What Becomes Possible When We Refuse to Look Away?

On collapse as catalyst & honoring our pain for the world

Lately, it’s become increasingly difficult to have an ordinary conversation.

Because no matter where we begin—work, weather, hobbies or weekend plans—the conversation eventually bends toward the collapse of the world as we know it.

Recently, in the middle of one of these exchanges with a loved one, I was asked, gently, whether I needed to stay so connected to all of it. Whether consuming less of the atrocities might help make things lighter.

The ask was reasonable. I can understand how constantly talking about systemic collapse and instability can be a buzzkill. It’s exhausting to stay plugged in when the stream of global crises is relentless. And I suppose there is wisdom in pacing our exposure.

But still, the suggestion that stepping back completely might protect my peace—and protect conversations from becoming too heavy—felt wrong to me. I recoiled at the idea that total disengagement is the healthier response.

Do I believe that we need to be tuned in 24/7 and open every “BREAKING NEWS!” rage-bait headline? Absolutely not. We still need to make space for rest, joy, play, to tend to our loved ones and our inner world, so that we can become more resourced and balanced to continue the fight.

There was a time when constant exposure did dysregulate me, and staying informed felt indistinguishable from spiraling. But that is no longer where I am (most of the time, I’m only human). I’ve learned to pace the consumption, step away when needed, and resource my nervous system by reconnecting with the land, rather than allowing it to completely disconnect and combust from a constant barrage of chaos.

What remains is a refusal to operate “business as usual.”

For me, the anger and grief are no longer all-consuming. They push me toward creation rather than shutdown—toward imagining alternatives, building beauty, and resisting the cultural spell of hyper-individualization that tells us our only responsibility is to manage our own small sphere.

Still, the questions linger, both personally and culturally:

**What actually happens when we turn toward collapse instead of away from it? Does naming it deepen despair? Or does refusing to name what is happening create a more insidious form of disconnection?**

We are living in a time when the word “collapse” no longer feels like dystopian fiction or a dramatic Hollywood plotline. Ecological systems are destabilizing after centuries of extraction. We are losing crucial biodiversity at an alarming pace. Climate thresholds once considered distant are unfolding within our lifetimes. Democratic institutions strain under polarization and mistrust. Economic systems structured around perpetual growth produce widening inequality and leave many navigating chronic instability.

What may be even more destabilizing than any single crisis is the gradual unraveling of the worldview that convinced us these systems were permanent & unquestionable.

Rather than solely political or ecological instability, Vanessa Machado de Oliveira describes this moment as the weakening of the modern worldview, which stands as the long-held belief that humans are separate from nature, endless growth is normal, desirable, & sustainable, control guarantees safety, and that we exist as isolated individuals rather than as participants in an entangled metabolism of life.

In her framing, this imposed separation is an impairment, even a neurophysiological one. It dulls our capacity to sense the pain of the whole. We then lose the ability to feel the suffering of the lands we inhabit and the communities we fracture, numbing the visceral responsibility required to interrupt the “shenanigans,” as she puts it.

When ecological systems destabilize and political institutions fracture, what collapses alongside them is the story that these arrangements were ever secure or universally beneficial. The narratives that shaped our sense of progress and identity begin to crack.

And when the stories that scaffolded our entire understanding of reality falter, the rupture feels existential…because it is. These destabilizations unsettle certainty. They remove the core foundations of who we believe ourselves to be, so it is disorienting to feel the ground shift and shake the ideas we were taught to trust.

But disorientation is not the same as destruction.

Not all collapses are synonymous with catastrophe. Some mark the necessary dissolution of illusions that have long sustained harm and normalized violence, and therefore need to be rattled and ripped apart. The loosening of harmful certainties can create space for something more life-sustaining to take root, even if at first, the process is uncomfortable and unsteady.

To understand what becomes possible when we refuse to look away, we first have to be honest about the magnitude of this moment.

Modern life requires us to function within systems that are clearly breaking down right before our eyes, while simultaneously pretending they are a stable solution to all our problems. We are expected to maintain productivity in an economic structure that extracts more than it will ever sustain.

We are encouraged to consume in ways that contribute to ecological degradation, then told to shoulder the burden of reversing climate change as individuals—often causing in-fighting over ethical & moral purity, creating further divide by arguing over who is “doing enough”, or who is “doing it right” (The harsh reality is that most of us in the Western world are complicit in ecological destruction in one way or another. We are entangled within these systems, and have been for a very long time. Rather than “ethical Olympics”, what matters is how mindful we are of our consumption and that we minimize our impact where possible. That is what will create the biggest ripples of positive change.)

We are inundated with images of war, displacement, and environmental catastrophe, yet rarely offered safe, shared spaces to metabolize what it means to witness such horrific events in real time—a contradiction that, understandably, produces cognitive & emotional whiplash.

We are expected to stay informed and engaged, while simultaneously protecting our mental health by limiting exposure. We are asked to witness breakdown while remaining composed and productive in isolation. All of this is enough to keep our bodies in a constant state of shock and activation.

