 Today, our guest is Dr. Anjula Singh-Bayes, and Dr. Bayes is the Director of the Fourth Dimension Consultancy, Interim Chair of the Human Rights Organization, Amnesty International, and a standing representative on social justice with the American Psychological Association. Dr. Bayes' specialist training is in trauma and her focus is on human rights and mental health with a feminist lens. And her degrees up to the level of PhD are all in psychology. And she maintains full membership of a range of relevant psychological professional associations. Now, I connected with Anjula through the Young Global Leader Network, where I was sharing some of my work on climate anxiety and she expressed interest in that and therefore we'll be corresponded from then on. So Anjula, thank you for joining us today. Well, thanks for having me, Jim. It's great to be here. Yeah, I've been really interested looking into your diverse career and it is very diverse, although with a number of ongoing threads. So I thought before I ask anything more substantive about specifics, could you just say something about, what are those core threads for you? What's the motivation for the work you do and have you come to do it? So always a solid question. And somebody had recently somewhat similarly asked that question because they were talking about human rights, psychology, media entertainment. And I was answering that question with the idea that they might be diverse but the values and principles and how I'm going about the decision making what undergrids is a consistent thread. And I think there's two parts. There's a conscious decision to do what you do but then in maybe spiritual or energetic terms, I also think it's a calling. And I think actually, I mean, if I were to sum it up sort of accurately, it's in some ways destiny. So I'll give an example, a lot of us, I'm speaking to you from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and recently Malaysia was right up there with India in terms of COVID numbers and it was really, really bad. And there was a lockdown and we've been in lockdown more or less for two years. So I had a lot of time to archive my past. And I realized, I completely forgot that I had a newspaper column when I was 12 years old and my jaw dropped because I was looking at these headings of what I was writing at the 12 year old and I was talking about anti-racism. I was talking about procrastination. I was talking about the effects of divorce. And even when I was 12, I was talking about the effects of climate change. And so whether it was things like high school can be a lot about popularity, for example, knowing what power or privilege I might have even as a high schooler and going to a rival high school and speaking about anti-bullying, it was something that I'm drawn to. I'm Indian and of course, even though the caste system is illegal, that does not mean sort of qualitatively that it's not an effect. And so I come from a caste that is royalty and nobility. And as a little child, I could not understand why a domestic help could not sit in my bed. Or if I walked across the path of a Brahmin, which is a priestly caste, they would get up and take a shower. I could not understand it. And as we know, and now I know of course as a psychologist, a lot of parents employ an authoritative parenting style. So if your child is curious and asks questions, it's no, it's what I said. That's the way it's always been done. And that never sat well with me. So basically everything I've done in my psychology practice or human rights is calling truth to power. Calling truth to power. And yeah, and questioning then, questioning some of the norms that are hierarchical and perhaps seeing more dignity in one person than another because of the cultural stories we have. I'm just, I'm what you've mentioned about the wisdom from your childhood has reminded me that I was very into stories of the wisdom of indigenous peoples as a kid. And I had lots of posters of their quotes and so on. And I was about a couple of years ago when I had this sense of almost like a huge apology that I had not lived from that wisdom for so long because I was so caught up with doing what's expected of me and becoming successful. And all of that was kind of nice, but impractical. And now there's for me, there's much more of a reconnection with, with wisdoms that are not celebrated, that are somehow marginalized. Interesting to hear you honor the wisdom from your childhood. Are you finding that, has it always been there or is it flourishing more for you now? That's a good question, you know? So recently when I took up the interim chair position of amnesty, you know, that's quite a mantle in terms of the work that needs to be done. And it's always interesting. I think, you know, any relationship that is around you, it can be a spouse, you know, a colleague, a friend, they serve as mirrors. And, you know, sometimes you're in a position when you're thinking of your leadership journey, you're like, I can't believe I'm here, you know, am I ready for it? But it was very interesting, like my high school teacher, elementary school teachers, they're not surprised at all. They were clearly seeing something. And I think in childhood, you know, actually to go back to the sort of indigenous wisdom and sort of spirituality, there's an understanding and there's been research and, you know, books about it that at least, maybe from an Eastern perspective, if you believe in reincarnation, that children actually, you know, around up to the age of one and one and a half two, they remember their past lives. And then, you know, what you're speaking to, you know, you were saying that I got caught up in that that's conditioning, right, of society, culture, religion, whatever. And