When the world feels unliveable

Finding a way through collapse paralysis

Even now, there is life happening – beneath the grief, beneath the paralysis, beneath the ache.

I’ve been finding it hard to engage with anything lately. Since truly confronting collapse – not just in my mind, but with my whole body – everything seems to have lost its grip on me. Social media feels like noise. The news feels unbearable. Even Substack, which felt promising at first, has started to feel overwhelming.

I’ve only been on here for a few weeks, but already I find myself scrolling past posts I know I’d normally connect with, unable to take in more ideas, more words.

Most people in my life don’t want to talk about it, or if they do, they brush it off. They remind me that people have always predicted doom, that life goes on, that things aren’t that bad. But I know what I know, and no amount of reassurance can change that.

My husband gets it. We talk about it often, but lately even those conversations have started to circle the same drain.

“We need land. We need to grow food. We need to get out of this rental.”

But we can’t yet. We’re stuck, and being stuck makes it hard to know what to do with my mind.

Scrolling used to be my default – that mindless, twitchy checking of feeds that gave me just enough distraction to feel like I was “keeping up.” But now, social media feels toxic. The endless dopamine chase, the curated positivity, the performative outrage – I can’t stomach it. So I’ve stopped. But without scrolling, I feel unmoored.

I’ve tried filling the void with books, but nothing feels meaningful. I open my Kindle app, flick through titles, and everything just feels… pointless. I’ve tried podcasts – The Emerald, The Great Turning – these have helped, but even they can feel like too much sometimes. I start to wonder if this is just how it’s going to feel now: stuck, empty, restless.

I know I can’t stay here, though. And I’m learning that the way out isn’t what I expected.

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1. Start Small – Really Small

I wanted to find purpose – something big enough to match the scale of collapse. But lately, I’ve realised the only thing that makes sense is to start small.

I go outside and touch the plants. I let my children lead me in play. I run my hands through the soil in our small veggie garden, even if it’s just a patch of weeds at the moment.

Small things – physical things – are what tether me when my mind spirals. A cup of coffee made slowly and deliberately. Kneading dough. Sitting with my children and actually watching them instead of half-listening while thinking about what’s next.

It’s tempting to believe these acts are insignificant – that in the face of global collapse, they’re meaningless. But I think that’s the lie we’ve been told – that small, grounded acts can’t matter unless they’re tied to some bigger outcome.

The truth is, they matter because they’re small. Because they remind me that I’m here, right now, in a body, on this earth.

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2. Make Space for Beauty

For a long time, I thought beauty was indulgent. It felt self-indulgent to arrange flowers on the table or light a candle at dinner. But beauty is what brings me back when I feel like I’m fading.

Beauty doesn’t fix anything. But it softens the edges.

I’ve started paying attention to the light again – how it slants through the trees in the morning or catches on my children’s hair. I’ve started putting music on in the house again – not podcasts or news or anything "productive," just music that feels like home.

3. Remember That You’re an Animal

When I can’t seem to think straight, I remember that I’m not designed to process this much input. I’m not wired to hold the weight of planetary collapse in my mind all the time. None of us are.

When I feel trapped in my thoughts, I move. I stretch. I go for a walk, not because it’s good for me, but because my body craves motion like a thirsty plant craves water.

If I can’t get outside, I lie down on the floor – not in some structured meditation pose, just flat on my back, limbs sprawled out. There’s something about pressing my body into the ground that helps me feel real again.

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4. Learn to Sit With the Void

The impulse to fill the void – with social media, with noise, with endless scrolling – is really just a defence against stillness.

And yet, stillness is often the only thing that helps.

There’s a moment, after I’ve resisted the urge to reach for my phone, when everything feels empty – and it’s awful. My mind races; my heart starts to pound. But if I can sit through it, something else happens.

The emptiness stops feeling like absence and starts to feel like presence.

I remember that there’s a whole world here – one that doesn’t need to be consumed or categorised. Just felt.

I think that’s what I’ve been avoiding: the ache of being fully present with all that’s unfolding. The grief, the helplessness, the fear – it’s all there, waiting to be acknowledged.

And when I do, I find something else too – something deeper and more solid. Not hope, exactly, but belonging. A sense that even if everything unravels, I am still part of this world.

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5. Ask Different Questions

I used to ask myself: What should I do? How can I fix this? But those questions only made me feel more paralysed.

Now, I’m learning to ask gentler questions:

• What does my body need right now?

• What would it feel like to let go of productivity for a while?

• Where can I soften?

• What feels alive right now, even in this mess?

I don’t always like the answers. Sometimes the answer is that I need to cry. Sometimes it’s that I need to lie on the floor and let the ache run through me. But more often than not, the answer is something surprisingly simple: Make a cup of tea. Go outside. Breathe.

There’s no five-step plan that makes collapse easier to bear. But when everything feels unliveable, the only way through is to live.

Not in the abstract, but in the grounded and ordinary ways that remind me I'm still here.

Even now, there is life happening – beneath the grief, beneath the paralysis, beneath the ache. And if I sit with it long enough, sometimes I remember I am a part of it.

I wonder if anyone else feels like this. And so I decide to share.