And for those with histories of relational trauma, repeated exposure to violence and instability can reactivate the nervous system’s threat response. The body does not distinguish between direct experience and mediated exposure; it simply registers immediate danger, as if a wild animal were about to attack at any moment.

The issue with not having communal containers to process what we are witnessing together is that this constant stream of stress lingers as anxiety, irritability, dissociation, or bone-deep exhaustion, making it almost impossible to break free from. In this sense, it is not collapse itself that retraumatizes, but exposure without integration.

The nervous system cannot metabolize what it is forced to carry alone—this has been true for humans across millennia. What is unprecedented, however, is the velocity and volume of devastation now delivered to us in real time through our permanently-glued-to-us, palm-sized screens.

What we see today is a culmination of centuries of poison: ecocide, genocide, femicide, war, colonization, racism, patriarchal domination, resource extraction & industrial exploitation…just to name a few.

And we must realize that these are not isolated ruptures or unfortunate deviations from an otherwise stable system. They are accumulated consequences, woven into institutions, normalized through policy, internalized in bodies, and passed down across generations as both trauma and worldview.

When these poisons remain unchecked or unnamed, they don’t magically disappear.

As much as we wish otherwise, silence does not neutralize harm. Instead, these poisons continue to permeate throughout the bloodstream of humanity, clotting crucial passageways, producing perpetual trauma, instability, and insecurity in ourselves, relationships, and fundamental structures. It robs us of our sense to imagine new possibilities.

Naming collapse restores coherence. And with it, our sanity. It reminds us that financial strain is not solely a budgeting error or moral failing. Climate grief is not melodrama. Political unease is not paranoia. These are rational responses to structural conditions. To articulate that reality is not to amplify despair, but to loosen the illusion of separation we’ve come to accept as normal.

Collectively, acknowledging collapse interrupts denial—one of the primary mechanisms through which harmful systems persist. When instability is openly recognized, we are able to reflect & refocus on what is worth preserving, what was never sustainable, and what aspects of modernity require hospice rather than resuscitation.

Illusions shatter when reality presses hard enough. And that is exactly where we find ourselves.

To shed light on collapse brings perception into alignment with what is already unfolding. Without that alignment, we oscillate between panic and numbness. With it, we can discern what must be grieved, defended, and redesigned.

There is also something connective in shared recognition. Structural breakdown, painful as it is, reveals how entangled we truly are. The fiction of separateness becomes harder to maintain when the consequences of that separation ripple through lands, bodies, economies, and relationships.

It is here that the work of Joanna Macy offers a steadying presence and gentle orientation back to each other. Rooted in Deep Ecology, her “Work That Reconnects” does not treat grief for the world as pathology, but rather understands that our pain is evidence of relational belonging.

It offers us the understanding that, despite the devastation, deep down, we know we belong to each other and the more-than-human world.

In Joanna’s work of Active Hope, she reframes hope as a practice of participation, a commitment to acting in alignment with what we value, even without guarantees. This framing does not deny the severity of this moment, nor is it an invitation to romanticize suffering. It is a call for us to see through a more honest lens and act accordingly.

Ecological loss is real. Political violence is real. Economic precarity is real. For many communities across the world, collapse is an immediate, material, and already shaping daily survival.

But collapsing illusions does not equal the collapsing of life itself. The dissolution of harmful narratives may clear space for forms of community that are less extractive and more connected.

It is also important to note that transitional periods are not immediate solutions to lifetimes of suffering. They are often unstable, and instability carries risk. Yet refusing to name what is dissolving merely delays adaptation & the potential to build a more life-sustaining world for all.

Personally, I find myself welcoming the crumbling with open arms. I believe the greater risk lies in shrinking our awareness to preserve comfort, and mistaking disengagement for peace.

If we are indeed witnessing the hospice phase of certain systems, then our task is neither to cling to nor resurrect what is harmful, nor surrender to nihilism, but to remain present at the bedside, while being honest about what is ending, willing to grieve what must be grieved with an open heart, and mindful about what is begging to be birthed from the rubble.

Meeting collapse does not have to mean living in doom.

From the ashes of atrocity and unraveling, we are being invited to reimagine a new world, together. We are asked to tend to the fragility of this moment with more compassion, care, and courage than ever before.

Perhaps the deeper question is not whether collapse will undo us, but whether our reluctance to face it leaves us unprepared to participate in what comes next.

As a practice of reconnection, I invite you to consider:

What capacities awaken when we refuse to look away?

What would it feel like to allow yourself to honor your pain for the world?

What becomes possible when we stay present long enough to let this moment change us?

*Author’s note: This essay was in part inspired by Kaméa Chayne’s Green Dreamer Podcast and her conversation with Vanessa Machado de Oliveira on “Sensing into collapse and what it is asking of us”, episode 469. You can listen/read here.

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If this essay resonates, this is the work I hold space for—grief tending, nervous system steadiness, ecological belonging, and reimagining what’s possible in a world on fire. Through eco-somatic sessions, creative expression, and nature-based gatherings, I support those who want to remain steady in this moment and deepen their relationship with the world as their Eco-Self.

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