Staying Steady
Practical Tools to Interrupt Overwhelm and Build Resilience Under Authoritarian Assault
You're Not Failing. You're Being Targeted.
You're being hit from all sides at once: manufactured crises, institutional betrayal, economic chaos engineered from the top, policies designed to destabilize, news cycles meant to disorient you, threats that land in the body like physical blows.
Some days you lose hours to doom-scrolling. Other days you go numb—emotionally flat, performing competence while hollowed out. You withdraw, you get quiet, you replay your reactions in shame, and you assume everyone else is handling this better.
They're not.
And this isn't personal weakness—it's authoritarian strategy at work.
Trump's movement openly describes its goal: traumatize opponents, flood the zone, break people who care. Overwhelm isn't incidental. It's the point.
This toolkit is how you interrupt that pattern and build resilience.
Why This Toolkit Exists
I built this because I needed it.
In December, 2024 I was fired for expressing solidarity on social media with federal workers Trump had promised to attack during his campaign. My company demanded I take down my post. I refused. They let me go.
In the weeks after, I experienced everything this toolkit addresses: the paralysis, the shame spiral, the fear that shrank my sense of what was possible, the manufactured helplessness that felt bigger than the actual situation required.
And I'm married to an immigrant with a green card. Some days we're afraid to go grocery shopping because of ICE raids in our area. The authoritarian assault isn't abstract for my family - it's immediate and ongoing.
I struggle with all of it: the overwhelm, the outrage, the cynicism, the demotivation, the fear. I'm not writing from safety. I'm writing from inside the same pressure you're navigating.
This toolkit isn't theory. It's what I use. It's what I've refined with hundreds of thousands of readers who have read, shared, and commented. These are the tools that actually work when the assault is real and your capacity is under attack.
Why You Need Tools Built for Authoritarian Pressure
Most "stress management" or "resilience" resources assume:
normal civic conditions
stable institutions
trustworthy leadership
None of that applies now.
You're not navigating generic stress—you're navigating weaponized destabilization aimed at your capacity to think, act, and stay connected.
The forces that created this moment—authoritarianism, extraction, manufactured chaos—won't disappear with one election or one leader. Trump is old. He could be gone tomorrow. But the tactics, the playbook, the assault on agency and truth? Those persist.
You need tools that work now AND build capacity for years of resistance and civic building ahead.
That's why this toolkit doesn't teach calm or positivity. It teaches operational steadiness—the ability to interrupt overwhelm fast and regain enough ground to identify your next move.
This is civic resilience, not self-help.
What This Toolkit Gives You: Rescue AND Resilience
Seven real-world practices that work in two ways:
RESCUE (When you're in it right now):
Emergency circuit breakers when you're spiraling
Interrupt shame before it isolates you
Get your feet back under you when news hits hard
Stop losing entire days to manufactured chaos
RESILIENCE (Building capacity over time):
Recognize patterns early—catch overwhelm before it peaks
Know which tool to reach for when
Recover faster when you break
Become harder to manipulate, distract, or destabilize
Build shared language with people who steady you
Not just crisis response. Infrastructure for the long fight.
The Seven Practices
1. Recognize Overwhelm Early. Rapid-scan checklist to identify your patterns before they take you out. Know your signals. Catch it faster.
2. Map Your Triggers Without Shame. Understand what activates you and where your responses take you—toward action or paralysis.
3. Detect When You're Near Your Threshold. Spot accumulated load before something small breaks you. Read your capacity, tend to it earlier.
4. Interrupt Shame Before It Isolates You. Break shame's predictable pathways. Refuse to do their punitive work inside your own head.
5. Use Emergency Circuit Breakers. Specific tools for when you're underwater: body locked, doom-scrolling, frozen, panicked, withdrawing.
6. Reach Steadiness After the Spiral Stops. Four pathways to regain clarity: ground in body, anchor in values, guard capacity, strategic mindfulness.
7. Build Connection (and Navigate Risky Spaces). Map relationships that steady you. Set boundaries where honesty costs too much.
What Changes When You Use These Practices
Not false hope. Not emotional transformation. Not unrealistic promises.
This toolkit delivers repeatable outcomes under hostile conditions:
Immediate Rescue
Interrupt spirals before they consume the day
Stop shame from isolating you
Break through paralysis
Reach steadiness faster and more reliably
Long-Term Capacity
Recognize patterns early
Catch overwhelm before it peaks
Recover faster when you break
Reduce hours lost to manufactured chaos
Become harder to manipulate or destabilize
Strategic Benefits
Understand the nature of the harm
Respond with clarity instead of reactivity
Protect your ability to think and act
Stay human in conditions engineered to strip that away
Tools Matched to the Actual Harm
Think of it this way: If you're in relationship with a malignant narcissist, generic relationship advice about communication techniques might help some. But you'll get far more from tools matched to the specific harm—boundary setting, gray rock tactics, safety strategies.
