Climate Anxiety and Spiritual Resilience

Religious and Indigenous practices that counter despair, cultivate courage, and sustain moral action in the fight for environmental justice. Climate change is an ecological and political crisis, but it is also a spiritual one. Fractured relationships with the natural systems that sustain us and frustration with leaders’ seeming inability to respond, has led many to grief, despair, burnout, and moral exhaustion. Indeed, current research on eco-anxiety and climate grief show that emotional overwhelm undermines collective action, even when solutions are known and available. But there is a path forward, one found within religious and Indigenous traditions that have long cultivated practices for living with loss, sustaining hope, and acting ethically within fragile ecosystems. By bringing the psychology of climate grief into conversation with Indigenous and religious traditions, this book offers a framework for moving beyond paralysis toward resilient, justice-centered engagement. Each chapter draws on case studies from diverse Indigenous and religious traditions. challenging extractive worldviews, emphasizing relationality and interdependence, and grounding justice in care for land, community, and future generations. Together, they explore what it means to engage in inner activism: the work of moral courage, clarity, and presence that makes sustained ecological action possible. Practices of mindfulness, ritual, lament, storytelling, and community accountability are presented not as private coping strategies but as sources of collective resilience and ethical commitment. Emphasizing hope without denial and action without burnout, this book offers spiritual resources for transforming grief into courage, solidarity, and sustained engagement for ecological justice.