July 2025
🐰🐰 Radical Normalcy in Times of Chaos
How Routines, Love, and Community Can Be Acts of Resistance
“Humanism is the only - I would go so far as saying the final - resistance we have against the inhuman practices and injustices that disfigure human history.”
― Edward W. Said
The only constant is change...
When the world feels like it’s on fire, it can be tempting to throw everything out the window—our routines, our focus, our sense of what matters day-to-day. In the face of ongoing socio-political chaos, many of us find ourselves vacillating between rage, fear, grief, and numbness. But what if one of the most radical things we can do is… keep going? What if choosing to care for ourselves, love our people, and find moments of peace is not avoidance—but activism?
This is the idea of radical normalcy.
What Is Radical Normalcy?
Radical normalcy is the deliberate choice to stay grounded in what’s meaningful to you—your routines, relationships, and core values—even when the world feels upside down. It’s showing up for work, making dinner, hugging your kids, watering your plants, texting a friend, and going to therapy. It’s protecting your joy and your stability in a time that threatens both.
This isn't about pretending everything is fine. It's about resisting the pressure to live in a state of constant alarm. When systems are unstable and injustice is loud, staying connected to your daily life can be a deeply stabilizing and defiant act.
Why It Matters
During prolonged stress or social unrest, our nervous systems crave regulation. We need anchors—rituals, routines, and relationships—that help us feel safe and centered. Without them, we risk burnout, compassion fatigue, and hopelessness.
Radical normalcy reminds us:
You are still allowed to feel joy, even when others are suffering.
You don’t have to prove your awareness by being constantly overwhelmed.
You can care deeply and still set boundaries for your own well-being.
When we continue to feed ourselves (literally and metaphorically), care for others, and build community, we’re participating in a kind of quiet revolution—refusing to let instability take everything from us.
Acts of Radical Normalcy Might Look Like:
Keeping your morning routine, even on days when the news is devastating
Eating lunch with a friend instead of doomscrolling
Tucking your child into bed with an extra snuggle
Going to your weekly book club
Creating art, music, or movement
Going to therapy and talking about your fears and your hopes
Taking a break from social media without guilt
Showing up for mutual aid or community events when you’re able—and resting when you’re not
Love and Community as Resistance
In times of collective distress, systems often want us to feel isolated and powerless. But connection is one of the most powerful antidotes we have. When we build and protect communities rooted in care, we are modeling a different kind of world—one that values dignity, empathy, and interdependence.
So send the text. Make the meal. Have the hard (or silly) conversation. These moments of togetherness remind us we’re not alone—and that we still have influence over how we show up.
Therapy Can Help
Therapy is one place where radical normalcy is celebrated. It offers a space to process everything you're feeling, to reconnect with your values, and to rebuild a sense of agency. If you're struggling to find balance between staying informed and staying well, therapy can help you create a rhythm that honors both your mental health and your desire for justice.
In a world that’s chaotic, caring for yourself and your people is not selfish—it’s revolutionary.
Radical normalcy doesn’t mean ignoring the pain around us. It means holding both the pain and the possibility. It means showing up for our lives with intention and care, even—especially—when the world tells us not to.
Let’s continue to rise, rest, connect, and nourish. This, too, is activism.
I'm grateful to know you and I thank you for letting me be a part of your journey. Please let me know if there is anything more I can be doing to support you.
“You can build walls all the way to the sky and I will find a way to fly above them. You can try to pin me down with a hundred thousand arms, but I will find a way to resist. And there are many of us out there, more than you think. People who refuse to stop believing. People who refuse to come to earth. People who love in a world without walls, people who love into hate, into refusal, against hope, and without fear.
I love you. Remember. They cannot take it.”
― Lauren Oliver, Delirium”
