Holding space for hope and heartbreak: how do we stay awake in a world that wants us to go numb?

We’re watching fascism unfold in real time.
The worst part? We're told to stay neutral. To debate both sides.
I’m done compartmentalizing my humanity.

This new episode asks: how do we stay awake in a world that wants us to go numb? How do we resist the grind, the gaslighting, the urge to look away — and still choose joy, rest, and each other?

A new podcast series begins now. For those holding both hope and heartbreak.

Referenced in the episode:

Jonathan Dent – Astrologer

https://www.jonathanldent.com/

Naomi Klein - The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

https://www.ted.com/talks/naomi_klein_how_shocking_events_can_spark_positive_change?language=en

Licensed intro music from NoMo

Transcript

Hi friends.

It’s been a long while and I hope you’re all doing ok.

When I first started writing this episode back in January, I had no idea how different life would feel just a handful of months later. “Back then” already feels like a lifetime ago—and now, looking back through the lens of everything that’s happened, it truly was.

Life has been lifeing, in every possible sense.

From health issues that dragged on for months and months without answers, to the helplessness of watching the ongoing genocide continue to unfold in Gaza, to the terminal cancer diagnosis of my dog Ollie—who I lost just six weeks later—it’s been one blow after another. Some days I barely recognize myself. My life. The world.

And still, in true Shahzia form, I’m here. Even though part of the curse of being an overly self-aware person—especially one with ADHD—is that I carry guilt about not “doing enough.” About showing up inconsistently, even in the spaces that bring me the most joy. I mask to survive at work, then burn out so deeply that even the smallest creative act feels like a mountain. But still, I come back to this podcast. Always. Even after long silences. Even when shame tells me I’ve abandoned it for too long. Because this has never been about perfect consistency—it’s been about truth. About holding space for the parts of ourselves we’re not always allowed to show or speak out loud.

I’m here with a mic in front of me—writing through it, speaking through it, reaching through it. Because sharing big feelings has always helped me survive them. And if anything I say here helps you feel a little less alone in your grief, your fear, your exhaustion... then this space is for you.

When I first drafted this episode, it was over 14 pages long. Yes—fourteen. Even ChatGPT told me it was too much to process when I tried pasting it in to help me drum up a creative title. I laughed, felt a bit of shame but was grateful for the robot’s reality check.

So, I decided to do something different. To break this up into smaller, more digestible parts—a series, really—on how we can begin to resist, rebuild, and reconnect. Not in big, abstract ways, but in small, personal, meaningful ways. In the quiet, persistent acts of choosing hope when the world tells us to give up. Because I know I’m not the only one carrying what feels like the weight of the heaviness of the world right now, and a little glimmer of hope, a way forward and a splash of inspiration might be exactly what you also need right now.

Over the course of the next while, we’ll explore themes together like:

• Staying awake in a world that wants you to tune out
• Embracing rest without guilt
• Seeking joy and emotional sustainability
• Asking for help and leaning into community as a form of resistance
• Practicing mutual aid and solidarity
• Reclaiming your spending as a tool for change

If any of that resonates, then I’m so glad you’re here and let’s get to work.

I’ll start by acknowledging that so many of you are navigating your own grief, uncertainty, and a kind of quiet dread about the direction we’re headed—politically, socially, globally. It’s almost like the fast forward button was pushed following the pandemic and since then it’s been one dysregulating world event after another, with no space in between to catch our breath. Although I’m based in Canada, so much of what happens with our neighbors down south impacts us in ways we can’t afford to ignore. We narrowly avoided our own maple-glazed MAGA moment in the last federal election. But the margin was too close for comfort. It told us something important: the precedent is already set. A platform built on hate and division can absolutely win again. And it’s terrifying.

