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Motivational Interviewing for Climate Advocacy

Presentation Slides:

cclusa.org/bridge-7-slides

BRIDGE Training #7

July 23, 2026

Welcome to CCL’s Thursday Night Live Training, a weekly training program of Citizens’ Climate Lobby that provides CCL supporters with access to in-depth training opportunities on topics relating to climate change and effective climate advocacy.

I’ll be your host Bill Barron and tonight’s training is Motivational Interviewing for Climate Advocacy, BRIDGE Training #7.

Learn the core mindset and tools of Motivational Interviewing from long time CCL leader John Sabin, including how to use OARS and listen for change talk so others discover their own reasons to support climate solutions. This training is being held before CCL's annual lobby day by request to help support all our volunteer leaders preparing for their meetings with Congress become more fluent with Motivational Interviewing approaches.

Thanks for joining us tonight. Share in the chat where you’re calling from and what brought you here. And one more thing before I do a housekeeping slide- with tonight’s training, the full unit 3 of BRIDGE is now live on CCL Community! So feel free to explore more of the unit with the BRIDGE link we’ll put in the chat!

Chat:

Follow along with Tonight’s slides: https://cclusa.org/bridge-7-slides

Log your training: https://community.citizensclimate.org/log_training?sf_id=a5yUP000000EAifYAG

CCL Community Training Page (where recording will be posted by tomorrow): https://community.citizensclimate.org/BRIDGE/Unit-3/Training-1

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Housekeeping

Everyone is muted. This meeting is being recorded
For Q&A, use the Q&A icon to type/upvote
Your Zoom screen set up:

Raise Hand

Mute/ Unmute

Chat

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Your Presenter:

John Sabin

Group Leader,

OH Lorain County

and Psychotherapist

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Three Learning Goals

Listen for and reflect common values and shared goals.

Speak respectfully and with humility.

Understand and embody the spirit of motivational interviewing.

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1

2

3

4

Overview of MI

Reflective Listening Skills

Speaking Skills

Spirit of MI

Agenda

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Photo by Sümeyye Yazıcı on Pexels

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https://www.pexels.com/photo/golden-gate-bridge-208745/

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Connecting not Correcting

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Find the other person’s motivation to act on climate and support it.

Basic strategy of MI:

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To catch a fish you have to think like a fish!

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Open-ended questions
Affirmations
Reflections
Summaries

Reflective Listening: OARS

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Open-ended questions

How?

What?

When?

Where?

Why?

Who?

Photo by Ivan Xolod on Pexels

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Photo by Mawuli Tofah on Pexels

Affirmations

“Affirm the goodness of the other person.”

~Amanda Ripley

Photo by Mawuli Tofah on Pexels

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Reflections

Paraphrase

Empathically

Photo by Lorenzo Manera on Pexels

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Change Talk

Advantages of change

Disadvantages of status quo

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Listen for and reflect…

Values

Priorities

Concerns

…that support our ask

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Highlighting “change talk”

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Purpose of reflections

create emotional safety
show understanding
build common ground
highlight change talk

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“What I hear you saying is…”

Photo by Christina Morillo on Pexels

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Example of a reflection

“Getting rid of fossil fuels would be devastating to coal miners. I think it would be devastating to middle class workers all across the country.”

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Example of a reflection

“I get that protecting coal miners and other middle class workers is important to you.”

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Summaries

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Open-ended questions
Affirmations
Reflections
Summaries

Reflective Listening: OARS

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Questions?

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Elicit permission
Provide information
Elicit their response

When you want to talk: EPE

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Can I share what I think?
What I understand is…
What do you think about that?

EPE Example:

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Show humility

“What I think…”

“What I’ve read (or heard)...”

“From my perspective…”

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Be brief

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It takes two years to

learn to speak, and sixty

to learn to keep quiet.”

– Ernest Hemingway

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When you want to talk:

Ask permission

Show humility

Be brief

Ask what they think

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Practice!

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What do you think about UFOs/UAPs and the possibility of extraterrestrial life?

Photo by Derpy CG on Pexels

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The Spirit of MI: PACE

Partnership
Acceptance
Compassion
Evocation

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Partnership

Working together
The CCL team and the Congressional office are on the same team

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Acceptance

Accept the other as they are
Don’t try to change them
Don’t try to persuade

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Inhibit the Righting Reflex

Photo by Alexander Popovkin on Pexels

The Righting Reflex. [1.5 minutes] One way we avoid triggering reactance is by inhibiting what we call “the righting reflex.” Now, if you see a sign like this CCL logo, your instinct might be to straighten it. We call this the “righting reflex.” In biology, the righting reflex is the body’s tendency to correct itself when thrown off balance. In MI, it means that when we hear someone say something that to us is obviously incorrect, our instinct is to correct it, to straighten it. But in order to practice MI, we have to inhibit this righting reflex. Imagine that someone came into your house, and they started straightening the photos hanging on your walls. Wouldn’t that seem rude? How much worse would it be if they visited your mind and started straightening out the beliefs and ideas they perceived as off kilter? In order to establish the kind of respectful, trusting relationship that has the best chance of influencing the other person, we must refrain from correcting what we perceive to be the other person’s errors. It doesn’t mean that we can never offer correcting information, but we have to do that in a particular way, and we need to watch for the knee jerk tendency to correct the moment we hear someone say something that sounds wrong.

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Compassion

Wanting to alleviate suffering
What are the concerns and worries of the other person?

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Evocation

Change talk
Common ground
Values
Priorities

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Evocation depends on genuine curiosity!

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The Spirit of MI: PACE

Partnership
Acceptance
Compassion
Evocation

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Polyvagal Theory

3 States of the nervous system

Social Engagement
Fight or Flight
Freeze

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Fight or Flight

angry, frustrated, anxious, scared

Photos by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels

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Freeze

numb, depressed, shut down, hopeless

Photos by Engin Akyurt and Yan Krukau on Pexels

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Social Engagement

calm, curious, compassionate, present

Photos by PNW Production and RDNE Stock Project on Pexels

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How to access the

social engagement state?

deep breathing/singing/music
meditation/prayer
yoga/dance/movement
safe social contact

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Practice!

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You got this!

It’s going to be a great Lobby Day

Time for Questions!

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Review of Past Trainings

Thursday, June 11 - Lobbying with Impact: �How to Prepare and Show Up Strong for Your Congressional Meetings

Thursday, June 18 - Summer Conference & Lobby Day Q&A

Thursday, June 25 - The Scale of Support: � Defining the Next Step (BRIDGE Training #6)

Thursday, July 2 - Climate Advocate Lobby Training

Thursday, July 16 - Summer Conference Lobby Training #1

Tuesday, July 21 - Summer Conf. Training #2 and Q&A

Recordings posted on CCL Community training pages

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Final steps:

Save the chat
Find recordings
Share online
Log your attendance

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https://www.pexels.com/photo/golden-gate-bridge-208745/

Questions? �Ask on CCL Community’s Forums: cclusa.org/forums

Thank you!