience can look very different depending on culture, race, gender and other variables.

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Community Resilience

Community resilience is traditionally seen as the sustained ability of a community to utilize available resources (food, energy, transportation, etc.) to respond to, withstand, & recover from adverse situations. More recent scholarship indicates that measuring a community’s sustained ability merely is not sufficient and must including existing conditions within the community as well.

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Planetary Resilience

Ecological or planetary resilience refers to the innate ability of ecosystems to “bounce back” and maintain regular functions (nutrient cycling, biomass production, etc.) after suffering damage caused by a threat or disturbance. This kind of resilience requires that ecological systems are not individual isolated entities but complex units and varying wholes that are in constant fluid relationship.

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Intersectionality

Coined by Dr. Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, intersectionality is a framework that demonstrates how our various identities change our relationship with power & privilege and must be acknowledged in their totality. The point of intersectionality is not to reverse the current power structure where women of color come on top and white men go in the bottom but rather to create egality among all identities.

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Indigenization

Unlike decolonization, Indigenization begins by centering and affirming Indigenous worldview and values and is seen as reverting to precolonial ways of being and postcolonial ways of survival. Authentic Indigenization requires a meaningful transformation of current power systems to embrace local Indigeneity as an organizing principle (for example, land back vs land acknowledgement).

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Climate Justice

Climate justice begins with the acknowledgment that climate change is disproportionately impacting nations in the Global South and marginalized communities everywhere, specifically populations that are not historically responsible for creating the causes of climate change. It is a civil rights movement that demands that all mitigation & adaptation strategies right these wrongs and address these inequities.

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