We’re a handful of months into Trump’s second term, and the gaslighting and violence have only escalated. More funding for genocide, punitive tariffs harming our Canadian economy, threats to make us the 51st state, escalations in ICE detaining and deporting immigrants and tearing apart families, an open war on equity, DEI, and human rights... all while his administration gets restocked with the same morally bankrupt characters who remind us: you don’t need integrity or qualifications to lead, just money, whiteness, and an appetite for power.

We are watching fascism unfold—not in theory, not in history books—but right now, in real time. And so many of us are still required to center so-called "both sides" discourse around views rooted in dehumanization, and it shows just how little many of us in society have really learned from history that was meant to be far behind us. Namely how easily manipulated people can be when fear is weaponized, and humanity is pushed to the margins.

I’m tired. Tired of having to compartmentalize my humanity to make others feel comfortable. Tired of watching people vote in ways that actively endanger my existence—and the existence of those I love. Tired of seeing Black, Indigenous, Latin, Muslim, trans, and disabled people continually treated like political bargaining chips instead of human beings.

And I know I’m not alone in this.

And when I find myself in this state, feeling like I can’t take much more, I come back to some wise words of wisdom to help me reset. A little known fact about the onion that is Shahzia’s personality is that as pragmatic and practical my Capricorn self can be in many arenas of my life, I also love the mystical parts that are often not so easily explained and I have a deep love of astrology to the point that I can say with pride that I have an astrologer who I regularly touch base with. I mention this because one of the primary reasons I initially sought out Jonathan Dents astrology guidance is based on some words of wisdom he shared that stopped me in my tracks.  It was – “Imagine if we measured success by the amount of safety that people felt in our presence?” I reflect on Jonathan’s words a lot, especially these days, as inspiration to imagine the possibilities of staying grounded in what makes us human, no matter how much those in power want to beat that feeling out of us. I also share it because I believe his words can serve as an ethos for all our lives to move through this turbulent, horrific and damaging time in the world looking for hope and to do so with a steadfast focus on humanity and community, above all else.

And let me tell you that the need to glean any iota of hope came in strong earlier this year with the loss of my dog Ollie. For those who know me even peripherally you know that my Ollie was an extension of my soul, and his recent death has left me with a grief journey like nothing I’ve experienced before. The love between a girl and her boy dog is akin in my eyes to a kind of love that is so pure and uncomplicated that it makes you see yourself as he does – as the worthy and fulsome human you are. The way that dogs show us what unconditional love looks like in the form of four legs and balls of fluff is unique and special, and their love changes you. Their loss changes you even more. Ollie was my first dog, a rescue dog who came into my life when he was 4 years old. I had the name Ollie in my head for years before I met him and upon seeing his profile on the adoption website, already named Ollie and the perfect size and temperament for condo living, I knew finding one another was meant to be. As a child of immigrant parents, I was never allowed to have a dog because according to my Pakistani mother, I was just as messy as a dog so why would she need to have more of that to manage? So, adopting him was a big deal even as my 30 + year old, independent woman self. Ollie taught me how to be a nurturer, how to put my needs aside every day to ensure he had the best quality of life possible to the extent of even spending $13,000 out of pocket on emergency surgery for him 2.5 years before his death. I loved that boy with all of me and I miss him so, so much. He showed me what it means to love a soul more than you love yourself and he had an immense impact on so many people in the tried-and-true ways he loved to give kisses, adored kids of all ages and how he could relay all he was feeling on his tiny face, in an often meme worthy way. He acquired a unique love of humping fluffy dog beds and I’m happy to say he humped his fluffy dog bed every day until his last day alive. He was my king of side-eye, my cheese connoisseur and lover of the simplest of pleasures like car rides, alone time, sunbathing and more importantly his Pakistani immigrant grandparents – and yes, the love was very mutual. My home feels empty and quiet in his absence, and I have struggled with feelings of listlessness and purposelessness in the weeks and months since his passing, something I’m working through with intention and care. I share all this because I believe such great loss opens you up to do and see things differently, if you’re willing and of course able, to wade through grief. Similarly, wading through grief, fear, and the uncertainty of our time means allowing it to open you up to also do and see things differently. For each person that will look and feel a little bit different, but what is presented to us in this time of life and in the world is an opportunity to reimagine, if we are able and willing to see it.