then that veil between this and maybe higher realms or different realms, it vanishes. So they can remember up to a point and then we get very sort of conditioned and we forget. But I do believe it's everyone's journey at some point or another that you will reawaken. It takes some people longer than others, but, you know, we're all on this continuum. So I would, to answer your question, I would say I'm astutely aware now of what my mission is in life, in this lifetime. Are you able and willing to put that mission into words for us, or is it a more of a knowing? That's, it's much more of a knowing, but I'll try. It's just simply a, you know, tweet, I tweet worthy. I rather tweet character than I can say that I'm just simply here to soar through serving. That's it. You know, my husband and I really believe in the giving pledge, you know, that sort of non-attachment, whatever we have. And we've strangely, I think that's probably why we come together, you know, we're not so busy looking at each other, but rather looking forward and what we need to do. Every single minute matters to me and not in a workaholic, you know, chaotic badge of honor. I'm so busy now. I think it's important to know how to be a human being as opposed to a human doing. But for example, I'm just very conscious and it probably is, you know, stems from my Buddhist practice that life is the most precious thing. Don't take any minute for granted. For example, if, you know, my husband goes to work, I will give him a big hug at the elevator. I treat every moment like it can be the last. And not because to me macabre or anything, it's just that life is very transient. So, you know, I think one of the greatest ways they say in Buddhism to understand life is to understand death. So I constantly question that in a stoic manner. So what simply to answer your question is is to soar through serving. Thank you. And I'm loving the metaphor you've just given us of a successful marriage, that sort of alignment of purpose, rather than just looking at each other and am I all right with you? How are we together in where we're going and what we're creating synergistically? Yeah, definitely great. So I would like to hear more about, you've mentioned Buddhism and spirituality. You've also mentioned reincarnation. I'd love to get to that. But first, yeah, you're interim chair of Amnesty International. And so what I'm interested in is, how important are universal human rights today at a time of clearly increasing destabilization, anxiety, not just with the environment, but increasingly so and certainly so to increase because of the environment. Because some people sometimes say, oh, this is kind of a modern Western framework, human rights. Or they say, we need to get a bit practical and pragmatic now and save what we can and prioritize. And some of these ideas are just a bit naive today. What does universal human rights mean for you and why are they so important? So that's a really deep question. Well, first let me start with an acknowledge that yes, you're quite correct in the perception, like culturally, it's not exactly universally accepted, whether it's definitions or what human rights means, feminism, so for example, when I was doing my doctoral dissertation, and even then, I helped create my university's sort of first human rights course. And obviously human rights typically is populated by lawyers. I mean, I can speak for Amnesty, right? It's founded by a lawyer. And I wanna challenge that notion that human rights is best understood by law and political science. I think it's very important to... So for example, when I was doing my doctoral research in Sri Lanka, I was like, why are you doing this? Human rights is such a Western thing. I think saying that is right up there with the reticence of people in the global South and the expectation that they have to carry their weight in sort of the climate crisis and reducing our emissions because we didn't cause these problems. So there is that sort of power imbalance that I think affects how different countries are thinking about human rights and feminism, but to say straight up that it exists in one part of the world and not another, that's quite inaccurate. Every culture has examples and its own definition of feminism. And in fact, in Amnesty, we are getting ready in the next year to collectively define what our feminist leadership will be. And it's very interesting hearing Latin American countries and what they focus on in feminism versus let's say in Asia. But Amnesty, of course, we have offices around the world that's spread out, but that is that sort of democratic consensus decision-making. Now to answer your question, and I'll be very candid, apathy distrust is at an all-time high. I especially see that, for example, in young people in my therapy practice. So for example, they don't wanna bother to study for their exams, A-levels, O-levels, whatever. And parents think it's a phase. They think they're just being unruly and they're being a teenager. But really, a lot of my clients are saying, why should I? There's no world left. Look at what you've left for me. And I think the litmus test is, you know, when you think of the United Nations, I have respect for it. A lot of times people would say, United nothing. But I think the litmus test is, would the world be better off without it? And my answer is, no, it wouldn't. I think we're moving the needle at a very, very slow pace. But to answer again, your question, is it, you know, the declaration of universal human rights, is it necessary? It is. The field of human rights and psychology, that's in its infancy. In 2009, the American Psychological Association, it created a vision statement that, you know, included a section about