The Art of Not Losing Your Shit When Everything’s on Fire
Unpacking “Mind Your Mindset” from your Personal Power Playbook
Hey there BΛDΛZZ,
It’s been a few weeks since I popped into your inbox, and to be fully transparent, getting this edition out is more a feat of stubbornness and defiance than strength and resolve. Not because I don’t believe in the strategy we’re unpacking today but because I’ve been struggling with it myself over the past few weeks. There’s something deeply uncomfortable about writing about mental resilience when you’ve had to talk yourself out of rage-quitting democracy entirely at least three times this month.
But maybe that’s exactly why I need to write this. Because if I’m struggling with maintaining my resolve, I guarantee some of you are too. And pretending otherwise would be about as authentic as a campaign promise in October.
When Your Brain Becomes a Hostile Territory
Staying mentally strong during chaotic times is tough especially when your brain is being a world-class azzhole. It will serve up a steady diet of worst-case scenarios, remind you of every time you’ve failed at something, and whisper seductively about how much easier it would be to just give up and binge-watch reality TV until the apocalypse arrives.
Every day, every feed, every newscast these days is doom-scrolling, which just sucks because ignoring it won’t make it go away. I feel simultaneously wired and exhausted, angry and helpless. My inner monologue sounds like a conspiracy theorist who’s had too much coffee: “See? It’s all falling apart! There’s nothing you can do! Your little newsletter isn’t going to save democracy! Why are you even trying?”
That voice – that defeatist, hopeless, why-bother voice – isn’t actually telling the truth though. It’s telling you what it thinks will keep you safe. And in our brain’s ancient logic, giving up feels safer than trying and potentially failing.
But here’s the thing about safety: sometimes the safest thing you can do is the most dangerous thing you can think of. Sometimes the safest thing is to keep fighting even when you can’t see how you’ll win.
The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy Trap (Or How to Accidentally Make Yourself Right)
If you believe you’re powerless, you become powerless. Not because positive thinking is magic (it’s not), and not because you can manifest your way out of systemic problems (you can’t), but because your beliefs about your capabilities directly influence your actions.
When you believe you have no power, you stop exercising what power you do have. You don’t call your representatives because “they won’t listen anyway.” You don’t vote because “it doesn’t matter.” You don’t speak up because “who cares what I think?” And guess what? In a self-fulfilling prophecy that would make Nostradamus proud, you end up with exactly as much power as you believed you had: NONE.
I’m not suggesting you positive-think your way out of genuine systemic oppression or pretend that individual action alone can solve collective problems. That’s toxic positivity bullshit, and we don’t do that here. What I am saying is that believing in your complete powerlessness becomes a prison with a lock on the inside.
Your mindset isn’t about denying reality – it’s about refusing to surrender the power you actually do have while you work to build more.
The “Mind Your Mindset” Strategy: Mental Armor for Democracy
Ready to fortify the battlefield between your ears? Here are approaches that acknowledge both the genuine difficulty of these times and your genuine capacity to navigate them:
1. Permission to Rest (The Revolutionary Act of Not Burning Out)
Tactic: Build strategic rest into your resistance
This isn’t about being lazy or checking out – it’s about sustainability. You can’t fight effectively if you’re running on fumes and spite:
· Schedule regular news breaks (yes, actually put them in your calendar)
· Create sacred spaces where current events aren’t allowed (your bedroom, dinner table, wherever you need sanctuary)
· Practice the art of saying “I need to step back from this conversation right now”
· Remember that taking care of yourself isn’t selfish – it’s strategic
Example: Robin realized she was checking news updates every fifteen minutes, even during family dinners. She bought a physical alarm clock, started leaving her phone in another room overnight, and designated Sundays as “news-free days.” Rather than feeling disconnected, she found she was more focused and effective when she did engage with current events because she wasn’t operating from a place of constant overwhelm.
2. The “Yes, And” Approach to Crisis
Tactic: Acknowledge difficulty while maintaining agency
Shout out to my improv peeps who practice “Yes, And” for fun. It’s a tool that works just as well for navigating political chaos as it does for creating comedy sketches because both require accepting what’s happening while figuring out how to move forward constructively. This isn’t about toxic positivity or pretending everything is fine. It’s about holding multiple truths simultaneously.
· “This situation is genuinely difficult AND I have capabilities to respond to it”
· “The system has serious problems AND there are still opportunities to influence it”
· “I feel overwhelmed right now AND this feeling will pass”
· “Progress is slow AND small actions can accumulate into significant change”
Example: When Jesse saw his child’s overcrowded classroom and learned about upcoming budget cuts, instead of swinging between “public education is doomed” and “teachers will figure it out,” he practiced holding complexity: “Our schools are genuinely underfunded AND my voice at school board meetings and budget hearings can influence local decisions.” This approach helped him become a sustained advocate for education funding rather than just complaining to other parents in the pickup line.
