Taking Off the Armor to Let the Good In

When chaos is the goal, allowing love and joy becomes an act of resistance. (Stay Human Weekly #9)

My beloved son is getting married this weekend.

I should be floating with excitement. And I am—when I let myself feel it fully. But I catch myself constantly braced for the next headline, the next unthinkable thing that will drag us further from democracy.

Just in recent weeks: Trump bombed Iran without Congress. Sent Marines into Los Angeles against local leaders' wishes. Announced a Trump cell phone while tariffs punish competing phone manufacturers. Put millions of acres of national forest up for sale.

This relentless chaos isn't accidental. It's the strategy. Keep us off-balance, armored, frozen in hypervigilance. We wake up dreading the news, expecting the worst.

But that armor we hope will protect us from the bad can also keep out the good.

Choosing to Let Love and Joy In

Staying human this week means making an intentional choice to take off the armor, to let the love and celebration reach my heart. It means turning off notifications for the next few days. Putting my phone away entirely during the ceremony and reception. It means talking about something other than politics.

Trump will continue creating chaos—that's guaranteed. But I don't have to turn myself into an obsessive chronicler of authoritarian aggression, tracking every offensive act as if comprehensive knowledge equals safety and control (Note to the anxious part of my brain: constant tracking of news does not actually make Paul safer.)

There are many ways to practice mindful presence. I'm not advocating any particular method. I'm advocating for the intention: consciously choosing to allow joy, wonder, and connection to enter our lives, even when—especially when—the world feels designed to prevent it.

Your Turn

What's one way you're choosing to let joy, wonder, and love in this week, despite everything? Share in the comments. Sometimes the most radical act is simply deciding to allow ourselves to be fully human.

In solidarity,

Paul

Remember: Stay human. Stay strategic. Shape tomorrow.

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Strategies for Staying Human in the Face of Authoritarianism

If you’re looking for practices, tools, and deeper reading to help you stay grounded under pressure, this growing list is for you. It includes some of my previous posts and a section for other resources. These are starting points for staying human in hard times.

Tools

Explore my growing library of tools designed to help you stay grounded, focused, and resilient. Some are free. Others are available for a small cost — and every purchase helps sustain this work.

My Posts

• When Trump Attacks Your Work: 75 Grounding Moves to Stay Effective and Human. You can't serve from empty. But stepping away isn't an option. Strategic positioning for public servants trying to do good work under siege.

• What Have You Been Carrying? A Self-Assessment for Navigating Authoritarian Harm. Your overwhelm isn't personal failure — it's a natural response to engineered chaos. This assessment helps you get unstuck and start strategizing.

• Resisting Authoritarianism for Introverts: An FAQ for Staying Human in Loud Times. A lot of resistance advice sounds like it's meant for someone louder. But what if your strength lives in quiet — and that's exactly what this moment needs?

• The Harms Are Cumulative. Your Overwhelm Is the Goal. Let’s Get Unstuck

  Trump and Musk weaponize chaos to exhaust our capacity for resistance. Recognizing the patterns of harm gives us the framework to protect our humanity and reclaim our strategic power. [Overview of the Authoritarian Harm Complex]

• Stay Human: 80 Tiny Moves for Everyday Resistance in the Authoritarian Harm Complex. What if staying human is one of the most powerful and most unappreciated forms of resistance? Shaping tomorrow and defeating tyranny takes more than big protest events and macro strategies.

• Stay Sane: 80 Tiny Moves to Resist Digital Despair and News Overwhelm in the Trump Era. Tiny moves live in the terrain between hypervigilance and retreat. They keep us agile and motivated.

• Staying Human Now #1: Start Where You Are. Authoritarian harm is real. So is your capacity to respond. These three tiny moves help you pace yourself with purpose.

• Staying Human Now #2: Define Your Waypoints. Confusion is the tactic. Navigation is the countermeasure. This tiny move helps you plan your own path.

• Staying Human Now #3: The Connection You Forgot You Needed. Authoritarian chaos thrives on disconnection. This tiny move helps you rebuild the ties that keep you human.

• What It Means to Stay Human in the Trump Era. Staying Human Now #4 - Trump’s actions are engineered to grind us down. Staying human is a key resistance strategy.

• From Authoritarian Harm to Clarity of Purpose. Looking Beyond Resistance: What if Our Collective Pain is Pointing to the Better Future Worth Fighting For?

• Befriend Yourself: A Strategy for Staying Whole While They Dismantle Everything That Matters. Trump and Musk want to disappear you into a cell of despair. Kindness to yourself is how you stay human—and begin your escape.

• When They Gut Your Mission: Start Here…. You’re still standing. That means you get to choose where to go next.

Blogs I recommend and have subscriptions to

• Invisible Threads. Veteran journalist Kate Woodsome is pioneering coverage at the intersection of democracy and mental health.

• The American Pamphleteer. “Because freedom won’t fight for itself—but together, we sure as hell can. Subscribe for bold, unfiltered takes on resisting fascism, building real community, and living with guts in chaotic times.“

• How To Resist. Great blog about sustainable ways to remain engaged in activism and mutual aid.

• Chop Wood, Carry Water. This blog is full of daily advice to take action and stay motivated.

• Your Time Starts NOW. If you like my content then you’ll love these posts by Lori Corbet Mann.

Other Resources

• ACT for Moral Distress, online course by Dr. Jaimie Lusk. “Navigate moral distress with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, a powerful evidence-based treatment that allows us to hold our pain while taking valued actions.”

• In Tumultuous Times, Think Like a Hostage. “Guidance given to hostages can foster psychological flexibility in tough times.” Very clever article by Dr. Jaimie Lusk.

• Please drop additional suggestions for resources in Comments

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My Consulting Services

Need a new strategic plan that protects your mission and your funding during hard times? I help public service professionals and progressive organizations cultivate agility and resilience to navigate moral injury, authoritarian drift, and institutional harm without losing their purpose or humanity. Service include:

• Strategic plan revisions to meet the moment.

• Fundraising and communications.

• Developing resilient data systems to track unmet needs and the downstream harms resulting from authoritarian aggression.

Let’s talk. Direct message me to start the conversation. Or request a consultation using my website’s contact form: Progressive Strategy Now website

***From Progressive Strategy Now, a publication of Paul T Shattuck LLC. The views expressed here reflect my personal analysis as a researcher and consultant, and do not represent the positions of any employer, clients, or affiliated organizations.