Grounded Action Collective: Understanding and Navigating Overwhelm
The Grounded Action Collective is a free Friday morning virtual process group that helps people transform political overwhelm into strategic, sustainable action. Each session interweaves nervous system regulation with a topic informed by activists, leaders, and allies who've shared their wisdom and teachings with the world in various ways. This is a co-creative space to come together not to solve but for solidarity as we work to determine the next right steps—however that looks for each of us as individuals and as a collective. You don't need to attend all sessions—come when you need it or when you're free, pending space availability. Click here to learn more, sign up for future sessions, and/or receive the weekly recap newsletter.
Truthout is a nonprofit and is independently funded by readers. If you value what they do, please support their work with a donation.
This Week’s Primary Resource
Much of this week’s understanding and wisdom came from the Truthout podcast Movement Memos, episode: Burnout Is Not Inevitable: Building Movements That Can Hold Us with organizer and WildSeed Society strategist Aaron Goggans
Reflections from our first Grounded Action Collective gathering on Jan. 30, 2026
When we checked in, here's what we named: Rage. Fear. Numbness. Anger. Overwhelm. Sadness. Conflictedness. Meltdowns. Despair about the future.
It all feels so heavy, but there’s power and strength in knowing you’re not alone.
This session was about building a foundation. Understanding how our nervous systems work and applying all of that to the political overwhelm many of us are experiencing.
What's Actually Happening in Our Bodies
Before we can talk about political action, we need to understand what's happening in our bodies when we encounter news that terrifies us, when we read about policies that threaten our communities, when we feel powerless in the face of fascism.
Your nervous system has an unconscious process called neuroception, coined by Dr. Stephen Porges as part of Polyvagal Theory. Your nervous system is constantly scanning for safety or danger, and it responds automatically before your conscious mind even knows what's happening.
Once we understand these states, we can recognize them in ourselves AND in each other. And that changes how we communicate, how we organize, and how we show up.
Safe & Connected (Ventral Vagal)
This is where we want to be for strategic thinking, creativity, connection, and values-aligned action.
You might notice:
Breathing feels easy and natural
Stomach settled, maybe even hungry
Face feels expressive and alive
Making eye contact feels natural
Voice has warmth and range
Actually hearing and connecting with what people say
Wanting to be around people
Able to be still without feeling anxious
Feeling curious, playful, or compassionate
Political relevance: From this state, we can think strategically, collaborate effectively, and access creative solutions. We can hold nuance and complexity.
Fight-or-Flight (Sympathetic)
This is mobilization; your body preparing for action.
You might notice:
Heart pounding or racing
Feeling hot, sweaty, or flushed
Breathing fast or feeling breathless
Jittery, restless, can't sit still
Hyper-alert, scanning for danger
Stomach upset, nausea, or loss of appetite
Can't focus on connection or conversation
Everything feels urgent or like a crisis
Political relevance: This state gives us the energy to act, but if we stay here too long, we burn out. We lose access to strategy and make reactive decisions. We might lash out at allies or engage in unproductive arguments online.
Shutdown (Dorsal Vagal)
This is when our system determines that fight-or-flight won't work; it's the emergency brake.
You might notice:
Feeling numb, disconnected, or ‘not really here'
Everything feels distant or foggy
Hard to feel pain (physically or emotionally)
Moving or speaking feels exhausting
Your face feels flat or expressionless
Avoiding eye contact
Voice comes out monotone or barely at all
Can't really hear what people are saying
Don't want to be around people
No interest in anything
Political relevance: This is where we scroll news numbly for hours, where we tell ourselves nothing we do matters anyway, where we isolate from community. We're conserving energy for survival, but we've lost access to hope and possibility.
The group named something crucial here:
Many felt tipped into shutdown after Renee Good's murder and then Alex Pretti, naming how insane it is to watch people be murdered over and over again, often without a choice or trigger warning, just via scrolling on social media.
Self Check-In:
Take a moment to notice: Where is your nervous system right now? What sensations tell you which state you're in?
Just notice—no judgment.
What This Means for How We Talk to Each Other
When you know these states, you can recognize them in your support network, your family, your organizing partners. And you can shift the expectation that people show up in ways their nervous systems can't access right now.
Your friend who keeps picking fights on Facebook? Fight-or-flight. Everything feels urgent because to their nervous system, it is.
Your partner who's gone quiet and distant? Shutdown. Not apathy—overwhelm.
Your coworker who seems to have it all figured out? Regulated enough to access strategy.
None of these states are better or worse. They're information.
And when we can name what we're experiencing, we can help each other move toward regulation instead of judging each other for where we are.
The Cult of Stability and What Lives Underneath
Right now there's a pervasive fear that says: “The system is broken, but if we break it further, chaos will be worse." People cling to failing systems because uncertainty feels more dangerous.