And what do I really mean by all this? Let me share what’s been circling in my mind.

I think often about how this current moment in time mirrors late-stage capitalism. We can see it playing out clearly in the United States—an overt rise in fascism, yes—but also in the absurd and horrifying extremes of class inequality, overconsumption, and an uncritical obsession with AI and innovation for innovation's sake. All of it fuels a hedonic treadmill that keeps moving the goalposts, never once pausing to ask: when is enough, enough?

We’re not immune here in Canada. It’s the same song, just a different verse. A housing crisis driven by private corporate investment, making affordable housing nearly inaccessible. Provincial governments slashing income support for people with disabilities while pushing privatized healthcare agendas and a separatist agenda blatantly ignoring the fact that we exist on stolen, treaty land. Grocery prices rising without pause, all thanks to unchecked corporate greed. And the creeping embrace of American-style individualism, layered on top of post-COVID inflation and economic pressure, is straining the social fabric of this country.

We are watching, in real-time, the moral erosion that comes with billionaire worship, with oligarchies hoarding wealth while the rest of us fight for 2% annual raises—just enough to cover rising taxes that fund wars and genocides in our name. I feel this in my bones: this is not sustainable. Whether it collapses in my lifetime or the next, something must give.

So many of us are moving through life like ghosts, building our identities around productivity and numbing ourselves with consumer comforts. We accept the grind, the burnout, the "just enough to survive" model because we’re told it’s the best we can hope for. But we deserve more than this—and more importantly, we have the power to imagine and build something different.

What if, instead of waiting for the way we know things to collapse, we started actively asking how our grief, fear, uncertainty, and anger could open us up to new ways of being—ways rooted in resistance, in community, and in detachment from the lies of capitalism and individualism?

I’m inviting you to take that leap with me. Even if resistance feels abstract, even if the idea of detaching from capitalism and life as we know it feels daunting or impossible, let’s explore what it could look like together. How do we step off the hedonic treadmill that socialized us to believe our worth is tied to how much we produce? How do we begin unlearning the idea that being a “good citizen” means working ourselves to death just to stay afloat and keep those in power who will never be satisfied?

This requires critical reflection—on the systems we’ve internalized, on what we’ve normalized, and on how our supposed “freedoms” are often in service to the very structures that harm us. This work is neither easy nor linear—I’ve been unraveling it in therapy for years, and I’m still unlearning.

I don’t have it all figured out. I’m a single woman managing a mortgage, bills, and the pursuit of financial security, which often pulls me into decisions rooted in comfort or convenience. Case in point: at the time of drafting this episode, I had a virtual cart full at Sephora, waiting for that annual VIB sale. Twenty percent off skincare I don’t need but somehow believed would change my life. So, yes—I still live within these contradictions. And yet, through this reflection, I’ve also made small, meaningful shifts. These might feel like baby steps, or they may already be things you’re doing—but my hope is that sharing them can serve as a reminder or spark for what’s possible.

This next part of the episode will offer a reframe on understanding the interconnectedness of everything and the importance of staying awake to what’s happening around us, to resist the default to individualism, no matter how hard it gets. In part 2 and maybe part 3, we’ll talk about the power of community, of asking for help, and of rest as resistance. We’ll explore rewiring our brains for joy, practicing mutual aid, and using our spending power intentionally—not performatively.

Let’s start with the foundation: staying awake.

In today’s world, staying awake—to injustice, to oppression, to systems that harm—takes effort. It’s tempting to disengage. Overwhelm can paralyze us. But the goal of those in power is precisely that: to shock us into inaction. Naomi Klein calls this tactic “the shock doctrine”—a term she coined in her 2007 book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. It’s the practice of using collective crises—wars, coups, natural disasters, economic collapse—to push through deeply unpopular, pro-corporate policies while the public is disoriented and vulnerable.