3. Boundary Setting for Mental Survival
Tactic: Protect your mental space like you’d protect your physical space
While “agreeing to disagree” is an easy escape hatch, it feels like a cop-out when we’re talking about values that affect real people’s lives. At the same time, you wouldn’t let random people walk into your house and rearrange your furniture, criticize your décor choices, or camp out on your couch indefinitely. Stop letting them rearrange your mental furniture. As my bestie reminds me from time to time – “No” is a whole answer.
The goal isn’t to become a hermit or create an echo chamber, but to distinguish between conversations that challenge you productively and interactions that just drain your battery without charging anything useful in return. There’s a difference between engaging with difficult ideas and being someone’s emotional dumping ground so:
· Limit exposure to people who drain your energy without adding value to your understanding
· Exit conversations that have devolved into performative outrage rather than productive discussion
· Unfollow accounts that consistently make you feel worse without making you more informed
Example: Marcie had a family member who turned every gathering into a performance of political outrage, complete with dramatic gestures and inflammatory language designed to provoke rather than persuade. She realized these weren't conversations – they were one-person shows where she was cast as the unwilling audience. Instead of avoiding family events or enduring the verbal assault, she started responding with “I can see this is really important to you, and I’m not the right audience for this conversation” before physically moving to talk with someone else. This boundary allowed her to maintain family relationships while refusing to be anyone's emotional punching bag.
4. The Long Game Mindset
Tactic: Shift from sprint mentality to sustainable engagement
Democracy isn’t saved in a single news cycle. Building your mental resilience for the long haul means:
· Celebrating small wins instead of only focusing on ultimate victories
· Understanding that progress often looks like preventing things from getting worse
· Building habits that you can maintain for years, not just months
· Finding meaning in the process, not just the outcomes
Example: Instead of burning himself out trying to follow every political development, Nathan chose three specific issues to track closely and check in on others monthly rather than daily. He started measuring success by his consistency in taking action rather than by whether his actions immediately changed policy outcomes. This approach helped him maintain engagement over years rather than cycles of intense activism followed by exhausted withdrawal.
Putting It Into Practice: Your “Mind Your Mindset” Action Plan
Your brain is not your enemy, but it’s also not automatically your ally. Here’s your plan to make it work for you instead of against you:
1. TODAY: Do a mental health audit. Notice what information diet you’ve been feeding yourself and how it’s affecting your mood, energy, and sense of agency. Write down three specific changes you could make to feel more empowered and less overwhelmed. Pick one and implement it before you go to bed tonight.
2. THIS WEEK: Practice the reality sandwich technique. Every time you catch yourself in all-or-nothing thinking (“everything is hopeless” or “if I just think positively enough, everything will be fine”), reframe it to hold multiple truths. Notice how this changes your emotional response and your sense of what actions are possible.
3. NEXT WEEK: Implement one significant boundary to protect your mental energy. This might be limiting news consumption, setting boundaries with draining people, or creating news-free zones in your physical space. Document how this boundary affects your overall resilience and effectiveness.
The Grace to Fight Another Day
Here’s what I’ve learned in my recent struggles with maintaining resolve: giving yourself permission to step back doesn’t make you weak or uncommitted. It makes you human. And humans who acknowledge their limitations tend to be more effective over time than humans who pretend they don’t have any.
Some days you’ll be the person holding space for others who are struggling. Other days, you’ll need someone to hold space for you. Both are necessary roles in a sustained movement for change.
The goal isn’t to feel optimistic and energized every single day – that’s not realistic and frankly, it’s not required. The goal is to maintain enough mental resilience to keep showing up, even when showing up looks different than it did yesterday.
I’m writing this article on a day when I feel strong enough to remind you (and myself) that we’re not powerless, even when we feel powerless. Tomorrow, I might need you to remind me. That’s not failure – that’s community.
So give yourself permission to rest when you need it. Give yourself grace when you fall short of your own expectations. Give others grace when they need to step back for a while. And when you’re feeling strong, hold space for those who are struggling to remember their own power.
Our republic needs citizens who can sustain their engagement over years and decades, not just news cycles. That requires tending to our mental resilience like the precious resource it is.
The battle for democracy isn’t just fought in voting booths and town halls – it’s fought between your ears every single day. Make sure you’re winning that one too, BΛDΛZZ.
What mindset challenges have you faced in sustaining your civic engagement? How do you maintain hope without falling into toxic positivity?
If you missed previous editions in this series:
· Personal Power Playbook overview
· Speak Up
Subscribe to CITIZEN BΛDΛZZ newsletter directly on Substack
P.S. If you’re struggling with maintaining your resolve right now, please know that you’re not alone. The fact that you’re still here, still reading newsletters about personal power and civic engagement, is evidence that you haven’t given up. Some days, that’s enough. Take the rest when you need it, and show up when you can. We’ll be here when you’re ready to fight again.
