the ways we were taught to cope are failing us
/rōot/ awakenings post # 16 - on grief, rage, and co-regulation in the polycrisis
This past week, I’ve woken up more times than I can count with a heaviness in my chest—the kind that makes it hard to pull air into your lungs. Each morning, I braced myself as I reached for my phone, never knowing what horror, heartbreak, and helplessness would be waiting on the screen. Another genocide. Another community uprooted. Another law stripping away rights and humanity with the stroke of a pen.
And then, waking up one morning, it hit me: I can’t keep doing this. None of us can.
We’re being asked to survive what feels like the collapse of everything we thought was certain—livestreamed in real-time, etched into our nervous systems with every scroll. We’ve been conditioned to believe that it’s up to us to "regulate," to "use our tools." And I’ll admit, there have been times when I’ve been part of that conditioning—reminding others (and myself) to lean on self-care, to breathe, to ground, to do what we can to stay afloat. But lately, the question that keeps coming up for me is, how do we regulate when our breath feels stuck behind our ribs, when survival itself has become political, when every exhale is followed by the next crisis, the next loss, the next betrayal?
We’ve entered an era of polycrisis—a time of overlapping global traumas exposing the fragility of our institutions and the limits of personal resilience. A time where we barely grieve one loss before the next tragedy arrives. Where we’re expected to move from mourning to mobilizing without pause. The weight of all of this is more than any one person can carry alone.
But here’s the thing—we were never meant to carry any of this alone.
Our ancestors—those who survived unspeakable horrors, who endured colonization, enslavement, war, and forced displacement—knew this truth. They couldn’t change the course of history’s devastation, but they could survive it by turning toward each other. By gathering in circles. By sharing songs, stories, prayers, and meals. By holding each other as they wept. By creating community as a living act of resistance and survival.
We need that now.
We need to go back to the roots of collective care, to the ancient knowledge buried beneath the noise of "self-care culture" that tells us we must fix ourselves alone. There is no self-regulation without co-regulation. There is no healing without holding. There is no surviving this moment without each other.
Survival isn’t about standing alone in strength, but leaning into one another in tenderness. It’s about returning to the small rituals that tether us to each other and to the earth: sharing a meal, lighting a candle, telling a story, singing an old song, sitting in silence together. This is how we slow the spiral, how we remember our breath, how we create space for grief—and for life—to move through us.
a compassionate reframe
The world is asking too much of us right now. So let us ask for more from each other. When the ground beneath us shakes—when the air becomes thick with grief and rage—it’s easy to believe we must stand strong on our own. But we were never meant to. The coping strategies so many of us were taught weren’t designed for life in a polycrisis. They weren’t created to help us survive the onslaught of violence, erasure, and systemic betrayal we are witnessing daily.
But the practices of our ancestors were.
Let us gather. Let us mourn aloud. Let us rage together. Let us remember that we are descendants of people who made it through their storms by finding their strength in community.
reflection prompts
As you sit with the heaviness of this moment, I invite you to reflect on the following:
- When was the last time you noticed you were holding your breath? What made you feel like you could release it?
- What communal or ancestral practices can you return to when it feels like too much?
- Who are the people—past or present—you can gather with in these times? Who can you reach toward when the weight becomes unbearable?
- How can you help create a space, even a small one, for collective mourning and care in your community?
one final thought
In moments like this, our survival lies not in how well we cope alone—but in how deeply we turn toward each other. Our grief is valid. Our rage is holy. Our exhaustion is real. And none of it was meant to be carried in isolation.
Community is the ancestral wisdom that will see us through. So let’s gather. Collective grief. Collective care. Collective survival. This is the invitation. Let’s breathe together. Let’s remember that we are connected to each other, not just by sorrow, but by love.
In solidarity + gratitude,
in case you missed it . . .
I recently launched a community reflection + writing group where we’re using writing prompts inspired by the book On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder to reflect and process current events. The lessons in the book are very timely and have inspired me to take on a special project where I’m writing an essay each day for 20 days in response to the lesson from the book. Here are a few of of the essays I’ve written so far. You can find the full set of essays using the link below.