That's the distinction here.
Traditional psychotherapy resources can help you regulate your mind’s and body's response to pressure. Valuable, especially for past trauma.
This toolkit gives you counter-tactics for ongoing political assault. Matched to the actual harm—manufactured chaos, weaponized overwhelm, deliberate destabilization.
This is the only toolkit that names authoritarian tactics explicitly and gives you counter-moves matched to political assault—not just nervous system regulation.
Seven complete practices. Emergency interrupts. Pattern recognition. Strategic mindfulness adapted for resistance. Connection planning for both trusted and risky relationships.
Built from 40+ years of organizing and contemplative practice. Informed by thousands of readers navigating this exact pressure.
About the Author
I'm Paul Shattuck, MSW, PhD—social worker, sociologist, and longtime organizer in the face of oppressive systems.
I've spent 40+ years at the intersection of contemplative practice and community organizing. I've led research projects, built coalitions, launched nonprofits, and advised mission-driven leaders navigating institutional pressure. I've also rebuilt after personal and financial collapse more than once.
Those experiences taught me what it takes to stay operational under sustained assault—and what breaks us when we try to do it alone.
This toolkit grew out of that lived experience, plus thousands of conversations with readers, clients, and organizers trying to stay human and strategic while everything around them destabilizes.
I write for thousands of people navigating authoritarian harm through my Substack, Progressive Strategy Now. This work isn't theory. It's field-tested infrastructure for staying grounded and responsive when the conditions are designed to break you.
My aim isn't to prescribe a single path. It's to offer tools, language, and clarity so you can find your own way forward—rooted in values, not panic.
Who Uses This Toolkit
FOR INDIVIDUALS: Your go-to resource whenever overwhelm hits. Menu-based—use what you need, when you need it. Return repeatedly as authoritarian pressure continues. Build capacity that compounds over time.
FOR MUTUAL AID GROUPS & ORGANIZERS: Work through practices together. Each practice includes "Try with others" guidance. Build collective capacity. 50+ pages gives you months of material—enough for 7+ group sessions. Every member needs their own copy to work through the exercises.
FOR PROFESSIONALS (therapists, social workers, organizers, coaches): Comprehensive framework for supporting people under authoritarian pressure. Evidence-based practices. Adaptable for different contexts. Save hours of curriculum development.
What's Inside
50+ pages of structured, repeatable tools:
Quick-scan overwhelm checklist
Direct trigger mapping worksheets
Threshold awareness mapping
Shame interrupt pathways + tiny moves
Emergency interrupt protocol
Four pathways to steadiness
Connection mapping + risky spaces navigation
Quick Reference Card for when you can't think straight
"Try This with Others" prompts throughout
Everything designed to be used imperfectly—in the middle of the chaos, not after it.
Pricing
The full price of this toolkit is $55.
Why: More than 50 pages of one-of-a-kind content. Seven complete practices with interactive exercises. Emergency tools AND capacity-building infrastructure. Nothing comparable exists for people under authoritarian pressure. You'll use this for years, not weeks.
I’m using a Pay What You Want approach because so many people in this moment are facing job loss, retaliation, economic instability, or abrupt dislocation. The minimum payment for people facing such difficult circumstances is $15.
If you’re under pressure, please pay what you can. If you’re resourced, please pay it forward by paying full price or more.
If it’s feasible for you to pay closer to $55, you're getting something genuinely unique at a price that reflects its actual value.
If you’re in a position to pay more than $55, you’re helping subsidize people with fewer financial resources and supporting the expansion of this work.
And because I want this to feel genuinely low-risk:
30-day guarantee: If the toolkit doesn't help you, email me and I'll refund you. No friction. No justification required.
Finally: Please don't share your PDF with others or make photocopies. If this could help someone you care about, send them the link to get their own copy. The pay-what-you-want model only works if we honor it—and honoring it means I can keep building resources like this.
Who This Is For
This toolkit is for people navigating sustained authoritarian pressure:
public servants under political targeting
community members grieving repeated assaults
organizers, advocates, caregivers
people harmed by institutional betrayal
people who feel ashamed for not keeping up
people who quietly absorb chaos while trying to function
anyone destabilized, scattered, withdrawn, or overwhelmed
You do not need to be an activist. You do not need to be loud. You only need to want to stay functional in hostile conditions.
Who This Is Not For
people seeking generic mindfulness or wellness
people looking for inspiration without practice
people expecting quick emotional relief
people who want non-political framing
people who prefer euphemisms and neutrality
This is a toolkit for people living through overlapping harms—not an escape from them.
Start Anywhere, Use it Everywhere
Authoritarians want you overwhelmed, ashamed, isolated, and unable to act.
This toolkit gives you repeatable practices that protect the capacity they're trying to steal.
You'll use these tools for years—not because the pressure will ease, but because you're building endurance for the long fight.
Start anywhere. Use one practice. Build what compounds.