the organization serving as an effective champion of the application of psychology to promote human rights and health and well-being and dignity. And so if you think about it, psychology and human rights, of course, have had really separate and distinct histories. Usually there's not been a clear connection between the two, but that's really changing in the past decade. And, you know, milestone documents for claiming individual human rights can be traced back to the 13th century, right? With the Magna Carta, the modern understanding of the term also originated in World War II. And then, you know, when the UN adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, there's, you know, 30 articles, right, that are describing the rights of human beings. And even though that framework is a general framework of human rights, the distinction and the other concepts such as civil rights, public interest and social justice, it has been working in the past, but it's coming to the forefront. And even though what constitutes human rights, it's a complicated, it's a contested topic, but I will say as a psychologist, even with the ambiguity, our ethical obligation is to do no harm for all psychologists. And that's gonna encompass, you know, the protection of a patient, research subject. And in my opinion, all psychologists should keep in mind rather, the dignity, the humanity and the connectedness of all people doing our work. So. And there's a couple of things you said there that really caught my ear. One was about how you're really interested in, despite the importance of human rights being seen in a legalistic way and it being becoming international soft law and national law and all the good things from that. Actually, you wanna bring in more attention to the heart, perhaps, and the soul that connected to human rights and spirituality. So I was just wondering, to what extent is Galtama Siddhartha, a human rights activist, but we'll probably come back to that because the other thing you said was, yeah, young people turning up in your practice saying, why should I dot, dot, dot? I guess so any sense of doing anything because of what world have you left me? So also speaking to the adult generations in terms of our, what we've done and what we're leaving them. And it's something which, yeah, I was really surprised by. So when my deep adaptation paper came out three years ago, the people who really got in touch the most were people who were practicing psychotherapists because this is what they were already experiencing in their work and they were needing to meet their clients where they're at rather than just pathologizing these anxieties. And so, yeah, it's been, so for me, it's been a journey over the last three years of, you know, I knew very little about psychology and psychotherapy and I've been studying it over the last three years. But so I'm wondering how do you, how do you, when you're presented with someone saying that, how do you, a young person saying, why should I study? Why should I plan for the future? Why should I save? Why should I have any ambition? Why should I, why should I, why should I, how do you, and connecting it to environment, for example, how do you respond? Yeah, so the first thing I wanna say is one way that I employ a feminist lens in my practice is that if you think about clinical psychology, that is if antecedence is in the global North, right? And, you know, a sort of Freudian, Viennese based approach and a one size does not fiddle. And so actually my degree, my PhD is not in clinical psychology and that's actually quite an important distinction. It's an international psychology, which just, you know, very briefly in a nutshell acknowledges the intelligence and wisdom of each nation state. And you need to bring in that cultural perspective in order to be the most effective and to have efficacious results, you know, in and out of therapy. Traditionally, excuse me, clinical psychology has situated the locus of control in an individual. And how can that be? We're not, you know, we're not brought up in a vacuum. You know, there's so many variables at play, the classic nurture, nature, environments on and so forth, right? You can sort of psychologically speaking be a loaded gun, but if you're in the right environment, that gun won't go off. You could be empty, but you're environment, like, you know, without cartridges, right, to set off. But if your environment is so abusive, and now when I say environment, I'm not talking about the clinic, like, you know, childhood and just the nuclear family. I'm talking about nation states and, you know, refugee and migration issues in the world at large. There is a lot to be said about the Hume concept, Humean, you know, collective consciousness. So you could be from a, you know, like a relatively healthy functional family and not a cartridge going off, but the environment around you will put cartridges in. And so part of my feminist lens is I don't think pasta point, you can be clinical neutrality. Like, what's just going on in this room? Well, what is happening on a micro-meso level? So for example, if I have an African client that is understandably very traumatized about the disproportionate effects on them of, you know, climate crisis, COVID, the brutal murders of Brianna and Mr. George Floyd, I think it's preposterous to say, well, let's just reframe that, right? Cognitive behavioral therapy, that how can you tell somebody to reframe their thoughts when they have a knee on their neck? There's institutional and systemic issues. So the first thing I do with young people is acknowledge that what they're saying is very valid. And that in itself is powerful because usually the adults in their life are oblivious, really oblivious, to