MAPPsters!
Most of us can probably agree that there can be no true or sustainable wellbeing without a healthy planet. It’s also becoming increasingly clear that climate change is one of the most urgent issues of our time (and quite possibly the most urgent issue that humanity has ever faced).
As positive psychology practitioners, we want to find hope in what can at times feel like a hopeless situation. That means setting some agentic goals and having the will and the way to achieve them.
We invite you into a meaningful conversation about behavior change for good. How can we as everyday people take action towards a flourishing future for all? As individuals, we may not be responsible for the climate crisis, but we can all be part of the solution!
With this in mind, we want to try out a cool group-based intervention called “The Week.” If you’re curious about how social support and behavior change can work hand-in-hand - this is for you!
What is The Week?
Recently, it’s been hard not to notice how fast the climate is changing. Experts say it will get worse really rapidly. The Week is for those of us who want to know
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how this will affect us, in the next 10, 20 or 30 years
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and what we can do about it.
Too often, this issue feels abstract and overwhelming. The Week is a way to engage this issue, for real, with fellow MAPPsters. It doesn’t tell us what to do, but empowers us to make up our own minds, so that we can say down the line: I knew what I needed to know, I did what I needed to do, and I have no regrets.
The Week is a Group Experience
The Week is an experience you do with friends, family, or a group of colleagues. We think this would be really fun to do with fellow MAPPsters. It’s helpful to engage with a topic as big as the climate crisis with a group of people you know, and not be on your own.
3 episodes & conversations:
Each session is 90 minutes. Our group will get together 3 times, during a week (hence “The Week”). Every time you watch a 1 hour documentary film episode. Then we move to the heart of the experience: a guided conversation for 30 minutes (or more if you want) to make sense of it all.
A ”U”-shaped journey
Be prepared for a ride! It’s shaped like a “U”. Episode 1 is the hard one where we go down the “U” and look straight at what’s coming, without blinking. In episode 2, we make sense of it all. And episode 3 gets us up the “U”, it’s empowering and inspiring.
No Polar Bears
We won’t be talking about polar bears or ice sheets melting. The Week is about what is likely to happen to us and the people we love, in the next 10, 20 or 30 years, in parts of North America and Europe. And what we can realistically do about it.
The Team
Sandy Blaine (MAPP XI/2016 grad) came to positive psychology from a wellness background, with specialties in yoga, mindful movement and workplace wellbeing. Her notable professional experience includes working with Pixar Animation Studios from their early startup years and then building their employee wellness program as the company grew to become the globally acclaimed movie studio we know today, and working on the Healthy Ireland Initiative with Ireland’s national health service as her MAPP service learning project. While still passionate about whole-person and embodied wellbeing, during her MAPP year Sandy came to recognize the essential nature of interconnectedness, with each other and with our planet, and to believe that positive psychology must expand and evolve to focus on system change that encompasses collective and planetary well-being. From this perspective, post-MAPP Sandy joined Pixar’s Green Team, the studio committee dedicated to implementing more sustainable practices on campus, where she gained experience in helping to shift the company culture toward more climate consciousness and implement organizational change. She then began working with California Environmental Voters (the California chapter of what was previously the League of Conservation Voters) as a volunteer constituent lobbyist, and is currently working with CAEV on supporting wellbeing for their staff.
Sandy loves being part of the positive psychology community and the wonderful work it is doing toward increasing the amount of wellbeing in the world. She is delighted to bring MAPPsters together to explore how our community might contribute to positive, wellbeing-focused solutions to the climate crisis. She passionately believes in using our own flourishing as a foundation from which to contribute to the flourishing of others and creating a better world, and has found that activism can be a well-being booster and, to borrow the words of UCSF psychology researcher Elissa Epel, “a positive antidote to existential despair.”
Andrew Soren is the CEO of Eudaimonic by Design, a past president of the MAPP Alumni Association, and has been an assistant instructor with MAPP since he graduated in 2013. Andrew is a member of the board for the International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA) and co-chaired the 8th IPPA World Congress on Positive Psychology in July 2023. For the past 25 years, Andrew has worked with some of the most recognized brands, nonprofits and public sector teams to co-create values-based cultures, develop positive leadership, and design systems that empower people to be their best. He founded Eudaimonic by Design to harness the collective strengths of talented practitioners working at the intersection of organizational effectiveness, design thinking and positive practice, many of whom are MAPP graduates. Andrew is an ICF certified coach. He is based in Halifax, Canada.
WHY THIS? Andrew is a firm believer that for people to flourish, the planet must as well. He’s been very inspired by ancient thinkers as well as positive psychology researchers and practitioners who focus on the reciprocal relationship between the natural world and our wellbeing, as well as on how positive psychology can help turn eco-anxiety into behavior change for good.
