Meet Eva Jahn | Licensed Psychotherapist and Executive Director at the Climate Emotional Resilience Institute (CERI)

We had the good fortune of connecting with Eva Jahn and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Eva, how has your background shaped the person you are today?
I grew up in a small town in Northern Germany, the land of the Northern Germanic people, home to oak, chestnut and birch trees, wild boars, hedgehogs, blackbirds, throttle, lots of slugs and mosses and great swimming lakes. I spent my days biking around and playing in a nearby forest. When I was 19 I decided to move to Norway, Trondheim and work for a while before I started my Social Work studies back in West Germany which later changed to Barcelona, Spain. I think from an early age I was fascinated with the world, wanting to know and experience more of it. While working in an ICU unit at a mother-child hospital in Barcelona, trying to learn Catalàn and Spanish at the same time, I decided that I didn’t want to go back to Germany anymore. I extended my studies and moved to Guatemala instead where I conducted research on international voluntourism which led to a later job as a social worker in a local school. Being embraced by both an International and Guatemalan community made me feel fully alive. The richness that comes from the living dimensions of language, of place, of existing in the in-between places was something that I didn’t fully know how much I was yearning for until I was surrounded by it. I met instructors of the experiential education organization Where There Be Dragons in Guatemala and started to work for them as an educator in Guatemala as well as Bolivia, Peru and Senegal. Breathing in and interacting with a wide array of cultures and peoples and landscapes has had a big influence on who I am. The beauty of cultural emergence and the fertility of the in-between really pulls me towards difference and reminds me to not fall asleep behind the wheel of the mainstream and dominant societal viewpoints. As a settler on many lands throughout my wanderings, I do now prioritize building right relationships to the lands I didn’t grow up on. I learned that building a resilient relationship with place is an integral part of belonging. So, celebrating the diverse beauty of our earth kin has become a steady practice for me, acknowledging, greeting and thanking them as I move through life. So they can become our accountability partner as we are facing this crisis that impacts us all.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
The decision to start my private practice in psychotherapy as well as co-founding and directing the International Climate Emotional Resilience Institute (CERI) emerged from a variety of experiences. As I shared earlier, I studied Social Work in Germany and Spain and then worked as a social worker and outdoor experiential educator in a variety of countries and cultures and organizations. As a social worker and later licensed psychotherapist I predominantly focused and still do on working with female-identified survivors of human trafficking, sexual assault and domestic violence. As an experiential educator I got to walk different parts of this world alongside my student group and teach about Global Citizenship, the beauty of difference and the connection with landscapes and our more-than-human kin. And as faculty for the International Center for Mental Health & Human Rights, I was co-facilitating contemplative-based trauma and resiliency groups for communities on the frontline of war.
Having a say in where I put my professional efforts and passions and following my values and integrity expressed in my work has always been very important to me. So I integrated and combined these areas of expertise into my private practice as well as into my training and workshop facilitation work I do at CERI.
In addition, the decision to start my private practice and move away from organizational work, also emerged from wanting to spend more time with my son with more flexible working hours and to dive deeper into the art of trauma-informed contemporary psychoanalytic psychotherapy as well as other modalities such as EMDR that offer more in-depth experiences for the patient.
Over time, my own complex feelings about the immenseness of the collapse of this planet and watching many climate activist friends experiencing burnout, sparked a passion to bring therapeutic support to the clinical and wider spaces.
In addition, more and more people in my practice started talking to me about climate anxiety, existential dread, a fear of bringing children into this world or feeling alone in their experience with climate distress. As a response to that growing local and global concern, my colleague Elizabeth Driscoll from the International Center and I created and started to offer an 8 week online climate emotional resilience group called THICKET which we are now running 2-3 times a year and which has been integrated onto the Bioneers Learning Platform. Our next cohort is actually starting at the end of October. I became an active member of the Climate Psychology Alliance North America, and further trained in Climate Psychology through the California Institute of Integral Studies. Co-founding CERI felt like a natural extension of what was already happening. I started to receive growing requests for training, workshops, and talks around the intersection of mental health and climate change. In response, we brought together a small collaborative community of professionals to support activists, educators, scientists, students, public servants and others confronting climate change in their work and beyond with emotional resilience so they can continue to go out and do the work. Our faculty now offers a variety of different courses including monthly climate cafes that are drop-in spaces for people to share their experiences and feelings related to this polycrisis (https://climateemotionalresilience.org/ceri-climate-cafe).
Running an organization is for sure a new challenge for me, and I often times find myself asking my friends who run their own businesses for support. Support on how to create an internal climate of mutual support and slower pace to counter the urgency and greed that competition seems to breed. I want CERI to be an example on how to run businesses differently, to move against the “business as usual” model and integrate more compassionate, non-competitive ways that are in line with our values. But it’s hard. And the steady breath of productivity definitely keeps me on my toes, and continues to provide a constant challenge. As well as an invitation to remind myself to pause, to slow down, to create space, and to go out and be with the water and the trees.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
To be honest, my favorite thing would be to drive to Moab, UT and spend the whole week canoeing the green river, camping on the river banks, making fires and sleeping under the stars. Following waterways in the presence of dear friends who also enjoy silence, where we get to be present with our surroundings brings me immense joy and gratitude for this incredibly beautiful planet. That to me would be showing them “the best time ever. ”
But since we are talking about Colorado, which also has a tremendous amount of riverways, here is a more action filled itinerary:

Day 1: Wake up in Boulder, CO (where I am currently located) and go have some yummy breakfast at Tangerine. Then hop in the car and drive to Buena Vista. Stop for lunch at the Cool River Cafe and grab some groceries in town

Day 1-3: Sleep two nights at the Lost Wonder Hut. A gorgeous winter and summer hut up at Monarch Mountain with many hiking trails and beautiful views.

Day 3: Drive to Salida and meet up with Canyon River Instruction for a fun ½ day float down the Arkansas River. Grab early dinner in town at Soulcraft and head up to Outside Design to stay in one of their adorable cabins.

Day 4: We wake up in the morning, make some coffee and eat a simple breakfast (with what we have left from the Lost Wonder Hut stay) and just enjoy a slow morning with beautiful views. Once we are back in the car, we drive over Cottonwood Pass to stop at the Cottonwood Pass South Trailhead, 18.9 miles west of Buena Vista. Here we get to follow the continental divide on a breath-taking 5 mile round trip. Then we continue our drive to Crested Butte, where we get to have a late lunch at their famous farmer’s market (if we pick the right day) or find one of the many lunch spots in town. After our short visit, we continue our drive over another breath-taking pass, the Kebler Pass (closed in the winter) all the way to Avalanche Ranch

Day 4-6 At Avalanche Ranch we are spending 2 nights in their cute shepherd’s wagon and soaking in their 3 natural hot springs. They have a labyrinth for some walking meditation and small accessible hikes in the area.

Day 6. Drive back to Boulder. Stop in Carbondale for lunch.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I want to give a big shout out to my mentor Gaea Logan who has been a big influence in my professional life. And the team at CERI, who provides a constant alive stream of thoughts, ideas and inspirations.

Joanna Macy and The Work That Reconnect who has provided me with a deep practice of listening to our earth kin and on which foundation I teach my classes and workshops.

Where There Be Dragons and their community of inspiring educators and travelers who invited me into a new home of free-spirited global citizens that choose to live their lives outside the constraints of cultural normalcy.

And of course by dear friends who keep me sane and remind me to walk this earth with kindness and fierce compassion and my best friend, partner and co-journeyer Brett Fleishman who’s steady and loving support is the reason that I get to play and create and wander.

Website: https://climateemotionalresilience.org, www.evajahn.com.

Instagram: climateemotions_institute

Image Credits
Katie Day Weisberger