be perfectly frank. I mean, I can, as a therapist, I did not start out as a child advocate, but I have so many parents dropping off their young people and let's say for purposes of young, maybe 20 and under, and going, Dr. Bass fixed them. And I find that a very interesting word in itself, fix. I mean, questionable choice of words. I think it's more about an evolution we're not necessarily broken, but you know, really, Jim, after one session, it's usually like the kid is fine and actually quite smart. You need to bring in the parents. And this goes to the sort of intergenerational dynamic that we need to have and a dynamic and sort of dialogue. And as psychologists, we're in the unique position of being invited into a person's vulnerability, right? Each time we meet them. So it's within this space that our role is often guiding people through ways to, through how to manage their painful feelings in order to bring their lives back into equilibrium. So, you know, typically treatment for overwhelming, effective experiences, that's gonna involve a combination of physiological, behavior, cognitive approaches. But, you know, when it comes to climate relation, climate related emotions are tossed actually to be perfectly honest, it's less clear. Because people are anxious about what their future holds. You're grieving losses, not in your family. It's not about an uncle that died. It's losses within our biosphere. You're becoming homesick. So... Yeah. That's really important to, yeah, to look at it, it's a more of a systems perspective when it's fascinating you say it's through the feminist lens that you're looking at the relationships around someone in terms of the family, but also in terms of society. Because, yeah, I read something maybe a month ago where I think there's an Australian politician and I've seen a British politician say the same thing where they're blaming environmental activists for scaring the kids. And I'm saying we're having a mental health crisis with kids because of the climate activists. And therefore we need to do something to try and shut them up. And... Hold on, I know how many young people that just absolutely finding their parents oblivious to it and not wanting to take it seriously, not just meeting the children where they're at with their anxiety and with their reality. So, yes, it's... Can I just say something to that? I would literally, I wanna say what Greta said. Blah, blah, blah, you know? I mean, I'm from India and the Asian usually parenting, like I said, is very authoritative. But I truly mean this. I think the millennials are right, they're like, you do you, I do me, but they really know what they're doing to a large part. Really hashtag their woe. And I think, for example, when people think of having mentors, they're always like someone who's arrived and older and I literally ask younger people to be mentors because I wanna learn. They're very tuned in. I think in ways that previous generations haven't been. They're sort of non-conformist. And to be fair, not to completely dismiss what the leaders are saying, there's a lot to be said about how you message something psychologically. So last year I had proposed for the like American Psychological Symposium theme across different, you know, there's obviously many types of psychology, right? Forensic, educational, but everybody got behind the climate theme I proposed. And messaging is very important not to induce a panic so that people, you know, the flight, freeze, bite, fawn responses, you have to message in such a way that, you know, to a point where you're like, okay, I'm deeply concerned, but that you don't create inaction where people just give up. There's tons of psychological research on that. I mean, and I'll tell you a lot of COVID, I mean, a lot of, you know, heads of state did not understand that. Like the heads of state that actually have psychologists on their teams as sort of, what is the word? You know, giving them guidance, if you will, they messaged much better. So you did not see people running in deep terror to, you know, buy stocks of toilet paper and group panic. Yes, yes. I still have, I'm sure there's going to be a PhD in psychology on why toilet paper, but I don't act like that. Freud would love that, you know, because he was fascinated by the genitals. I see, okay, right. So that will pass then that PhD. So I want to go back to, oh, by the way, just to say to our guests who've joined us on the call today, please do share any questions you have for Dr. Anjula Singhbhai's in the chat box and then we'll come to you later. So yeah, please do that now. And also indicate in your question whether you're okay to ask it yourself and what you would need you to have your video on. I want to just explore just because I love it. I've been studying Buddhism for the past year. Every two months now I go on a meditation retreat for four days where I'm completely offline. I go to a Buddhist temple. And so yeah, I'm really interested in the connection between spirituality in general or particular strands of it, particular wisdom traditions and this notion of the universality of rights, of freedoms. You know, what's the connection between rights and compassion? You know, a lot of people say, oh, it's more important to be focused on responsibilities rather than rights. But I'm wondering, what's the connection for you, for example, from your own either spiritual philosophy or your actual practices and your motivation to uphold universal rights? Yeah, so firstly, I would say it's a very deep connect because from my paternal grandparents in that lineage, we are a direct descendants of Siddhartha Govimo. So he was a Rajput royal before he discovered and became the founder of Buddhism. And it's very interesting