The Grief of Uncertainty in Unprecedented Times

In this solo, audio-only episode, host Nina Rodriguez explores the unspoken grief many of us are carrying right now—the grief of uncertainty. 

From political turmoil and climate anxiety, to the dizzying pace of technological change, we’re living in times that feel increasingly unsteady.

This isn’t just stress; it’s a kind of ambient grief. It's the ache of losing the future we thought we were heading toward.

The episode reflects on:

•  Why uncertainty feels so destabilizing to our nervous systems
•  How ambient, ongoing grief impacts our sense of safety
•  The importance of slowing down to recalibrate and feel
•  What it means to find your anchor through ritual, rhythm, or aligned action
•  How we can take meaningful action without burning out

Whether you’re doomscrolling, feeling disoriented, or just trying to catch your breath, this conversation offers gentle perspective and practical footholds for staying grounded in chaotic times.

If you’ve been quietly wondering, “Is it just me?” this episode is for you.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts, and subscribe to the Resting Grief Face Substack for the full written version.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Substack article: The Grief of Uncertainty in Unprecedented Times
• Podcast episode: Grief vs. Grieving
• Podcast Episode: The Liminality of Grief

Takeaways:

• Grief is not limited to the loss of loved ones.
• Uncertainty can lead to feelings of grief for lost safety and predictability.
• Slowing down is essential for processing grief.
• Finding clarity requires intentional reflection and presence.
• Grief can manifest as living loss, an ongoing and ambiguous experience.
• Anchoring ourselves in uncertainty involves returning to the body and small rituals.
• Community and connection can serve as powerful anchors during difficult times.
• Purposeful action can transform anxiety into focus and motion.
• Each person has a unique role to play in the process of transformation.
• You do not have to be okay to be worthy of love.

Grief Support Resources for the Road:

• Grief Tending Toolkit
• Access our online community

Connect with Nina Rodriguez:

• IG: @griefandlight
• griefandlight.com
• 1:1 Grief Support
• Subscribe to my newsletter

Disclaimer: griefandlight.com/safetyanddisclaimers

Chapters

• 0:00 Preview & Intro song
• 0:44 Finding your footing in a world that keeps shifting
• 4:04 Uncertainty Feels Like a Loss of Safety
• 6:14 Slowing Down to Find Clarity
• 9:23 Finding our Anchor in Uncertain Times
• 13:38 Anchored by Action
• 16:42 You’re Not Alone in This

Transcript

To live in uncertain times is not just to survive chaos. It is to remember that humans have always known how to adapt, how to grieve, how to rebuild in the dark, and you don't have to be certain to be grounded. You do not have to be fearless to be resilient, and you do not have to be okay to be worthy of love. But to see in the dark, we must find our light and trust that it is enough to help guide the next step.

You just lost your loved one. Now what? Welcome to the Grief in Life podcast where we explore this new reality through grief colored lenses. Openly, authentically, I'm your host, Nina Rodriguez. Let's get started. Hello and welcome back to the Grief in Life podcast. If you are new here, welcome. My name is Nina Rodriguez and I am your host.

And today we're going to be talking about the grief of uncertainty in unprecedented times. This is going to be a solo episode in audio only format. And I'm trying something new. actually wrote this article on, I guess you could say it's an essay on my sub stack. And I'm going to share it here as well. I really liked the way that this offered a different perspective to people. And it's reflecting back a lot of the conversations that I've had lately with.

know, colleagues, family, friends, people in the grief space, and my clients. So it's one of those things that I feel is important to name out loud. And it also covers the types of grief that we experience not related to somebody's passing. It's just the way that grief is really present for so many of us in today's world. So the grief of uncertainty in unprecedented times, finding your footing in a world that keeps shifting.

Lately, I've been moving through the world with a hum of unease, not the acute kind that arrives with a phone caller diagnosis, but the steady thrum of not knowing. This disharmonious buzzing has been echoed and reflected back through conversations with podcast guests, colleagues, and grievers experiencing the same undercurrent of disquiet of existing in a moment that feels too much. Unprecedented times, as they say.

