Content:
Personal Resilience is Resistance
Resistance Media
11/05/2025
“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. Maybe many of us won’t be here to greet her, but on a quiet day, if I listen very carefully, I can hear her breathing.” —Arundhati Roy
“I believe that the tsunami of unexpressed grief and unprocessed trauma in this country is directly related to the increased violence in our society, and to the dissociation that allows the cruelty and violence to continue.
“We’ve been culturally conditioned to turn away from pain, death, and hardship. But now, it seems to me, life is requiring us to face directly into the suffering, to fully feel in order to fuel our courage, to nourish our love, and then to connect with others to develop wise pathways to engaged action.”—Nina Simons
In a time of rising fascism and authoritarianism, personal resiliency is resistance.
The autocrat’s basic playbook relies on instilling fear, confusion and anger in their supporters and their opposition alike. Their goal is to animate their supporters and paralyze and overwhelm those who would resist. But when we surrender to these emotions, we are empowering the regime, enabling them to control and shape the narrative and yielding authority over our very being. We can even internalize oppression.
“Anger is loaded with information… focused with precision it can become a powerful source of energy serving progress and change.” —Audre Lorde
There is a significant distinction between righteous anger and overwhelming anger. We cannot and should not feel badly about the natural rage that arises from seeing and experiencing the injustice and cruelty that is now rising in America and around the world.
While a good argument can be made for righteous anger, there is an equally good argument against overwhelming anger. Some anger is the flip side of fear, and fascist leaders are skilled at manipulating their followers into being angry at and fearful of the “other.” Reacting to this anger only with more anger inevitably leads to surrendering our agency.
When we lose control of our own emotions, we risk losing perspective, getting lost and seeking comfort in the emotions of the crowd and the persuasive opinions of our leaders.
When we succumb to these emotions we enable and encourage fascism without even realizing it. Nothing delights those who would control us more than our own depression, anger and disorientation, as that makes us vulnerable to sinister and purposeful manipulation.
This is a dark time, filled with suffering and uncertainty. Like living cells in a larger body, it is natural that we feel the trauma of our world. So don’t be afraid of the anguish you feel, or the anger or fear, because these responses arise from the depth of your caring and the truth of your interconnectedness with all beings.—Joanna Macy
You are meant to be afraid. All the time. You are also always meant to be inferior, as they need to feel superior so as not be faced with their own deep-seated insecurity.
Personal resiliency and the cultivation of strong personal and collective emotional health is a major factor in actively resisting the control of autocrats. We need to be emotionally and mentally healthy in order to fight effectively.
According to Mind Clear Integrative Psychology:
Authoritarianism has been shown time and again through research across disciplines to be detrimental to overall well-being. It is the antithesis of a just and free society. And, when authoritarians rule our lives, whether it be through politics, the church, in marriage, or as parents, we will either learn to conform or our mental health will begin to decline.
Authoritarianism tends to result in depression, anxiety, low-self esteem, difficulty regulating emotions, behavior problems, chronic shame and guilt, bullying and being bullied, difficulty with boundaries and compromise, and a general sense of helplessness. This is especially true when the person tends to be less submissive, less conforming, and harbors differing perspectives than the authority figure in one’s life.
The prolonged stress of living under an authoritarian’s rule can lead to a traumatic response in the body, eventually resulting in disease, dysfunction, and chronic fear/panic. As your body and mind begin to break down, you may believe yourself to be “weak”, “a crybaby”, or losing a “war.” This is nothing but internalized oppression. It is the cycle of authoritarianism being repeated within you.
In these challenging, even terrifying times, it is crucial to maintain and support our own mental health and that of those around us. Its not enough to be angry or even outraged as part of our resistance – its crucial to be as healthy mentally, emotionally and physically as possible and help our families and friends to do the same.
Ecological grief is the profound sorrow we feel when witnessing the destruction of the living world. In a time of accelerating climate collapse and species extinction, this grief is not a mental health crisis to be medicated away; it is a rational, healthy, and deeply necessary response to genuine loss. Research in climate psychology shows that when we allow ourselves to grieve ecological losses, to name and honor what we are losing, we actually unlock profound sources of resilience and motivation. This grief becomes fuel for transformative action rooted in our deepest values. By refusing to numb ourselves to environmental devastation, we maintain our capacity to feel connection, to know what we love, and to fight for its protection.
