An article in the New York Times called “Climate Change Enters the Therapy Room” recounts the story of Alina Black, a mother of two in Portland, Oregon, who was suffering extreme anxiety about climate change. She worried about the future of her children, read the news in a panic, and became preoccupied with learning about devices and techniques that might prove useful in an emergency. Finally, she sought help from a therapist who specializes in climate anxiety, Thomas J. Doherty.

The breakthrough moment came for her on the day Doherty told her, “In the future, even with worst-case scenarios, there will be good days. Disasters will happen in certain places. But, around the world, there will be good days. Your children will also have good days.”

When Black heard this counsel, something shifted in her. She realized she could let go that huge burden of anxiety she’d been hefting.

When we consider our future on a warming planet, we are bound to feel nervous. But, as Dr. Doherty suggests, we have the ability to shift some of that uncertainty into a sense of mystery.

Mystery and uncertainty have a lot in common. In both states of unknowing something is unresolved. I don’t have answers. I don’t know where to turn. But when it’s uncertainty I face, I’m urgently grasping for answers. I feel incomplete, and my incompleteness shows up as a need, a hunger, a desperation for solid ground and road signs to point me ahead.

When I engage with mystery, on the other hand, that sense of incompleteness tingles with a form of expectation that lacks urgency. I sense that the unknown is inviting me, rather than threatening me. I might feel some anxiety about stepping into new and untried ground. Yet, if I follow the allure instead of the fear, let the glimmer of mystery shine through the fog that’s shrouding it, I just may feel excited.