Finding Your Anchor When Everything Feels Unstable

The world feels like it's on fire. Again. Still. Always.

You open your phone and there's another crisis. Another injustice. Another reason to feel helpless. The news cycle doesn't pause, the emergencies don't take turns, and somewhere between doomscrolling and trying to stay informed, you've forgotten what it feels like to take a full breath.

If you're struggling with this right now, you're not alone. And you're not wrong for feeling it.

The Weight Isn't Equal

Here's something we need to name clearly: not everyone gets to look away. For marginalized communities (people whose identities, bodies, or existence are politicized, threatened, or erased) the "world on fire" isn't an abstract concept or a news story they can turn off. It's their rights being debated. Their safety being legislated. Their humanity being questioned in comment sections and courtrooms alike.

When you're Black, trans, undocumented, disabled, Muslim, or part of any community facing systemic harm, you don't get the luxury of escaping into normalcy. The fire is at your door. It's personal, it's constant, and it's exhausting in ways that people with more privilege may never fully grasp.

This means two things. First, if you do have the ability to step back, to take a break from the news, to focus on your own life without immediate consequence, that's a privilege worth acknowledging. And second, those of us with any measure of safety have a responsibility to be a safe space for those who don't.

Being a Refuge for Others

Sometimes the most meaningful thing you can offer someone who's directly in the line of fire is simply this: a place where they don't have to be "on." Where they're not expected to educate, explain, or justify their exhaustion. Where you believe them without needing proof. Where you show up in tangible ways, whether that's mutual aid, active listening, or just creating space that feels warm and human.

Being a safe space doesn't mean you have all the answers or that you're perfectly informed on every issue. It means you're willing to learn, to sit with discomfort, to use whatever privilege or resources you have in service of someone else's dignity and safety. It means not making your learning process their burden.

The Need to Escape Isn't Weakness

And here's the other truth we need to hold: sometimes people just need a place to escape. A conversation that isn't about the state of the world. A show that doesn't require emotional labor. A moment of silliness, or beauty, or absolute mundane normalcy.

This isn't denial. It's not apathy. It's survival.

You can care deeply about justice and still need to protect your nervous system. You can be committed to change and still require moments where you're not carrying the weight of everything wrong with the world. Rest is not betrayal. Joy is not complicity. Sometimes the most radical thing you can do is let yourself be human.

What You Can Control

When everything feels overwhelming, it helps to distinguish between what you can influence and what you can only witness. You can't fix systemic injustice from your living room at 2am. But you can support a mutual aid fund. You can check in on a friend. You can show up to a city council meeting. You can be kind to the person in front of you.

Small acts of care matter. Not because they solve everything, but because they remind us we're not powerless. Connection, purpose, even small moments of beauty: these aren't frivolous distractions. They're what sustain us for the long work of staying engaged.

Building Resilience Alongside the Fear

Humans have always lived with uncertainty. With crisis. With the gap between the world as it is and the world as it should be. And throughout history, people have found ways to keep going, not by pretending everything is fine, but by building pockets of meaning, ritual, and care within the chaos.

Feeling "okay" doesn't mean feeling fine about everything. It doesn't mean you've found some perfect balance or transcended your anxiety about the state of things. It might just mean you've found enough stability to keep showing up as your values call you to. Enough ground beneath your feet to extend a hand to someone else.

You're Allowed to Be Tired

If you're exhausted, that's valid. If you need to step back, that's okay. If you're angry, grief-stricken, or numb, all of that is a reasonable response to living through what we're living through.

And if you're part of a community that doesn't get to step back, please know: your exhaustion is seen. You shouldn't have to carry this alone. There are people trying to be better accomplices, better co-conspirators, better friends. Keep asking for what you need. Keep protecting your peace where you can find it.

The world may be on fire, but we're still here. Still finding each other. Still building small shelters of care and dignity and hope. That's not nothing.

That's everything.