I've come to recognize this feeling as a variant form of good old grief. Grief for the world as it is. Grief for the world as it was. Grief for the changes we're dealing with that seem completely unfair and preventable. Grief for the world we'd hoped to grow old in. And now we're living in profoundly uncertain times. Maybe every generation says that, but this moment, with its overlapping crises and accelerated pace, feels particularly brittle.

And let's be honest, it's the one that we are living, which makes it the main point of reference from a lived experience standpoint. We're watching institutions unravel and the dawn of the AI era. Trust feels elusive. The headlines toggle between absurd and apocalyptic, political instability, climate collapse, war, mass displacements, and the relentless march of AI reshaping work and worth before we've even caught our breath.

You open social media and see, have some major breaking news. And for once you decide to close the app instead of letting cortisol spiking updates making their way through the day's news cycle, hijack your day. So you check in with a friend, family or random person who casually asks, can you believe? And then you insert the latest holy shit moment. And just like that, the buzzy hum of a nice gets a click or two louder as uncertainty makes its way back to the front of the line.

And beneath it all, we're still grieving our own personal losses. The loved ones will never hug again. The versions of ourselves that will never return. The futures we once planned for but had to release. There is a grief that comes when the world stops making sense. Uncertainty feels like the loss of safety. When people think of grief, they often imagine the loss of someone, but grief expands far beyond death.

It shows up in the cracks of our assumptions, in the collapse of what felt stable, in the sudden shift of what we thought we could count on, in realizing that the people we thought we knew and trusted increasingly feel like strangers. Uncertainty is the loss of predictability. And predictability, whether we admit it or not, is one of the scaffolds of our mind and nervous system. It helps our minds make sense of the world to keep us safe by having some

educated guests through pattern recognition that it knows what tomorrow brings. Therefore, it can be at ease, at least for now. And one note on the word safe and safety. Throughout this piece, I use the word safe for safety in quotes, because I want to acknowledge that safety is a subjective experience. some, it's physical. For other people, it's emotional, relational, spiritual, or something else entirely. So what feels safe to one person may feel destabilizing to another.

So I'm using safe as a sort of placeholder for a felt sense of grounding steadiness or internal refuge, knowing full well that this is subjective and it's shaped by our personal histories, our identity and our lived experience. So I just want to make a caveat on that. So when the scaffolding starts to fall away, our bodies respond sometimes with anxiety, numbness, catastrophic thinking, and other times with a desperate attempt at controlling what little we can.

Our systems were not designed for this much change this quickly. We're living through what some grief theorists call living loss and ongoing loss, a form of ambiguous grief with no clear ending, no obituary, nothing to point to, no funeral, no ritual, it's just this ongoing thing. This kind of grief lives in the liminal space where the old world is gone and the new one hasn't yet arrived. So other than soothing ourselves in the ways that we've learned to survive, how else

Can we anchor ourselves in the reality where rapid, relentless change has become a new normal? One of my suggestions from lived experiences that slowing down to find clarity can be very helpful. Uncertainty tricks us into believing that we need to move faster. And if we just work harder, do more, know more, stay alert, we will feel quote unquote safe. But speed doesn't soothe grief. It often bypasses it.

And if you've listened to earlier episodes of the Grief in Light podcast, you might have heard me say that grief is an invitation to slow down. It's something I've had to live through time and time again, not because slowing down is trendy or virtuous, but because it is necessary. It is how we begin to process what is actually happening. Slowing down allows us to go within to recalibrate, digest, feel, and return with more clarity.

and I often think of it as water in a glass that looks cloudy and murky until you let it sit for long enough, then the particles begin to settle, the water clears, and you can finally see what's actually in the vessel as well as through it. When life is moving too fast, we lose sight of ourselves, but when we slow down, we make space for clarity as well as intentionally sift through the confusion to separate the fear, angst, and catastrophic thinking from the known facts. My mom used to tell me,

plenty of times growing up. Remember that fast is slow and slow is fast. Fast is slow and slow is fast. I didn't get it for some time and I probably rolled my eyes at her every single time. But after Joseph died, that phrase stopped being a riddle and started becoming my lived truth. What I've come to understand is this. When we rush, we're more prone to making mistakes. We miss the deeper messages. We gloss over the body's signals. We have to circle back later to clean up what we skipped over.