This is collective nervous system dysregulation—fight, flight, or freeze on a social scale.
The practice:
What if instead of trying to feel safe by controlling outcomes or other people's behavior, we took a different approach:
Acknowledge the fear: “I'm afraid. That's real. That makes sense."
Don't shame it: “Of course I'm afraid… I love my community and don't want them harmed."
Connect with what's underneath: What am I afraid of losing? What do I love that feels threatened?
Shift to that love: Instead of staying in the fear story, focus on what we're fighting FOR
Regulate first: Do what you need to feel safe-enough RIGHT NOW (call a friend, eat a meal, snowshoe in woods, rest)
Then access curiosity: From regulation, we can ask better questions, imagine more possibilities, and access more strategies
From regulated states, values-aligned strategies become intuitively available to us.
Working with Freeze: The “Next Right Thing"
We've talked about fight-or-flight activation and shutdown. But let's spend a moment on something many of us are experiencing right now: freeze states where we're stuck in passive responses—doomscrolling, posting reactions to headlines, feeling frozen in despondency.
It can feel like the belief - “I can't see in my head how any action I could do leads to ICE being abolished. I can't see any action that could meaningfully contribute to that."
Sound familiar?
When we're overstimulated and experiencing numbness or brain fog, we think we need MORE stimulation. So we go to TikTok, scroll news, try to feel SOMETHING—anger, sadness, anything.
But that pushes us back into activation, not toward regulation.
The freeze or numbness many of us feel is actually an overstimulated nervous system, not an understimulated one.
What actually helps:
Set your phone down
Turn off your computer
If silence is safe for you, sit in silence
Go for a walk (if that's non-activating for you)
Take your wheelchair to a park
Do something that doesn't activate you for a bit
This feels counterintuitive because it means doing LESS, not more. But it regulates your nervous system so you can then see what the next right thing is.
The trap: Social media activates our nervous system without contributing to liberation. The way out is to do a little bit less for 30 minutes, regulate, and THEN do the next right thing.
Once you connect with regulation, don't try to solve the whole problem—do the next right thing.
You don't need to see the path from your action to complete liberation. You just need to do the next right thing. Your body and brain will come up with more options the more you do simple tasks that help, even if they don't complete the solution.
From The Group - Next Right Steps We're Trying This Week
Weekly check-in with safe friends
Sharing this content with partners and coworkers to facilitate a conversation about how regulation is a critical thing to do, not self-indulgence
Not feeling quite sure what the "next right step" may be from the lens of taking action, but prioritizing self-care and regulation now so that when that next right step becomes clear, they're ready to take it
Spending 5-10 minutes in the mornings doing a check-in without a phone, to help stay connected to how you are feeling
Gratitude list daily to help find joy and hope
Prioritizing a soothing hobby daily, like knitting
Teaching shared by a group member:
“Inhabiting the back loop,” from researcher Stephanie Wakefield
Key Aspects of Inhabiting the Back Loop:
Context: It stems from resilience theory, which models how systems (ecosystems, cities, societies) move through a “front loop" of growth/stability and a “back loop" of release/reorganization.
Definition: Instead of fighting to maintain the status quo (the “front loop" or “stable" state), this ethos finds opportunity in the chaos, allowing for experimentation and new, often unexpected, ways of existing in a changing world.
Ethos: It is described as a form of “creative and technical audacity" in unsafe spaces.
Application: What could that new state look like? Connecting with hope of what could be possible as we see how Minneapolis is coming together for each other.
The Work
Your nervous system needs to learn: We can hold this grief, rage, and fear. We can stay present with it. We're not helpless. And from that place, we can act in ways that align with our values and actually move us toward the world we're trying to build.
This is the work. Not just in therapy or in this group, but as a foundation for everything else we do.
When we understand what's happening in our bodies, we can extend that understanding to each other. We can stop judging. We can start supporting. We can build the kind of solidarity that can actually sustain us through what's ahead.
Self Check-In:
Where is your nervous system right now? Take a moment to check in with your body without judgment. What sensations are present? Are you experiencing the racing heart and urgency of fight-or-flight? The numbness and fog of shutdown? Or do you have access to breath, connection, and curiosity? Just notice what's true.
What are you fighting FOR? Underneath the fear and rage about what's happening right now, what do you love that feels threatened? What world are you trying to build? When you shift your focus from what you're afraid of to what you're fighting for, what changes in your body? What becomes possible?
What's the next right thing? You don't need to see the path from your action to complete liberation. What's one small, doable thing that moves you toward regulation or values-aligned action right now? It might be setting your phone down for 30 minutes. It might be texting a friend. It might be showing up at a community meeting. What feels true for you today?
The Grounded Action Collective began meeting on Friday mornings in January 2026. We're building a foundation together. Join us. Click here to learn more about the group.
