Staying Human in Unsettled Times

Staying Human in Unsettled Times

There are moments when I feel the ground shifting beneath my feet, not with spectacle or drama, but with persistence. Something fundamental feels as though it is being renegotiated, both personally and collectively. I notice it in conversations that end sooner than expected. I feel it in my body when I pause before beginning the day, aware that what once felt predictable no longer does.

I am writing this from Querétaro, México, where living at a different pace has sharpened my listening. Distance has not made me less connected to what is unfolding in the United States. If anything, it has made certain patterns easier to see. When the noise softens just enough, what becomes visible is not only political tension, but widespread strain on the human nervous system.

Many people are tired. Not disengaged or indifferent, but depleted. There is fatigue from constant alerts, from moral urgency layered on top of everyday responsibility, from the sense that no position is ever sufficient and no response ever complete. Beneath that fatigue, what I most often encounter in myself and others is grief that has not been given a place to land.

There is grief for a sense of stability that once felt assumed. Grief for institutions that no longer inspire trust. Grief for relationships strained by difference, silence, or exhaustion. Grief for identities and values that feel increasingly under pressure. This grief is not weakness. It is an intelligent response to loss.

What concerns me is how rarely we are encouraged to acknowledge this directly. Instead, we are pulled toward urgency, certainty, and performance. We are nudged to react faster, speak louder, and simplify more than our inner experience allows. Over time, this takes a toll. When people remain in sustained states of threat, empathy narrows and complexity becomes harder to hold.

This is where the personal and the political intersect in ways that are often overlooked. A dysregulated nervous system is not well suited for discernment. It defaults to protection rather than understanding. It seeks certainty rather than wisdom. When this becomes widespread, public life loses its capacity for nuance, reflection, and repair.

The question I find myself returning to is not how to stay informed or engaged, but how to stay human. Alignment, as I understand it, does not require constant activation. It asks for presence, discernment, and an honest relationship with one’s limits. It asks us to respond rather than react, even when pressure pushes us toward immediacy.

For me, alignment right now looks like being intentional about what I take in and when. It means noticing when my body has reached capacity and respecting that boundary rather than overriding it in the name of obligation. It also means choosing conversations that allow for complexity, even when that complexity resists easy resolution.

This does not mean withdrawing from the world or pretending that what is happening does not matter. It means tending the conditions that allow care to remain possible over time. Burnout does not produce wisdom. Regulation makes space for it.

One of the subtler challenges of this moment is the pressure to perform values rather than live them. Performance demands visibility and immediacy. Alignment asks for consistency and integrity, even when no one is watching. Confusing the two often leads to exhaustion rather than impact.

Staying human means allowing ourselves to feel without immediately converting emotion into opinion. Anger can inform without leading. Fear can be acknowledged without being obeyed. Sorrow can be honored without becoming identity. Emotions are information. They are not instructions.

When we allow space for feeling, something important returns. We regain access to discernment. We remember that we are capable of choice even under pressure. From that place, engagement becomes more sustainable and less corrosive.

I am aware that reflection itself can be misread in polarized times. Thoughtfulness may be mistaken for avoidance, and nuance for indifference. I want to be clear that caring deeply does not require constant agitation, and commitment to justice does not demand perpetual urgency. There are many ways to stand for what matters, and one of them is remaining regulated enough to stay in relationship.

This is not easy work. It asks us to tolerate ambiguity, resist oversimplification, and remain present to grief without being overtaken by it. It asks us to choose depth over speed and integrity over performance.

If you are reading this and feeling unsettled, there is nothing wrong with you. If you are tired, that is not a personal failure. If you are questioning assumptions you once held with certainty, that may be a sign of awareness rather than confusion.

For now, I offer a single invitation. Ask yourself what helps you stay human in this moment, not ideally or abstractly, but practically. Trust whatever answer emerges. Let that be enough for today.

With care,
Mark