because he sees, okay, I'll say Einstein was right when he said that if there's any religion that's gonna understand science is Buddhism. It's actually a deeply practical sort of lived philosophy. And so when Siddhartha Govimo, before he became the Buddha, his father obviously wanted him to take the throne, right? You know, a modern day interpretation of that would be inherit your second, third generation business so on, you know, you're a sign to this, whatever, corporate company. And the pressure is deep. I see that also a lot that the complications in my psychology practice. So there was a lot of pressure for him to do that. And, you know, a wise sort of sage who could see the future, if you will, told Siddhartha Govimo's father that he will rule but he will not rule over people. He will rule over himself. You know, when you get into psychology and you're studying it, the biggest question they ask you is why do you wanna be a psychologist? Even with my human rights colleagues, it's much easier to save the world if you will than to work on yourself and save yourself. A lot of people who are doing this work like doctors, human rights activists, they're great with other people but they're in a lot of denial with themselves. Now to answer the sort of question that you're asking like what does this have to do with one another? Well, there's this understanding of dependent origination, right? This deep interconnectedness. So let's bring up Starbucks for example and let's meditate on that mindfully. If you look at the coffee in your hands, do you know how many people it took to get that to you in your hands? It's just unbelievable. You know, maybe it's a farmer in Ethiopia, right? Planting the beans or whatever. Someone's harvesting it. Someone's, you know, putting it in a truck and loading it to Addis Ababa. Someone's flying it. Then it's clearing customs. Then it's, you know, getting released out of Kuala Lumpur. Then it goes to the barista. Your every single thought, feeling and behavior has an effect. Now we are in such a like insta society, insta gram, insta dry cleaning, insta everything that we've kind of lost, you know, everything's linear. You did this to me. I'll do this to you. That's not actually how it works. We can't see certain things, right? It doesn't mean it doesn't exist. We can't see the law of gravity per se. It doesn't matter what religion you practice or if you don't even. If you throw a book off the third floor, it's going to fall down. And so this cause and effect, that's universal. And, you know, actually bringing it back to a second with climate change, that's one of the biggest problems because the effect is not seen. It's a delayed effect. That's why we keep doing things that are so detrimental because we don't see the immediate effect, right? What we're seeing right now in the world is because of what we did in the 70s. And so the Siddhartha Gautama left his palace, no matter how much his father tried, you know. Here, here's this pleasure palace. Here are women. I mean, this was obviously before the time of smartphones. So he couldn't give that as a bribe, but whatever. And he left the palace and he saw sickness for the first time. He saw illness. He saw old age. He saw death. None of that is inescapable to anybody. I think it was Julius Caesar, right? Who said, you know, I'm gonna go into the something, paraphrasing. I'm gonna go into the dirt like everybody else. What do you take with you? Nothing. So these concepts of non-attachment, I mean, basically to sum it up, I honestly cannot be happy if you're not happy. So that's how I bring Buddhism into everything I do because I can live in my ivory tower. I can study in academic ivory towers, but there's that real world. And if that's not sorted, it will eventually catch up with you. Which is why I want to try as much as I can to serve. Yeah, thank you. I am one of the insights was this idea of, well, not just the idea, but the experience to a degree. It's fleeting with me of this, almost like the deepest unity of being. And therefore all of us may seem so different, but we're not. And that also I may not like something someone did. It might be extremely bad, but it's the invitation to see, but if I was born into their situation, then I would live their life and have the same behaviors and so on. So it's an invitation to a level of forgiveness. And non-judgment, despite having this sense of compassion and having strong values, but again, none of this sort of judgment. And therefore, for me, that seems to be connected to this idea that, well, therefore everyone has dignity and sovereignty and rights and shouldn't just be labeled as not deserving because they're different to me or they haven't behaved as I wish them to. And to that point that you were saying you were describing it, it seems quite experiential. And of course the best things in life are very hard to put in words, but I would just say that's just a moment of true knowing that nobody can take away from you. And a lot of times when clients in therapy are like, for example, whether it's ecological anxiety or otherwise, this is not divested of actually going out in the world and taking action, but first center yourself. And that involves going into silence where these insights come that no one can take away from you. So his holiness, the Dalai Lama, I hosted him many years ago in a brilliant conversation about emotional vigilance in daily life. And he actually said that if young people had access to meditation and yoga before the year, like up until the year of age eight, there would be no war. And I fully agree. Yeah, and thinking about that, I've been looking at, as you know, I shared my paper with you, the one that's out in the psychotherapy