and that is the fast is slow part. But when we slow down intentionally and with presence, we're able to move through things with more clarity and care. We integrate instead of avoid, we don't waste precious energy pretending we're okay when we are not. And that is the slow is fast part. So consider this your invitation to slow down enough to name what you're grieving in this moment. What is the quiet part that wants to be expressed out loud?

What am I grieving right now? Ask yourself. If I'm being honest with myself, what feels the most unsettling in this moment?

What parts of me have been too quiet to hear over the noise? And don't overthink this, actually try not to think at all, but feel it. Where in your body does it feel unsettling? Is it your belly, your shoulders? Is it a tightness around your head? Maybe just admitting to ourselves that this is hard. I don't know what's coming and I miss what once was and will never be. Maybe that's enough. This is hard.

I don't know what's coming and I miss what once was and will never be. How does it feel to say that out loud? Presence and honesty about what is helps ground us and sometimes that's enough. So how do we find our anchor in uncertain times? How do we live inside the not knowing without being consumed by it? For me, it starts with remembering that grief isn't something to overcome.

especially in uncertain times when the losses are ambient and ongoing and unnamed, we need ways to anchor ourselves not to avoid reality but to meet it with more presence. Uncertainty is simply a part of life and our human condition. Let me say that again. Uncertainty is simply a part of life and our human condition. Anchoring in uncertainty looks like returning to the body, to the next breath.

to the small rituals that remind us we're still here, that life is still worth loving and living. I've learned the importance of tending to grief, not just when the waves crash, but also in the quieter moments. That means having a consistent practice I come back to when I'm spiraling or steady, it doesn't matter. The good times carry us through the hard times. And that is a belief. That's why I'm able to access joy when

It shows up in our lives because I am fully aware that each moment is fleeting and the joy of today will carry me through the sorrows of tomorrow. Growing the Grief and Light podcast, the online community's social media has been my anchor. They remind me that I am allowed to feel and I don't have to perform resilience to be okay, that the good times pass and so do the challenging ones, and that the only constant in life is change.

So why not spend our energy learning to navigate it rather than trying to control what we can't? A personal note here, these are my anchors. They don't have to be your anchors and a lot of people don't like to express out loud or do things that are public facing, which is completely understandable. My invitation is for you to find your version of that. So for example, other more private anchors look like slow mornings, nature walks, and a sound bath meditation by the ocean. Those are some of my favorites.

If you know, I live in Miami, so there are these beautiful full moon meditations and sound bath meditations that they offer to the public. And it is just so incredibly nourishing and anchoring. And that's part of what I engage in. And I know not everyone has access to Oceanside rituals or quiet mornings. So my invitation again is for you to find your version of that anchor, whatever helps you feel rooted. There's a difference between being informed and being inundated.

So, anchoring also means tuning out the noise. In a world that profits from our panic, choosing to step away from the headlines is not avoidance, it's nervous system care. And sometimes the most loving thing I can do is put down the phone and tune into what is real, like the sound of my dog's paws on the floor, the feeling of warm water over my hands and my body, the laughter from someone I love. When I notice my brain trying to convince me that

everything is crumbling, I pause and collect evidence to the contrary. A stranger's smile, a child's joy, a woodpecker inspecting different trunks. I name these things because when I go on walks, I tend to see these things at the park and they just anchor me in the moment that, you know what, in this moment, everything is okay. These moments are not frivolous. They're data points that life is also beautiful, that wholeness and collapse can exist in the same breath.

and it's all part of life. As the cool kids say, go touch grass, figuratively and literally. Go walk barefoot outside if you can and let your senses recalibrate. Let the earth remind you that you are not floating away. Let it ground you. And when it all still feels too much or if it feels too much still, I ask myself, what can I create meaning from not just in spite of.

