What Is Keeping Me Grounded Now
And 3 Practices That Might Help You
One thing above all has helped me stay grounded this year: staying connected to purpose. That may sound obvious because if you're reading this, you likely care about climate action, defending democracy, or some other critical mission, and we’re not easily shaken from commitments like these.
But in times like these, we need to do more to strengthen ourselves, both individually and collectively.
After all, as we face towering challenges from the outside, we also face exhaustion, sky-high burnout, and even despair within.
Reconnection is a profoundly helpful way to restore ourselves: reconnection to our sense of purpose, our sense of strength, and each other in our shared mission to safeguard the Earth and all its people.
This is always true. However, in tough times, it can be easily overlooked.
It's not unlike what mindfulness practitioners have observed: When we're under stress, we're less likely to practice, even though it's the most critical time to do so.
Here are three things I have found helpful:
1. Take some time to reflect on whether your sense of purpose has changed since the world was turned upside down in 2025. Mine certainly has.
After many years spent focused on advancing climate action and environmental sustainability, I am now motivated by the equally vital need to support the people doing this work in ways that build psychological resilience, reduce emotional burnout, and foster connection.
I think of it as "sustaining the sustainers."
Recognizing this shift has helped calm me, however distressed I may be by the setbacks, because I feel aligned with a great need of the moment that I can respond to.
How about you?
2. Ask yourself who you feel most connected with, or want to feel more connected with, as your tribe writ large. I don’t mean “tribe” only in the usual sense of friends or colleagues who understand you, share your values, and support you.
If you’re willing to go out on a limb with me (I live in California, after all), I also mean, who is in your “inner tribe”? I came to think about this after hearing a talk by Dr. Larry Ward, co-founder and executive director of the Lotus Institute, who speaks about connecting with our “inner community.”
He recommends: “Name and recognize…who are the voices of kindness, courage, resilience within you that stand by you when you’re afraid or uncertain?”
Maya Angelou said something similar, commenting that before giving a talk, she visualized bringing along with her “everyone who has ever been kind to me. I say, ‘Come with me. I need you now.”
One special characteristic of an inner tribe is that its members need not be among the living. My mom, for example, still tops my list, though she passed more than a decade ago. I also find a seat in my inner tribe for inspiring leaders from history.
Who is there for you?
3. Reconnect with people who care about the same issues as you in ways that allow you to feel restored.
We can do this with friends and family through a dedicated commitment to real talk. We can do so in workplaces through facilitated sessions, such as the community-building one I led last week at the California Academy of Sciences.
We might also take a lesson from the U.S. healthcare industry, which had to contend with massive burnout after facing the outsized challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Turnover was rising. People were exhausted. And traditional wellness perks were not cutting it. (These are risks many mission-driven organizations face today.)
As a result, several healthcare systems, including Mass General Brigham, Sutter Health, and NYU Langone, invested in initiatives such as peer-support circles and facilitated groups where team members could decompress and reconnect.
In this fraught moment, when grants are being canceled, long-fought-for policies are being overturned, and constitutional rights are being challenged, facilitating deep reconnection opportunities may seem like a luxury we can ill afford.
However, considering the alternatives of burnout and exhaustion, I believe we owe it to the good people doing important work in these hard times to create the most natural source of restoration there is: reconnection.
I help mission-driven professionals and organizations build psychological resilience, reduce emotional burnout, and reconnect to purpose and each other so they can continue doing their vitally important work. Please reach out if you’d like to chat.