Living Through Unbearable Times: Finding Your Footing

If stress and anxiety are weighing you down, you’re not alone.

Feeling the Weight of the World

There’s a heaviness in the air these days, a kind of collective ache that many of us register in our bodies before we ever name it. The news brings the daily barrage of unremitting suffering and cruelty. The political climate feels volatile and scary. The planet itself seems to be crying out. Beneath the surface of our individual lives runs a current of grief, dread, and disorientation that is hard to escape, even when we try to tune things out for our own sanity.

Many people describe feeling more irritable, more exhausted, or more detached than they used to be. There is a sense that we are bracing for the next piece of bad news. Even moments of joy can feel fragile, as if they might disappear the second we let ourselves relax. These experiences are not personal failings. They are signs of a collective nervous system under immense strain.

Even those who are “holding it together” externally talk about an internal wobble, a sense of numbness or futility, as if hope requires too much effort and optimism feels naïve. What you are feeling is not a lack of resilience. It is a human response to an inhuman amount of pressure.

Finding Your Footing When Life Feels Unstable

Many people who seek therapy for anxiety, depression, and grief in San Francisco describe a strange duality: moving through their days, doing what is needed, showing up for work or family, yet sensing that something essential is slipping, such as stability, safety, meaning, or direction.

When the world around us feels unpredictable, our inner world often begins to mirror that instability. Old coping patterns tend to resurface. Sleep can become elusive. Small decisions may start to feel loaded. Some of us withdraw to conserve energy, while others over-function to maintain a sense of control. Most of us move back and forth between the two, trying to stay upright in a world that keeps shifting beneath our feet.

It is tempting to believe we should be doing better by staying informed, helping more, caring less, or toughening up. But we were never meant to metabolize this much global grief at once. The sadness, irritability, and exhaustion are not moral failures or character flaws. They are proportionate responses to an overwhelming reality.

Part of finding your footing is dropping the expectation that you are supposed to cope flawlessly. You don’t have to carry all of this alone.

Making Space for What is Meaningful

Creating a sense of balance does not require shutting down or turning away from pain. It often means creating small, intentional pockets of space, moments where you can pause long enough to feel what is true without being overtaken by it. These spaces might arise in relationships, in small rituals, in the rhythm of a morning routine, or in the protected container of therapy.

In these pockets of calm, the world’s sorrow does not disappear, but it becomes something you can hold rather than something that crushes you. In that space, subtle forms of beauty begin to appear: a smile from a stranger, a stretch of morning light across the floor, a plant unfurling a new leaf, or a song that touches something inside. These small moments are not trivial. They are reminders of what remains alive within you.

Depth therapy can provide a place to slow down enough to notice what is happening beneath the surface, the parts of you that are overwhelmed, the parts that are trying to cope, and the parts that still long for meaning, connection, or renewal. The goal is not to “fix” your feelings or force positivity. It is to make room for the truth of your inner world so that grief, anger, and uncertainty can soften into something more bearable and, over time, more integrated.

What Creates Ballast in Uncertain Times?

Even when everything around you feels unpredictable, there are practices that can help you feel more grounded and oriented:

• Predictable routines that restore a sense of rhythm

• Micro-connections that remind you you are not isolated (a text, a brief conversation, eye contact with someone who feels safe)

• Sensory anchors (warm tea, touchstones, weighted blankets, deep breathing, grounding touch)

• Nature contact (plants, light, sky, walking, noticing something alive)

• Creative practices (writing, drawing, playing music, gardening)

• A therapeutic space where your feelings have somewhere to land

• Limiting overstimulation (news intake, doomscrolling, constant comparison)

• Internal permission to feel how you feel

• Moments of meaning, however small, something that reminds you of who you are, what you value, or what still moves you

These practices act as repeated anchors, giving your mind and body a reliable point of reference when the world feels unpredictable.

Staying Human When the World Feels Inhumane

There is no fast track back to ease. But there is a way to keep your heart from hardening, even when everything around you feels harsh or unstable. This involves tending to the threads that make us feel our humanity: connection, empathy, imagination, and the capacity to feel deeply without collapsing under the weight of it all.

Staying human might mean allowing yourself to care while still protecting your limits. It might mean noticing your pain without assuming it makes you weak. It might mean seeking out connection even when isolation feels easier. Sometimes it simply means acknowledging that you are struggling rather than pretending you are fine.

Healing is possible even now. Hope is not the same as denial. It is an act of courage and a refusal to let despair claim your narrative. Hope is choosing to believe, even tentatively, that what is wounded can still be tended to, that there are parts of you worth nurturing, and that your inner life still matters, even in dark and disorienting times.

Finding Support and Connection

Therapy offers a space to slow down and notice what is happening inside you, even when the world feels overwhelming. It can help you make sense of difficult emotions, recognize patterns that drain your energy, and strengthen your capacity to respond to stress rather than be consumed by it. Through a consistent, compassionate therapeutic relationship, you can begin to reconnect with the parts of yourself that still feel alive, capable of hope, and able to engage with life in meaningful ways.

If you are struggling with depression, anxiety, or overwhelming stress, individual psychotherapy can provide a supportive space to explore your emotions, strengthen your capacity to cope, and reconnect with the parts of yourself that still feel alive and engaged. You do not have to face these times alone. Reach out today for a free telephone consultation to see if this approach feels right for you.