Sometimes the answer in this is community, sometimes it's creating art and other times it's being in service to others. Keeping in mind that none of these are fixes, they are footholds. They do not solve uncertainty, but they help us hold it with a steadier grip and that too helps us show up with presence and centeredness.

There are moments, however, when the grief of uncertainty feels paralyzing, and then there are other times when the ache pushes us to act. Channeling the fear and the grief of uncertainty into action is also a form of anchoring. For some of us, however, action is what grounds us. It's how we return to ourselves when the world feels untethered. Purposeful, values-aligned action can help transform anxiety into motion and fear into focus. But...

not all action is created equal. In uncertain times, the goal isn't to do more or push harder, it's to move intentionally from a place of alignment rather than panic. Before we rush into any sort of, I don't know, activism, helping, building something new, we need to pause and ask, how can I show up without depleting myself? Do I have the capacity to show up from a place of abundance and not lack?

What are my strengths and where do I feel the most useful and resourced? I recently came across this graphic created by Dr. Nora F. Murphy Johnson and A. Raphael Johnson. And if I'm honest, I don't know much about their background, but I resonated with the graph. They identified 21 distinct changemaker roles, which are ways that people show up to contribute to a more just, inclusive, and resilient world. They range from

advocates and healers to pattern spotters to sustainers to builders and bridge-ers. Each of these roles reminds us that we don't all have to lead marches or speak on stages to be part of transformation. Everybody has a role to play in transformation and in today's world there are many that are being highlighted very publicly, but we are not all meant to be public figures. So I want to invite you to understand your strengths, identify them,

and lead with that. We each hold a thread in this web of transformation. So knowing your role doesn't mean that you'll never feel overwhelmed again, but it does give you a framework and a shifting world without losing yourself in the process. An action will look different for each of us. For example, maybe your anchor is making art. Maybe it's running for office.

Maybe it's caring for your kids or your elders with love and intention. Maybe it's planting something in your garden. Maybe it's organizing mutual aid or mentoring someone one step behind you. Maybe it's helping organizations with marketing. Changing the world begins with one action that casts a profound ripple effect. So sustained intentional heart centered action creates endless ripple effects that move mountains.

in a time when everything feels uncertain, asking, what is mine to do? What am I supposed to be doing in this moment? And doing just that can be one of the most steadying things we offer ourselves, each other and humanity. But above all, I want you to remember that you are not alone in this. To live in uncertain times is not just to survive chaos. It is to remember that humans have always known how to adapt, how to grieve, how to rebuild in the dark.

and you don't have to be certain to be grounded. You do not have to be fearless to be resilient, and you do not have to be okay to be worthy of love. But to see in the dark, we must find our light and trust that it is enough to help guide the next step. Uncertainty will always be a companion on the path to being alive and grief in all of its wisdom and all of its forms.

is simply trying to help us feel it so we do not float away. May you find your anchor one intentional moment at a time. So that was the article. I just finished reading it. I added some personal side notes in there and I hope you enjoyed it. Again, this is something different I'm trying because not everybody likes to read the content, but I also feel there's enough here to be helpful to somebody. So if you resonated with this episode, I would love to know about it.

You can message me directly, ideally on Instagram, that's where I'm most active, at grief and light. And let me know what you think, let me know what resonated. I would love to hear from you. I will link the article in the show notes, along with some previous episodes that are recorded that expand on this conversation. One of them is grief versus grieving, and the other one is the liminality of grief. The liminality of grief, for example, is when you are not

no longer the person you were before lost, but you haven't yet discovered who you are involving into. it's a conversation on how do we stay true to ourselves as we get to know who we are becoming? How do you operate from a place of becoming? And that's about a very powerful episode as well. I invite you to listen to that. And I thank you for being here. Thank you for being you. And I will see you in the next episode.

I'd also love to connect with you and hear your thoughts and your stories. Feel free to share them with me via my Instagram page at @griefandlight or you can also visit griefandlight.com for more information and updates. Thank you so much for being here, for being you, and always remember you are not alone.