2025 Theses Doctoral

The Role of Mindfulness Practice in Warding Off Despair and Sustaining Ecological Action in the Context of Existential Threat

Grossman, Karen Rennie

Humanity has created an ecological crisis of unprecedented severity. The crisis represents an existential risk to the species. There is an urgent need to recognize how operating in the context of existential risk affects society and individuals, especially those very professionals tasked with mitigating or adapting to the crisis. Terror Management Theory (Becker, 1973; Greenberg et al., 2015) is contributing to our understanding of how awareness of an existential threat can trigger unconscious defense reactions in human beings, making complex, collaborative problem solving extremely difficult. There is a gap in the literature, however, about how those most immersed in the evolving ecological situation navigate their proximity to existential risk. This understanding is timely given that direct experience with climate change is increasing the general public’s awareness of the existential nature of the crisis. To help address the gap in the literature, this exploratory study examined the learning experiences of 16 exemplars—longtime environmental professionals who employed mindfulness practices to sustain themselves and their work in the current context of existential risk.

This qualitative case study investigated what motivated and sustained subjects’ ecological action, what facilitated and hindered their learning to sustain their ecological engagement, and the role of mindfulness in enabling their engagement. It also explored how subjects applied mindfulness practices to facilitating, promoting, or teaching ecological action to others. Each of 16 primary subjects was an environmental professional for at least five years; the median tenure in the field was 15.5 years. Three novice professionals were also interviewed to glimpse how the existential risk context was impacting professionals who have not yet learned to sustain their engagement over time. Data collection methods included a pre-selection questionnaire, in-depth, semi-structured interviews with individual subjects, and a focus group of five primary sample respondents. Analysis methods included thematic coding based on an extensive review of the literature, and an in-depth process of inductive coding and analysis.

Outstanding findings from the study revealed that respondents attributed their mindfulness practices, which included meditation, cultivating a reciprocal relationship with nature, yoga, breathwork, present moment awareness, the use of psychedelics and plant-based medicines, and more, to enabling them to navigate the multilayered intrapersonal, interpersonal, and systemic challenges of their working context. Most subjects leveraged their mindfulness practices to endure, merge with, or transcend the psychological difficulties and potential defense reactions triggered by awareness of existential risk. The study findings align with transformative learning literature, particularly that exploring generative learning in ambiguity.