Tiny Moves, Big Shift: How to Stay Human When the Blitz Won’t Stop
The footholds that helped 80,000 people stay grounded are needed now more than ever. This is your updated guide for defiant practices that build strategic agility under authoritarian pressure.
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Last week I watched my child get married - pure joy. Three days later I'm doom-scrolling about Alligator Alcatraz while overeating ice cream. Anyone else cycling between celebrating life and preparing for apocalypse?
The pace is relentless. Congress passing the "Big Beautiful Bill" (gag) that massively expands ICE funding. Trump threatening to denaturalize the amazing Zohran Mamdani who just won the Democratic primary for NYC mayor.
The authoritarian blitz never sleeps, and their strategy of "flooding the zone with shit" is working - on me, on all of us. We refresh news tabs, stress-eat, cycle between triggered overwhelm and hyper-activism and protective numbness, then feel ashamed that we can't keep up with the pace of their assault. Mindfulness feels impossible when your nervous system is under constant siege.
Today the Supreme Court cleared the way for mass federal layoffs - hundreds of thousands of public servants about to lose their jobs serving their country. Last November, I wrote about protecting these very people and got fired for it. Now the purge I warned about is accelerating in real time. The cruelty is breathtaking - they're systematically targeting everyone who proved democracy could work.
Why Thousands Keep Turning to Tiny Moves
As things get worse, I continue turning to "tiny moves" - my experiments with ways to navigate the terrain between tuning out and burning out. When I first proposed tiny moves in Stay Human: 80 Tiny Moves for Everyday Resistance in the Authoritarian Harm Complex, I had no idea the concept would go viral. About a dozen posts and roughly 80,000 views and shares later, this content is still helping people.
The response has been overwhelming. As one reader put it today:
"In a world where doomscrolling is the new cardio I welcome a resistance plan that starts with closing the tab and texting a friend instead of assembling a 10-point cadre handbook. Atomic habits, meet atomic spite. I have weaponized several of your moves already: banned-book book club, panic-cancelling non-essential meetings, and the screenshot folder named 'Not Crazy Just Paying Attention.' They work. They recalibrate my nervous system faster than a Xanax smoothie. They remind me that tyranny runs on stolen attention and unprocessed grief; every minute I reclaim for curiosity or care is a minute the autocrats cannot monetize."
For newcomers to tiny moves or anyone wondering how they fit together, here’s an overview of the emerging toolkit and how to get started.
Footholds When You Start Spiraling
Tiny moves are footholds. Small, specific things I reach for when I feel myself spiraling into numbness, hypervigilance, or cynicism. They help me stay human and sane - a kind of strategic mindfulness - holding onto the parts of myself that Trump’s aggressions seem purpose-built to wear down and exploit.
They're not vapid acts of wellness influencer self-care. Each one builds strategic capacity for sustained resistance. Here are the ones readers mention most.
Don’t try them all. Start anywhere. Pick something that meets you where you are. Try one. Come back later and pick another. Invent your own. Explore and experiment.
1. Create a folder called "Waypoints." Fill it with anything that helps you navigate. When the trail disappears, waypoints help you stay oriented. This becomes your collection of quotes, photos, reminders - anything that brings you back to what matters when you're lost in the chaos.
2. Take a no-scroll hour. Just be where you are. Trump's authoritarian blitz and the media's outrage-industrial complex are designed to hijack your attention and drain your will to fight. This is one way you reclaim them.
3. Cancel one nonessential task. Let the gap be restorative. This is spirit-preserving triage. Give yourself permission to opt out of the urgency culture that says we always need to be "on" and preserve your energy for the long trek ahead.
4. Buy a banned book. Read it. Lend it. Talk about it. Each banned book you pass along becomes a small act of intellectual resistance. You're participating in the underground circulation of ideas they want suppressed.
5. Ask yourself: "How much more information would I need to make a decision or commit to a specific action?" Sometimes our minds trick us into believing that seeking more information will keep us safe. This question helps you distinguish between useful research and anxiety-driven scrolling.
6. Reconnect with someone you drifted from. No explanation needed. Just begin again. Connection doesn't require big conversations or shared politics. These small threads of care are what hold communities together when everything else is designed to fragment us.
7. Write down: "I'm not failing for feeling overwhelmed. I'm responding to engineered chaos." Tape it somewhere visible. This interrupts the shame spiral before it takes hold. Every time you pause to read it, you're reminded that your overwhelm isn't personal weakness - it's a normal response to abnormal pressure.
8. Keep a screenshot folder called "I'm not imagining this." Fill it when needed. When reality feels slippery and you start doubting your own perceptions, this folder becomes your anchor. You're not going crazy - you're witnessing deliberate chaos.
9. Start a shared doc called "What We Still Believe." Invite a few trusted people. This creates a quiet container for collective clarity. Each entry becomes a small act of reorientation - breadcrumbs on a path back to what matters when you don't have to carry them alone.
10. Ask someone: "How are you navigating the news overload?" Let it be real. Sometimes the most strategic thing you can do is admit you're struggling and ask for help. Real conversations about overwhelm break the isolation that keeps us spinning alone.
Building the Moral Infrastructure for What Comes Next
These tiny moves are strategy at a human scale, not detours from "real" strategy. I sometimes think of them as the “soul of strategy.” When you're bushwhacking through authoritarian chaos, you don't need a five-year plan. You need ways to keep your footing amidst daily assaults while building the moral and emotional infrastructure for sustained resistance.
This work is about more than survival. Each small act of discernment, connection, and refusal helps preserve our humanity for the long haul. When thousands of people do tiny moves together, individual footholds enable the creation of collective power. We're not just staying human - we're preparing for whatever collective action this moment will eventually demand.
Your Complete Roadmap Through the Emerging Toolkit
Ready to go deeper? Each collection below offers different tools for different situations. Pick the one that matches where you are right now, try a few moves, then explore the others when you need different approaches.
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. Start here if you're feeling general overwhelm and need footholds to stay in motion.
Tiny moves live in the terrain between hypervigilance and retreat. They keep us agile and motivated. Start here if doom-scrolling and news anxiety are your biggest struggles.
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. Start here if you're a public servant, educator, or nonprofit worker under siege.
Staying Human Now weekly series:
Weekly strategic practices and insights for staying grounded under authoritarian pressure. Each installment offers 1-3 moves, reflections, or frameworks to help you navigate the week ahead with integrity and purpose.
This week’s tiny moves support reconnecting around shared purpose, cultivating self-compassion, and restoring agency and focus. (Stay Human Now Weekly #6). Three moves for when the headlines get overwhelming: reconnecting with shared purpose, cultivating self-compassion, and restoring focus when the ground feels unstable.
Staying Human Now #4 - Trump’s actions are engineered to grind us down. Staying human is a key resistance strategy. Explores the deeper question beneath all the tiny moves: what does it actually mean to "stay human" when systems are designed to wear you down?
Small Moves, Lasting Power
You don't need to try all of these at once. Pick one post that speaks to where you are right now. Try one move this week. See what shifts.
The goal isn't perfection—it's staying in motion with integrity when the conditions are designed to break you down. When thousands of people do tiny moves together, individual survival becomes collective power.
Share this guide with someone who's cycling between celebrating life and preparing for apocalypse. They're not alone, and neither are you.
The future we're building starts with staying human today.
In solidarity,
Paul
Remember: Stay human. Stay strategic. Shape tomorrow.
Don't navigate this alone.
Join a community of people turning collective harm into strategic clarity.
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Together, we can do more than just survive authoritarianism. We can protect what matters and build the foundation for what comes next.
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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
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.