Think of Hurricane Katrina. As Klein describes, private military contractors descended on New Orleans to profit off the disaster while Black residents struggling to survive were treated like criminals. Or consider financial collapses that lead to massive bailouts for banks and slashed protections for the public—all justified by fear of economic apocalypse. These are not accidents. They are patterns.

Klein’s work reminds us that the antidote to shock is awareness, imagination, and organizing. And I know—these can feel like lofty ideals in the face of exhaustion and fear coupled with our modern-day proclivity for comfort. But her message is clear: we cannot solve systemic problems in isolation. The issues are interconnected, so our solutions must be too.

Upon acknowledging the interconnectedness of everything, I think it then requires you to stay awake to where your attention and energy can make a difference. This requires discernment to know what feels most urgent, what most aligns with your core values and what direct connection a particular issue has to your sphere of influence. This distinction has been important for me and I know it will be important for you too. It’s meant confronting the impulse to look away when what’s happening in Palestine, for example, feels “too far” or “not our issue.” For nearly 2 years we’ve been watching the horrors of the genocide play out on our phone screens and limited capacity for all this awareness of trauma is real, I never discount that, I never discount that we have a lot to do to clean up our own backyard, but I also know how deeply interconnected all of this is. It’s acknowledging that our taxpayer dollars have funded Israeli weapons that have directly massacred countless Palestinian’s. In 2024 alone, Canada sent over $18 million dollars of weapons to Israel, despite our government’s claims otherwise. According to Arms Embargo Now, F35 bomber jets, apache attack helicopters, and elbit drones that Israel is using to murder Palestinians every day are made with Canadian technology and full of Canadian parts, this despite a promise to stop any arms export permits in January 2024. And the same colonial logic used to justify genocide abroad has been used here in our past and present day in Canada—against our Indigenous communities. The dehumanization of Indigenous Peoples as savages and not like us, as a threat that justified attempts at eliminating the quote-on-quote Indian problem. That connection can’t be ignored.

Since October 7, 2023, I’ve committed to staying engaged—donating, emailing my MP, attending protests, spending countless hours volunteering my time for Justice for Palestinians, following voices on the ground like Bisan and Motaz, and refusing to look away. That energy and attention has ebbed and flowed throughout the last two years, and it often feels like not enough. My small efforts may not make a big difference to the end of this nightmare, but the actions are part of that bigger picture of collective change, one with all my privilege and access that I can partake in, even if it doesn’t always feel like it’s doing a damn thing because collectively, it matters. Collective change is made of small, persistent acts. If my privilege affords me the chance to show up, even in small ways, I will keep doing so. And I hope you will too.

Because staying awake matters. Our awareness, our grief, our choices—they are part of the resistance. They are part of what it means to choose humanity over comfort.

And this is just the start. 

How are you staying awake?

In the next part, we’ll talk about how to continue staying awake through small acts of resistance - rest, seeking joy and emotional sustainability and finding spaces of hope through community. We’ll continue to hold the tension of hope and horror. To stay informed, without letting the weight of the world paralyze you. And to begin imagining resistance—not as a grand revolution—but as a daily practice of choosing humanity, again and again. Until then, I’m glad you’re here, I’m so happy to be back and I will see you all soon.

Life has been lifeing—and in this long-awaited return, Shahzia offers a deeply personal reflection on loss, the cost of political awareness, and the slow, quiet power of beginning again. From the devastation of Gaza to the grief of losing her beloved dog Ollie, from ADHD burnout to the exhaustion of advocacy, this episode kicks off a new series on finding hope and practicing resistance in small, intentional ways. You are not alone in your overwhelm. This is your space to feel, process, and heal.

Referenced in the episode:

Jonathan Dent – Astrologer

https://www.jonathanldent.com/

Naomi Klein - The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

https://www.ted.com/talks/naomi_klein_how_shocking_events_can_spark_positive_change?language=en