journal from New Zealand just recently. And so for that, I looked at terror management theory and theories of experiential avoidance. And so basically there's quite a lot of analysis to say that as we feel more vulnerable, we feel more threatened, we become more anxious, there's the possibility or even likelihood if we don't help each other for something else to happen, for us to become more xenophobic, more chauvinistic, more defensive. And so, and of course, therefore if everyone in the world is doing that, then we're gonna create a whole new set of problems. There's gonna be a fracturing of civil society and multilateralism and so on and so forth. So yeah, in that, I think one of the modalities to try and not react in that way is to become aware of those emotions and to notice them and be able to allow them rather than to try and compulsively escape them by, oh, I know who to blame, oh, I know who to follow, or all those very impulsive ways of dealing with that inner stress. So I was wondering if do you see therefore with what you've just said as well, well, what's your thoughts on that, but also do you see that, yeah, we urgently need, and there's kind of a bit of a contradiction there for a lot of people who are on the spiritual path, we urgently need sort of a huge movement of promoting these mindfulness practices to help us avoid unnecessary conflict as people get more anxious because of the state of the world. Absolutely, unequivocally, yes we do, but I have several things I like to say to that. So the first is because of the time and place that we live in right now, we have access in a way because of the internet and social media to the whole world. And so things become magnified in a way that haven't. And I'm not at all speaking about denial, obviously the issues of fake news and misinformation, but what I'm trying to say is that there's a mechanism, whether it's a logarithms or whatever, AI or TRPs, for what's going to sort of clickbait with these sort of sensationalist headlines. So for example, I am speaking in Malaysia and we very famously and tragically I had a Malaysian Airlines plane that went down and no one can find it. It is actually aviation's greatest mystery. And I can't tell you how many people came into practice. I can literally chart an uptick that were anxious to fly. And my homework for them was to actually go to Kuala Lumpur International Airport and to sit for three hours and watch how many flights take off and land successfully. What are you focusing on? You know, thousands of flights take off is actually safer than driving, but we don't focus on that. So there's a lot to be said about, you know, how you are thinking, of course, reframing, focusing. But here's what I wanna say, no matter how hard you try to escape yourself and all of your internal thoughts, feelings, experiences, you are stuck with you. So I think it's in your best interest to cultivate a willingness and ability to connect with yourself. You know, even with the parts that seem frightening or painful. And here's the thing that most people don't actually get. When you try to run away or you try to deny unpleasant thoughts or feelings, you're actually creating an internal battlefield. So you're essentially declaring an internal war upon the self and there's no winners in that. And, you know, the pain that comes with certain thoughts or feelings or events in life, it can't be avoided. And this is what I tell clients, they're, you know, if someone dies, for example, and you're grieving that that is ecologically appropriate, so we get that. As it famously goes, there's a difference between pain and suffering. Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. So it's only when we react to lies, kind of inevitable pain by contracting the mind and body, that's when we're creating our own suffering. We were actually creating suffering in a way that doesn't need to exist. And acceptance that you're speaking about is a complete opposite of avoid. Yeah, so thanks for pointing that out, that it's important to notice if we're adding a sting that's not necessary, like a sense of urgency in what you were saying earlier as well about avoiding panic, but at the same time, then not ignoring the emotion and the cause of the emotion and staying present to it. And yeah, and so thank you for bringing that, well, adding to what I was saying there. We're gonna go to questions now. We have a question from Andrew Morton, who works at the United Nations and is very interested in how we can start to talk about readying for greater societal disruption because of climate change, the kind of conversation that no one really wants to have. Andrew, over to you, your question for Dr. Singh Bayes. Yes, hello, Bayes, and thanks for giving me the space. This is about your amnesty and climate anxious, particularly because I know that amnesty has great, it's gotta speak, psychological, beta ground experience. They're really seasoned about dealing with and meeting with and coping with people with massive trauma. So personally, I see some parallels between the victims of human rights abuses and traumas and the climate anxious in that I feel both victims have limited agency in actually fixing the fundamentals, getting justice, fixing the climate, intergenerational conversation. So their agency is limited to their own small practical actions, what they think and what they say. So in this context, given amnesty's background, is there anything that from lessons learned about that could probably use or translate across to the growing field of how to brief and comfort the climate anxious? Thanks. So Andrew, thank you. So just to say what I'm getting from you there is that many people do say that having pathways towards agency at any