The relentless flood of bad news challenges our ability to make sense of the world. For those of us who are sensitive to the dissolution of consensus reality, collapse forces us to look inward. 

How do we know what we should do? How do we give expression to our yearning for love and community? Where shall we find the courage to go on?

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At Collapse Club, we offer two 'Emotional Resilience' meetings each week where we share our experience of collapse. If you feel alone with your knowledge of collapse and need people to talk to, please visit our website and sign up for our newsletter. https://www.collapseclub.com

In this freewheeling episode, Matthew Painton and David Baum start with the dictionary definition of "transcendence" (to climb to another level), discuss different kinds of transcendence (sacred and mundane), examine the relationship of transcendence to collapse (integrative or bypass), and end up describing how Collapse Club meetings help to transcend despair (relationship and metabolization).

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At Collapse Club, we offer two 'Emotional Resilience' meetings each week where we share our experience of collapse. If you feel alone with your knowledge of collapse and need people to talk to, please visit our website and sign up for our newsletter. https://www.collapseclub.com

Collapse is accelerating, both in the realm of climate and in politics. The weather is becoming unreliable, and the governments are turning fascist. 

David Baum and Matthew Painton, Conveners at Collapse Club, talk about how our "inner work" can still be useful to help us access our wisdom, humanity, and calm, even in the face of increasing threat.

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At Collapse Club, we offer two 'Emotional Resilience' meetings each week where we share our experience of collapse. If you feel alone with your knowledge of collapse and need people to talk to, please visit our website and sign up for our newsletter. https://www.collapseclub.com

Many of us feel we are living in a fake world. The world of "business-as-usual" cannot last, and yet we are required to live here, even though we see it is collapsing around us.

To live in the world but to see beyond the world creates a certain pressure in the mind. In some circles, it's called "cognitive dissonance." In our circle, we call it "collapse awareness." When the pressure becomes too great, we feel we must leave the fake world to find a reality that we recognize.

The journey from illusion to reality is:

The Fivefold Path of Collapse Acceptance

1. Knowledge: Find out, freak out. (Fear)
2. Feelings: Grieve and metabolize. (Grief)
3. Change: Accept the loss of “normal.” (Stability)
4. Discovery: Watch for new perspectives. (Vision)
5. Love-in-Action: Choose what is yours to do. (Purpose)

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You can read about the benefits of Collapse Acceptance on Karen Perry's Substack.

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At Collapse Club, we offer two 'Emotional Resilience' meetings each week where we share our experience of collapse. If you feel alone with your knowledge of collapse and need people to talk to, please visit our website and sign up for our newsletter. https://www.collapseclub.com

Collapse causes acute distress in people who learn how things really are, beyond the world of "business-as-usual." If distress is not "metabolized" in a group process, it can cause us to freeze up or spiral into despair. But if we make connections with others who share our understanding, we can take "wise action" which leads to "enlivenment," even in the shadow of collapse.

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At Collapse Club, we offer two 'Emotional Resilience' meetings each week where we share our experience of collapse. If you feel alone with your knowledge of collapse and need people to talk to, please visit our website and sign up for our newsletter. https://www.collapseclub.com

How can we become "settled" with the idea that the world is ending? How are we supposed to "remain human" as we witness the crisis and terror of collapse? Where are the other people who can accompany us on our journey from "collapse awareness" to "collapse acceptance?"

David Baum and Matthew Painton share their personal journeys to acceptance, and talk about facilitating groups where other people are following the same path.

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For a seminal exploration of these ideas, see Karen Perry's 'Fifteen Benefits of Collapse Acceptance' at https://substack.com/@chickenfoot/p-107856599

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At Collapse Club, we offer two 'Emotional Resilience' meetings each week where we share our experience of collapse. If you feel alone with your knowledge of collapse and need people to talk to, please visit our website and sign up for our newsletter. https://www.collapseclub.com

People who are collapse-aware live "dual lives," with one foot in the world of "business-as-usual" and the other in a world where "normal" has lost its meaning. It's very lonely when no one — not even your closest friends and family — can talk with you about collapse and the feelings it brings up.

Online meetings can relieve our isolation by acting as a "village" in which our planet-scale grief can be metabolized. Sharing our knowledge and feelings can help us "wake up" from the delusions of civilization. We cannot solve collapse, but we can "get well" in our mind, body, and spirit.

Today's discussion features David Baum, co-founder and Convener at Collapse Club, and Matthew Painton, a Deep Adaptation coach and therapist, and a Convener at Collapse Club.

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At Collapse Club, we offer two 'Emotional Resilience' meetings each week where we share our experience of collapse. If you feel alone with your knowledge of collapse and need people to talk to, please visit our website and sign up for our newsletter. https://www.collapseclub.com

David B. talks with Kimberley Hare from Heartfordshire, England. Last year, Kim published a book called 'At the Edge: What Is Mine to Do? And Who Can I Do It With?' She offers training and support for people who are collapse-aware. 

Kim offers a retreat called 'The Edge', where people work through their feelings about collapse and discover what is theirs to do in response. People who attend her retreat go into their communities to help others, in a rippling cascade of resilience, courage, and clarity.

Find out more about Kimberley's free EDGE Retreats: https://heartcommunitygroup.org/the-edge-a-4-day-retreat/

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At Collapse Club, we offer two 'Emotional Resilience' meetings each week where we share our experience of collapse. If you feel alone with your knowledge of collapse and need people to talk to, please visit our website and sign up for our newsletter. https://www.collapseclub.com

David B. talks with Terry LePage, who is a facilitator at the Deep Adaptation Forum, a minister with various churches in California, and author of the book 'Eye of the Storm: Facing climate and social chaos with calm and courage'.

Terry shares her visceral reaction to the election of "47," and recounts her search for tranquility, community, and connection to the Earth.

Terry's book: https://opendoorcommunication.org/eye/get-the-book

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At Collapse Club, we offer two 'Emotional Resilience' meetings each week where we share our experience of collapse. If you feel alone with your knowledge of collapse and need people to talk to, please visit our website and sign up for our newsletter. https://www.collapseclub.com

David B. talks with Matthew Painton from Chichester, England. Matthew is a therapist and coach who helps people work through the difficult emotions that arise from becoming collapse-aware. Matthew says it’s valuable to “metabolize” those feelings, because when we’ve done that, we know who we really are.

Matthew's Coaching Website: https://www.deepadaptationcoaching.com/

Matthew's Photography: https://www.instagram.com/mattpaintonphotography

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At Collapse Club, we offer two 'Emotional Resilience' meetings each week where we share our experience of collapse. If you feel alone with your knowledge of collapse and need people to talk to, please visit our website and sign up for our newsletter. https://www.collapseclub.com