Getting Grounded & Shifting Paradigms For The Long Game

Thoughts On Getting More Ready For This Era Over The Long Term

Aug 07, 2025

Keyboard keys spelling the word “SHIFT” on a faded red background. Photo by Miguel Á. Padriñán via Pexels.

QUICK NOTE ON ZOOMS NEXT WEEK

We’re planning 3 regularly scheduled zooms per week to catch various time zones. Same topic for the whole week. Registration links here for next week. More on the events page —

MONDAY — Finding Robustness Around Us & Doing More With It, Aug 11, 2025 (earlier evening)
WEDNESDAY — Finding Robustness Around Us & Doing More With It, Aug 13, 2025 (later evening)
FRIDAY — Finding Robustness Around Us & Doing More With It, Aug 15, 2025 (afternoon-ish)

FINDING FUNCTIONING THINGS

📝 Here is a post just to say that hey humans make it through huge crises… and a whole heck of a lot of us are going to make it through this one.

That doesn't sound inspiring because everyone isn't going to make it through. But it's true.

But I think sometimes we allow the fear to have more power than it needs to have. We are going to have loss. That is going to be really hard.

But we're also going to need to take care of each other as we deal with all of that.

We can. Because a heck of a lot of us are going to still be here.

Being able to see those possibilities realistically can help us to get through it as we go. Because we really don't know what's coming specifically. Yet we do know there will be great challenges.

I think sometimes we have a hard time recognizing the reality of what we do have, and of the art of the possible.

Everything is changing. I get that. I talk about it a lot.

But a whole lot of things that we need as a society and as a civilization are still functioning, and in some cases functioning pretty well (next week's Fierce Community zooms are focused on this).

That's really really really really good.

I think we need to recognize that and anchor to it and do more to make sure that those things that we want as a society and as a civilization stay around as much as we can get them to (thus these particular zooms next week).

COUNTERING DENIAL

🗨️🗯️ We can start working on that by talking about this stuff in the groups and families and friends that we have.

We can work on it by working through denial we might have, or by talking through that denial with others.

🔺 We can work on changing our paradigm to align more with this new current set of things that are unfolding that we need to navigate and deal with as they come.

Big trauma and shocks bring denial, freezing, inaction, and uncertainty about ways forward. Uncertainty about options. Uncertainty about what's the best stuff to do.

But really we're all going to have to make it up as we go.

And also, we know the basics from experts who have told us what's going to happen during all of this and how to counter it and find ways through.

📋 Consensus about shared agendas is one way... but right now we're not really near that as a society. But we could get there. And we might, as things get more disrupted.

📋 The more easily accessible stuff that we can be doing has to do with connection and community and coalitions and working together and civic engagement.

It's being with people. ❤️ It's finding joy. It's finding humor. It's finding love and gratitude in all kinds of relationships and people and the world around us.

It's looking people in the eye.

It's showing up for things.

It's being empowered and engaged in something somewhere versus being disempowered and disengaged, and hiding out and putting up shields and pulling away.

Humans and our collective humanity are going to end up being stronger and more radiant and shiny in the end than the darkness of concrete and prisons and meanness and retribution and targeted hate.

We have to hold on to that.

We have to be doing things to grow and strengthen all of that: our humanity and our connection and our communities.

It's unbelievable what's happening. I get that.

It's shock after shock after shock after shock after shock.

We can focus on the shocks and the fear and the terror and the unbelievableness. Or we can look at it even, from time to time. It's good to have some situational awareness.

THE FIERCENESS

But we can also try and shift some of our energy and attention to the connection and community and humanity and love and light and all that. Nobody wants to talk about that love stuff which is why I refer to it that way.

But it's the hard stuff.

And it's also the courage and fierceness we're going to need to get through what's coming at us.

So getting better at talking about the love stuff is going to help. Which is why we moved the zooms in which we talk about heart stuff to later in September (from this week), because it’s important stuff and we wanted more lead time for it.

But easier than that is just starting with connecting with humans. That's really what the love stuff is about anyway.

I feel like I repeat myself a lot but I also find that different people are reading and we're all in different places and in different moments. You never know who needs to read a particular thing in a particular moment.

So I'm here once again telling you I know this is going to be really hard. It already is.

But humans get through hard stuff.

We get fierce. We get creative. We get fired up. We get wily. We find workarounds. We make things happen, sometimes very quietly but yet very intentionally and persistently.

It's okay to switch into those modes.

It's okay to accept that we're in a rough place. It's okay to process. It's okay to grieve.

It's okay to do what you need to do to get through all of this.

THIS LONG GAME & THE PARADIGM SHIFTING

The thing is that we need each other for the long term. So we need to be playing a long game and not just going around expecting that we're all going to be super active out in public right now. That's not going to get us through over the long haul.

We need people behind the scenes doing lots of things that we don't talk about.

Some of that is just taking care of ourselves so we can keep operating.

🙈🙉 But denial is a bear.

Denying that we're in this and that everything is different and changing is a natural default.

But if you're stuck there I would like to gently encourage you to pull out of that denial and to try and shift into this other paradigm.

The paradigm where everything is changing but we can get through it. And where we get through it together, with connection and community and humanity and love and all of that.

And it's not cheesy and soft.

It's deep and hard and fierce and intentional and persistent.

And it's energy we can get in touch with and carry forward. It's more productive than denial. It's better able to help us get through the long-term.

Anyway. 📜 This post is too long. One of these days I will get a bit more sleep and be slightly less delirious... and then perhaps the writing will get tighter. For today this is what I've got.

Be well, or as well as you can do in this moment.

Find some things to be joyful about. Find people to be joyful with. And then do more of that. Do a daily gratitude list. Find beauty. Take care of humans, including you.

We have options. It doesn't mean it's going to solve it.

We don't have to solve it right now.

Right now we have to hold some space and hold the line and hold our humanity. We have to get grounded and stay functional and be ready for what's next. If you’re looking for community for that, join us on a zoom next week.

We go forward and through together.

🔦❤️⚡

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