scale is one way of doing something about the anxiety rather than just being better at observing it. So yeah, it's a good question. Thank you. And anything from amnesty's in, or I know, Andrew, you obviously have been involved in social action more generally outside of amnesty. So anything from any of that. Thank you, Andrew, for that question. I mean, firstly, amnesty is also of course always learning from our partners and our partners and other civil society organizations. But what I would say is that the ethos probably in the boardroom and just generally throughout the organization and even my own work as a psychologist is that there's communities that are in grindingly desperate circumstances, what you're talking about. Communities that aren't even thought about, like those without running water or electricity or they're left out of the climate conversation. And that means, and I'm saying this from my perspective, but also what we're seeing in amnesty, that means not just including them, but deliberately prioritizing them and ensuring their voices are heard on all levels. So I think we need what Marine biologist Ayanna Johnson calls a sort of feminist climate renaissance. So I think without this, a just and very livable future becomes impossible. Because when you look at the research, I mean, I just did a research paper earlier this year on countries that are led by women and in their sort of COVID-19 impact, research shows that women's leadership and equal participation results in better outcomes for climate policy, reducing emissions, protecting land. And I think some of the main characteristics that are shared by women leaders, like let's say Christina Fogueres, first and foremost, and this is really important, they prioritize making change over being in charge. So I would say we really collectively, whether it's at the boardroom on the ground, I mean, I'm surprised sometimes, I'm not just speaking about amnesty, just generally in the NGO, human rights sector, humanitarian, how much infighting there is. We need to get away, it's like we're here to serve. I mean, let's really get back to the basics. So we need to get over ego, competition, control, all of that is very patriarchal, supremacist, hierarchal stuff that gets in the way. And it burns a lot of energy and it keeps us from collaborating. And so like I said earlier, amnesty is looking at defining feminist leadership and that'll be our playbook. Yeah, so you heard it here first. It's coming soon. However, our next question is also from another white bloke like me. So I invite other people on the call who are not like me, Andrew and Stuart who's coming next to also pose your questions. Stuart, Stuart is a volunteer for the Deep Adaptation Forum. Stuart, over to you, what's your question? Hi, thanks, my question. It's a difficult one. So I come from a certain place, certain viewpoint with regards kind of the collapse awareness, the inevitability of it and the time scales of such. And I've processed a lot of that I found the gen and I've done the last two years has been very transformational. So much so that I've picked up a book on buddies and last week myself. So I start something, join that conversation. And I see it's a very beneficial thing to do. It's been life changing for me in a positive way. And I kind of feel that as a civilization, we would do better for more people to go on that journey. What I struggle with is sharing my viewpoints in a way that might push people to do that, given the anxiety and stress that it can bring in certain people. So it's that responsibility that I'm struggling with at the moment and how much of my own viewpoint I should share. So you're worried about the emotional impact on other people of saying that you perceive the future as extremely challenging and sharing how upsetting it's been to you and how difficult your journey has been. Is that also just to check also how you look after yourself in that experience of talking to other people too? Yes, yes, it is, yeah. Yeah. Okay. This sucks in clipboard, thank you. Big question. And a really live one for the Deep Adaptation Forum people at the moment about outreach and how to outreach. Stuart, I think that's a brilliant question that it's going to be on the prefrontal cortex or front of everyone's mind at some point or another, right? And again, I don't think there is a one size fits all but here's a couple of things I would say about that. You know, it's the very people. So for example, in therapy, when I have a parent who goes, am I being a good parent? It's those people that have the most hope that actually do the best, whether it's, you know, with their own self-care or, you know, spreading a message or teachings, if you will, to other people precisely because of the self-awareness of that question. Truly bad parents, never also, right? They're always right and there's no issue. So the fact that you are asking, wow, how do I get across my message and you're sensitive to your own needs and other, I think that A bodes very well. What I would say is that no day in the office and office can be very abstract and temporal or whatever in the sense is the same, especially in this line of work, what we're all grappling with, right? Deep adaptation, the climate crisis, all of that. Please pace yourself. It's, look, on the one, okay, there's layers to this. On the one hand, it is absolutely urgent. We need to sprint like we've never had before. This is not a marathon, we need to get emissions down. But if you day in and day out are approaching it from a sprint, you are going to burn out and you will be of no use to anyone. So I need you to think of it as sprinting some days and some days passing the baton to others who will pick up that baton and