Emotional processing of ecological grief, supported by community grieving practices and ritual mourning, builds the psychological resilience necessary to sustain long-term climate action and environmental justice work.
“Joy doesn’t betray, but sustains activism. And when you face a politics that aspires to make you fearful, alienated, and isolated, joy is a fine initial act of insurrection.” —Rebecca Solnit
Depression is often a rational bodily and psychological response to prolonged stress, powerlessness, and systems of control. The body keeps the score of injustice and oppression—trauma accumulates in our nervous system, our gut, our immune function. Depression reflects the interplay of trauma, inflammation, nutritional deficiency, and nervous system dysregulation.
When authoritarians deliberately create conditions of helplessness, uncertainty, and social fragmentation, depression becomes a predictable physiological and psychological consequence. Rather than pathologizing depression as a personal failing, it can be viewed as a signal from our body and psyche that something is profoundly wrong—not with us, but with our circumstances. Understanding depression in this way is itself an act of resistance: it refuses the gaslighting narrative that our despair is a personal defect.
Move at the speed of trust. Focus on the critical connections more than critical mass – build the resilience by building the relationships. —adrienne maree brown
Social withdrawal and isolation are often symptoms of deeper trauma, depression, and the accumulated weight of oppression. While temporary solitude can be restorative and necessary, prolonged isolation—especially when it is a response to fear, shame, or learned helplessness—weakens our capacity to resist. Authoritarians understand this: they deliberately work to isolate individuals and communities, creating conditions where people withdraw from each other and from collective action. Withdrawal signals that our relational nervous system has been harmed and needs repair. The antidote is not forced socialization or toxic positivity, but rather gradual, trauma-informed reconnection through safe relationships and supportive communities.
When we understand withdrawal as a symptom rather than a choice, we can tend to it with compassion while simultaneously recognizing it as a barrier to our collective freedom. Rebuilding our capacity for authentic connection is therefore a form of resistance.
“The moment we choose to love we begin to move against domination, against oppression. The moment we choose to love we begin to move towards freedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others. That action is the testimony of love as the practice of freedom.” —bell hooks
Love, in times of fascism and authoritarianism, becomes a radical and necessary political act. When systems are built on domination, control, and the dehumanization of others, choosing love means choosing to see the humanity in all people, to practice care and accountability, and to work for structures that honor dignity and interdependence. A love ethic recognizes that our liberation is bound up with each other’s, that systems of domination harm everyone, and that genuine freedom requires transformation rooted in collective care. Communities rooted in genuine love—where people practice accountability, honor boundaries, tell the truth, and work through conflict with care—are far more resilient, creative, and effective in their resistance than communities built on fear, hierarchy, or sacrifice.
“Love is what we are born with. Fear is what we learn. The spiritual journey is the unlearning of fear and prejudices and the acceptance of love back in our hearts. Love is the essential reality and our purpose on earth. To be consciously aware of it, to experience love in ourselves and others, is the meaning of life. Meaning does not lie in things. Meaning lies in us.” ―Marianne Williamson
“So the next time you encounter fear, consider yourself lucky. This is where the courage comes in. Usually we think that brave people have no fear. The truth is that they are intimate with fear.” —Pema Chodron
“An absence of compassion can corrupt the decency of a community, a state, a nation. Fear and anger can make us vindictive, abusive, unjust and unfair, until we all suffer from the absence of mercy and we condemn ourselves as much as we victimize others…Mercy is most empowering, liberating, and transformative when it is directed at the undeserving.” —Bryan Stevenson
True compassion recognizes that suffering is not random or deserved; it is produced by systems. When we practice structural compassion, we refuse to blame individuals for the conditions that harm them. We recognize that people harmed by oppression are not failures; they are products of dehumanizing systems. This recognition fundamentally changes how we respond to it.
Authoritarian systems depend on compartmentalization of human concern: leaders manipulate people into feeling empathy only for “their own” while denying the humanity of those labeled “other,” “enemy,” or “disposable.” Expanding our empathy beyond the boundaries that systems of domination draw is therefore an act of resistance.
Compassion means working to transform the systems that produce suffering. When authoritarians deliberately train people to view the suffering of disfavored groups as deserved or inevitable, they break the social bonds necessary for collective resistance. Cultivating and practicing compassion is therefore an insurrectionary act.
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There are many sources of help available to support us in developing and cultivating better emotional and psychological strength and resiliency.
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