On grief, fear, and finding solid ground in uncertain times
Dedicated with love to Fatima and Tanya
Dear friends and fellow travellers,
Something has shifted this week. You may not be able to name it precisely, but you have likely felt it — a low, persistent unease that follows you from the morning news into the afternoon, settling somewhere between your chest and your stomach. A strange heaviness that does not quite fit the word ‘stress’, and yet is heavier than ordinary worry.
This week, the world felt a little less safe. The escalating conflict between Iran, Israel, and the United States drew the UAE into its orbit — a region many of us had imagined as somehow removed from the worst of it. Meanwhile, a war that has been burning in the heart of Europe for over four years continued quietly — as it does, week after week — largely absent from the front pages, largely forgotten by those not living inside it. And yet it continues. It has not stopped.
Many of my clients this week have used the same words: overwhelmed, helpless, frightened. Some have said they feel ashamed of their fear — as though others have it so much worse, they have no right to feel afraid. Others have described a kind of emotional numbness, a going-through-the-motions quality to their days. Several have wept without quite knowing why.
I want to suggest that all of this — every bit of it — has a name. And that naming it may offer some relief.
What We Are Feeling Is Grief
In March 2020, as the world went into lockdown, the grief researcher and author David Kessler gave an interview to the Harvard Business Review that resonated with millions of people. The piece was titled ‘That Discomfort You’re Feeling Is Grief’ — and it stopped so many of us in our tracks, because it named something we had not yet been able to articulate.
“We feel the world has changed, and it has. We know this is temporary, but it doesn’t feel that way, and we realise things will be different. The loss of normalcy; the fear of economic toll; the loss of connection. This is hitting us and we’re grieving.” — David Kessler, Harvard Business Review, 2020
Kessler drew on Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s framework of the stages of grief — denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance — and added a sixth: finding meaning. But perhaps the most powerful contribution of that interview was simply the act of permission. Permission to acknowledge that we were grieving, even when no single person had died, even when our own circumstances were, objectively, far better than those of others.
I believe we are in a similar moment now. What we are experiencing collectively — this anxiety, this dread, this hollow sense of loss — is grief. We are grieving the illusion of safety. Not safety itself, perhaps, but the comfortable belief that catastrophe happens elsewhere, to other people, in other places. That belief — fragile as it always was — has cracked open again this week.
Grief does not require a single, definable loss. It can arise from a dawning recognition that the world is not as we believed it to be. This is a legitimate grief, and it deserves to be taken seriously.
A Personal Note: Learning to Live Alongside the Unthinkable
I want to say something here that I do not always say in professional correspondence, but which feels important today.
I am originally from Ukraine. I have family and friends there. I have watched, for over four years, as the country I grew up in has been bombed, invaded, and — all too often — quietly set aside by a world with a short attention span. The war in Ukraine did not begin in 2022, though that is when it reached international consciousness. For those of us with roots there, it has been a presence, a weight, a wound, for far longer.
I will be honest with you: there have been times when I have felt utterly helpless. Watching from a distance, unable to stop what is happening, unable to protect the people I love — that helplessness is one of the most difficult emotions I know. I suspect many of you recognise it.
What I have learned — haltingly, imperfectly, over years — is that helplessness, when we cannot outrun it, can sometimes be transformed. Not always into something grand. Sometimes into something very small and quiet. A conversation. A walk. A piece of writing.
In 2024, at a moment when my own anxiety felt particularly acute, I wrote and published a children’s book. It is called Anxie the Hedgehog — a small story about a small creature who carries a big feeling, and slowly learns that the feeling need not define her. Writing it did not solve anything. It did not stop a war. But it gave shape to something formless, and in doing so, it gave me back a small sense of agency. It reminded me that even in the face of what we cannot control, we can still create. We can still contribute something to the world.
I share this not to recommend that everyone write a children’s book — though I would not discourage it — but because I think the principle matters. When the world feels overwhelming, the question worth asking is not ‘how do I make this stop?’ but ‘what can I do with this?’ Even the smallest creative or purposeful act can interrupt the cycle of helplessness and remind us of our own capacity.
The Ukrainian people have not stopped having birthdays, planting gardens, or drinking tea with their neighbours, even in the worst of it. Life continued — smaller, more precious, more fiercely held. I have come to think of this as the truest definition of resilience: not grand gestures of survival, but the quiet courage of every day. We do not have to choose between acknowledging the enormity of what is happening and continuing to live. We can hold both. In fact, I would argue that holding both is an act of courage and resilience.
What Might Help: a Few Thoughts from a Therapist
I will not offer platitudes. What I will offer is what I know — from twenty years of clinical work, and from lived experience — to be genuinely useful when the world feels this way.
Come back to what is real and present right now.
When we are anxious, our minds race forward into catastrophic futures. This is natural — our nervous systems are doing exactly what they evolved to do. But notice when you have left the present entirely and are living inside an imagined worst case. Come back. What do you know to be true right now, in this moment?
Focus on what is within your control.
There is a great deal none of us can control right now — geopolitical events, the decisions of governments, the arc of conflicts thousands of miles away. Trying to mentally manage the unmanageable is exhausting and futile. Instead, ask: what can I actually influence today? Your conversations. Your choices. How you treat the people immediately around you. These feel small. They are not.
Turn towards the people you love.
One of the quieter casualties of collective anxiety is connection — we withdraw, we scroll, we dissociate. And yet human connection is one of the most powerful regulators of a frightened nervous system. Not dramatic conversations, necessarily. Simply presence. A phone call. A shared meal. The warmth of being known by someone who knows you.
Allow yourself to feel what you feel.
Grief that is pushed down does not disappear — it resurfaces, often in disguise. If you are sad, be sad. If you are frightened, acknowledge the fear. If you are angry at the injustice of it all — that anger is entirely legitimate. Give yourself permission to feel, and then — gently — give yourself permission to put it down for a while and return to your life.
Find your small act of agency.
Whether it is writing, cooking, calling a friend, volunteering, creating something with your hands — find the thing that reminds you that you are not only a passive witness to the world, but a participant in it. Helplessness loosens its grip when we act, even in the smallest way.
Be thoughtful about your news consumption.
There is an important difference between being informed and being submerged. Consider giving yourself defined times to check in with the news, and protecting the rest of your day from the relentless pull of breaking developments. Last thing at night is particularly worth protecting.
Reach out if you need support.
If what you are feeling has begun to significantly affect your sleep, your ability to function, your relationships, or your sense of self, please do reach out. This is precisely what therapy is for — not only crisis, but the quieter, grinding weight of living through difficult times. You do not need to be ‘bad enough’ to deserve support. You simply need to be human.
A Closing Thought
Václav Havel once wrote that hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out. I have found that distinction quietly sustaining for many years.
We cannot know how any of this will resolve. We cannot guarantee safety, or peace, or the future we would choose. But we can decide what we give our attention to. We can choose, each day, to be present with the people and the things that matter most. We can refuse to let fear have the final word.
That is not naivety. It is, I think, survival. And in the end, it may be the most radical act available to us.
With warmth and solidarity,
Dr Olena Edwards-Skadowska
MBACP Accred, FMBPsS | Founding CEO