you need to like then for, if it's a timeout or take a break because that should form part of your egging. Rest, recuperation and tuning out for just a little bit actually helps you serve the larger cause. There's something else I wanted to say and now it's up. Again, because of what we have at our fingertips, the internet, social media, it becomes very overwhelming. Oh my goodness, the scope of the problem, what do I do? Everybody has their contributions that are equally valid, they're just gonna look different. And so I wouldn't get into this, and we do this insidiously, this compare and despair phenomenon. Not everybody's gonna be giving a plenary at WEF or the UN, nor should they. I think a mother, like a stay at home father and mother has as much importance if not more than a head of state addressing the UN and what they're inculcating in their child. So truly, I mean this when I say it, every moment is a teachable moment. Every person right in front of you, whether it's the post, the person giving you the post or somebody to use Starbucks again, all of you now know I love coffee, standing in line, it's a teachable moment. Your sphere of influence is always there. And so in a way have of course the urgency, which I think all of us do in this virtual room, but pace yourself. Because one thing I've seen in human rights activists they oscillate on this pendulum of like this hero complex savior. And then I'm indispensable, you're important, but there's a lot of people doing what we need to do. And if you're burnt out, you can't actually get more people to the cause. I hope that someone wants to use your question. Thank you. And before we conclude, I just want to go back to your comment on feminist leadership. Because many people looking at the climate crisis say we need to have a few new policies, we need to have some better technologies, we need to just to make more of an effort, maybe bring in some better carbon pricing and taxes and so on. And so a lot of people engage with this without asking deeper questions about how on earth did humanity come to this point of undermining the very living conditions of our civilization. So I was wondering if you're looking at feminist leadership. Yeah, does that mean you, and you did mention culture of patriarchy and supremacy and competition and all sorts. Do you think there's a teachable moment around that? So like we're in these multiple predicaments and crises. And maybe there's an essential problem and it relates in some way to gender. Any comments on that before we close? Well, I mean, when you think about feminist leadership, I mean, feminist climate leaders, they tend to have a deep commitment to justice and quality. And when you're talking like boardroom experience, for example, research has shown this, it's not your technical knowledge, it's your people knowledge. That's gonna really ultimately determine whether you're successful or not. So having emotional intelligence is necessary too. And this is the biggest challenge that humanity has ever grappled with. And we're not gonna solve it like I said from our prefrontal cortex alone. We need to come at this as whole human beings. That means the grief, the uncertainty, the rage, the anxiety, but also the love. And not to make an over-generalized statement, but that on average probably comes easier to women or men that have done the work and that consider themselves feminist. But the environmental crisis it's continuing to drain livelihoods. When you're talking about the biodiversity loss, pollution, everything that's driving our ecosystem, degradation, all the threatening economic opportunities and the transmission of the zoonotic diseases like COVID-19. All these are more likely to emerge from communities that are exposed. And we know that there are differentiated impacts, right? A climate crisis on women and men and that is related to ingrained gender inequalities and discrimination. So I very much think that a gender lens is essential to understand the differences in environmental impact and among the different components of society. Having said that, life is not, we don't want that cognitive distortion of black and white. It is nuanced, it is great. And to bring it back to a Buddhist parable gem, the two sages were walking in the forest and they saw a deer with an arrow stuck in it. And they got into this conversation of where did the arrow come from? Of what wood was it made? What was the speed? From what direction? And the Buddha came walking and just plucked the arrow out of the deer. Because we just need to alleviate suffering. So I, you know, like I said, patriarchy, all of that are the reasons we are in the situation we're on, but now we just need to take this arrow out. And that means maybe to some extent, less finger pointing and let's just come together. It is amazing how much when threatened or uncomfortable, we just focus on greater measurement. I really need to know more about this. And me being an intellectual academic, I think I suffer from that. It's like, why am I continuing to research rather than just living a certain, a different way? I know what I need to do, I just don't do it. Okay, thank you very much for your time today. And thank you also everyone for joining. And I look forward to seeing you again. This concludes our Q and A's for the, for this year, for 2021. We'll be back in the new year with a new series of Q and A's for deep adaptation. Thanks, Stuart, for your tech support as well. Thank you for having me and thank you everyone who's attended. It's such a pleasure. Take care of yourself. And if you're watching this on YouTube, look it below and there'll be lots of links to some of the things we've talked about and so you can follow up. Thank you. Bye-bye.