Dear Therapist: How Can I Feel Better When The World Is So Messed Up?

Dear Therapist: I’m 25 years old. I feel angry, sad and hopeless about the environment, politics, the cost of living here and the future of our planet. How can I feel better when things are so messed up?  

Dear Planetary Pain: Of course you feel angry and sad. Things are messed up. You don’t have to try to not feel those things. Anger and sadness are feelings you can experience and still have a good life. But hopelessness – and its close relatives helplessness and powerlessness – can pivot you into a darkness that eclipses your life. When you are hopeless, life is happening to you, your life force freezes up and you get stuck. 

Fortunately, there are many ways out of those sinister states of hopeless despair and into agency. Agency means taking ownership of your capacity to make self-aware, meaningful and values-aligned choices.  At 25, your brain is poised for expansion and action. You now have the chance to understand yourself more deeply and define how and where you want to use your energy. It’s a perfect time to really take the wheel of your own life.  

One way to take agency is by learning to work effectively with your emotions and thoughts. If, for example, you get caught in doom spiraling of future worst-case scenarios or trapped in anger and sadness rather than experiencing them in ebb and flow, there are an array of resources that can help. You can look online for tips and strategies, explore books and podcasts, do therapy, take a meditation course or dive into spiritual or existential teachings.  If you get overwhelmed with all the options, start with one and see if it feels like a good fit. It might take some trial and error, but that process itself is also an opportunity for you to identify more clearly what actually clicks for you.  

If you feel lost or unsure of your direction forward, you can take agency by reflecting on times when you’ve felt most connected to yourself and your values. You can ask yourself, what was I doing that felt so affirming and how can I create that now? You can do visualizations of your version of a good, meaningful and manageable day. You can ask yourself, what are the small steps to a life with a lot of those good days?  

You could ask people you respect about how they deal with hopelessness and despair about the world.  You could ask for financial guidance from people in your life who have a solid relationship with money and budgeting. Even by asking me this question, Planetary Pain, you are showing agency. You are making a choice toward feeling better.  

Adulting is hard. Living in this world is hard. Agency doesn’t mean figuring everything out or doing any of it perfectly. Agency also doesn’t mean that you can meditate, gratitude-list or therapize yourself out of the pain and despair of life’s realities. Agency is what is left in our control when we let go of what we can’t control. It is a continual process of identifying the cards that are in our hand, allowing ourselves to have feelings about those cards – and the cards that are missing – and then playing with what we’ve got. It’s a simple concept and an eternally enigmatic and complicated endeavor.  

So, Planetary Pain, keep asking your questions, keep caring about the planet and the people on it, let yourself feel the pain and then push hard through hopelessness to seek agency wherever you can find it.  

Danielle B. Grossman, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, has worked with clients in the Truckee/Tahoe community for 20 years. She helps individuals and couples with their relationships, anxiety, grief, and struggles with food and addiction. Reach out at truckeecounseling@gmail.com or learn more at truckeecounseling.com