Everything feels off. So what do we do?

Someone sent me a message the other day:

“How do we stay aware and angry enough to create change, while still protecting our minds as we get on with our small everyday lives? We do matter, of course, but you know what I mean.”

Yes. I do.

The world has felt especially shite recently. Has it for you too?

The Epstein files have been released, finally. And yet nothing is happening. Some of the most powerful men in the world have been named, and still there are no arrests. No visible consequences.

It leaves this heavy question hanging in the air: now what?

After a while it all starts to blur. The US feels unstable in a way that’s hard to put into words. Lies and conspiracies everywhere. Open talk of civil war. A man in charge who should not be anywhere near that kind of power.

And here in the UK, it’s not exactly calm either. Political chaos dressed up as competence. Public services fraying at the edges. The sense that things are quietly falling apart. Then there’s the climate. The violence. The division. You know the list.

And here’s the tension: how do we stay awake to all of that without it swallowing us whole?

So many of my clients have been bringing this up all week. They’ve been talking about a heavy, sick feeling. Not knowing what to do with the fear. A few said they’re stuck doom-scrolling, unable to look away. Others have said they’ve gone numb, which scares them more. Because how do we care enough without breaking?

I don’t have a nice and neat answer. But I know this: we’re not meant to hold all of it, all the time. We can’t. Our nervous systems aren’t built for this constant flood of grief and rage and horror. And yet ignoring it doesn’t work either.

So here we are, walking the edge.

I had coffee with a friend the other day. We talked about it all. Sat in our favourite café, slightly rattled, talking about the world unravelling.

And then, in the same breath, we talked about what we were making for dinner and how, like every other middle-aged woman right now, we both really love Bad Bunny.

It felt disjointed. But also necessary.

This is how we carry on. Two things at once.

Later I went for a walk in the park. I noticed a robin (I always think it’s my mum coming to say hello). The ground was still wet, and I saw the first green shoots pushing through.

This felt important. A reminder that things grow even when everything else feels stuck or broken. It helped my frazzled brain.

I don’t think anyone’s coming to save us. I don’t think they ever were.

I think the change we want is already happening, slowly. Mostly led by women who are done. Not just angry, but DONE. Done being quiet. Done tolerating bullshit. Done trying to thrive in a world that gaslights them.

And I know men who feel this too. The system screws them over as well, just in different ways.

Something is shifting. I feel it in rooms where women stop shrinking. In the moment someone sits back and says, “Actually, no.” In conversations that would have gone very differently five years ago.

I see it in my friends too. Intelligent, warm-hearted, brave and on fire. Women who are done twisting themselves into something more acceptable.

Person by person. Choice by choice.

This isn’t about blind optimism. It’s about choosing to keep showing up. To keep walking the edge, even when it feels like the hardest thing in the world. To rest when you need to (I spent Thursday in bed, binge-watching The Unforgotten). To keep doing the next right thing, even when the big picture looks pretty grim.

This is hard, I know. We don’t have to hold all of it at once.