When current events bring real uncertainty, therapy can help us sort through what needs our attention, where we have agency, and what support we need.
The news cycle can feel relentless. A headline can hit like a punch in the chest, especially when what you’re reading reaches into your own life and the lives of the people you love.
It makes perfect sense that you’d want to stay informed and not just put your head in the sand. So you check one article and it colors your whole day as you notice you’ve begun trying to work through what happens next, whether you need to know more, and what you might need to prepare for. Putting the news aside doesn’t necessarily mean that your mind has put the story down with it.
Stress and anxiety around current events can be difficult to live with because the reassurance we’re looking for may not be available. Sometimes what we’re afraid will happen is not an irrational possibility given how events are unfolding. A policy change can affect our rights. Economic uncertainty can shape what options we have. Violence, war, discrimination, and instability can reach directly into communities and relationships we care about deeply.
I’m not here to tell you to care less or try to convince you that you’re worrying about nothing. The focus here is on what happens once you’re informed, especially when stepping away doesn’t feel like a real option. Anxiety therapy in Portland can help us sort through what actually needs something from us and what has turned into hours of anticipating, checking, preparing, and trying to stay one step ahead of what might happen next. This article is about what therapy can offer when the world gives us real reasons to worry and our minds keep trying to solve what can’t yet be known.
When What You’re Worried About Isn’t Hypothetical
A main focus in anxiety treatment can involve taking a closer look at our predictions: What am I expecting to happen? How certain am I? What evidence do I actually have? Those can be useful questions. Current events complicate that approach because sometimes the thing you’re afraid of has already happened or is happening. Sometimes you genuinely can’t know what is likely to come next. The stakes can be high enough that telling yourself not to worry would feel ridiculous.
What becomes important is what happens after you’ve taken in the information. For some of us, the mind immediately goes to work: Keep reading. Stay alert. Figure out what this means. Get ahead of whatever might happen next. If paying closer attention feels like it could keep you from being surprised or unprepared, of course there is a reason to keep doing it.
The problem is that current events rarely give us the certainty our minds are looking for. There is always another update, another interpretation, another possible outcome we haven’t accounted for yet. At some point, staying informed can quietly turn into spending the rest of the day trying to prepare for a future we cannot actually know.
This is one place therapy can be useful. We can sort through what genuinely needs your attention, where there may be something you want or need to do, and where anxiety has taken on the impossible job of preparing you for every possible outcome. When life changes, what it means to care for yourself may need to change too. Therapy gives us somewhere to explore what actually feels supportive now, what doesn’t anymore, what may need to change, and what you would like more of.
Current Events Don’t Affect Everyone in the Same Way
What feels supportive now also depends on what the news means in your own life. Current events don’t arrive with the same distance for everyone. For Queer and Trans people, BIPOC communities, immigrants, and others whose rights, safety, families, or access to resources may be directly affected by what is happening, a headline can be information about conditions you actually have to live within.
If a policy change affects your access to care, if public rhetoric changes how safe it feels to move through certain spaces, or if you are worried about what could happen to people you love, reducing your response to a set of anxiety symptoms misses part of the picture. The context belongs in the room too.
Therapy can give us somewhere to explore how these changes are affecting you rather than assuming there is one predictable response to having a particular identity. What feels different now? What has become harder? What still feels supportive, and what no longer does? Those answers are personal, and they can change as the circumstances around you change.
Cultural fit with a therapist can matter here as well. You may want someone who already understands important parts of the context of your life rather than spending valuable therapy time explaining why that context matters. I’m a Queer therapist and specialize in LGBTQ+ affirming therapy. If you’re looking for a therapist with another shared identity or particular cultural experience, Inclusive Therapists can also be a useful resource.
A Mindfulness Practice for Navigating Stress and Uncertainty
We’ve been talking about what happens when news and current events really do ignite feelings of uncertainty within us and we find our minds racing to respond by staying informed, anticipating what comes next, and preparing for a rat’s nest of future possibilities. This is a phenomenon where mindfulness can offer us some support.
When I use the word mindfulness here, I mean paying attention to what is happening in our present experience with enough openness to notice without having to analyze or judge it.
Mindfulness allows us to practice choosing where we place our attention instead of automatically following each worried thought that crosses our minds. It can also help us get clear about our emotional and physical reactions to stress and anxiety, opening us up to what sort of care we need as circumstances outside of our control change.
With that framework in mind, I’d like to offer one practice you can try when you notice your attention has been pulled into fear and discomfort.
I’m choosing a walking practice deliberately. We’ve spent a lot of this article talking about what happens in the mind—anticipating, calculating, wondering what comes next. Walking gives us something physical and immediate to come into contact with instead: a body moving through space, feet meeting the floor or ground, breath moving while we move. You can do this inside your home, down a hallway, around a room, or outside if that feels right for you.
Before you begin walking, give yourself a moment to arrive. Shift your weight around a little. Shake out your hands or shoulders if they want to move. Notice whether there is anywhere in your body that is holding a lot of tension: your jaw, shoulders, hands, stomach, and whether some movement or stretching would feel good. Nothing needs to loosen or change before you start.
You may also bring a simple intention into the practice, something you want to remember while you’re walking. Maybe you want to meet yourself with a little more patience or give permission to be here for the next few minutes. Choose something that actually means something to you rather than what you think a mindfulness practice is supposed to sound like, make it yours.
Then begin walking at a slow pace. Bring your attention toward the physical experience of walking. Feel one foot meet the ground and then the other. Notice pressure shifting through the feet, the transfer of weight through your legs, or the small movements involved in lifting a foot and placing it down again. Your breathing can stay somewhere in your awareness too, not something you need to control, just another part of the body moving as you walk.
You can let your eyes take in what is around you. Shapes, light, movement, the room you’re crossing or the place you’re walking through. We aren’t trying to narrow attention so tightly that everything else disappears. We’re practicing being where we actually are and noticing.
At some point, you’ll probably find yourself in your thoughts. Once you realize where your attention has gone, begin again by gently returning your attention to the physical experience. Feel the next footstep. Notice the movement of your body. Let your eyes register what is here.
You may do that many times. That returning is part of the practice.
When you’re ready to finish, stop walking and give yourself another moment before moving on to whatever comes next. Notice what is here now (physically, emotionally, mentally) and then ask yourself: What would feel supportive now?
Different moments ask different things of us so the answer doesn’t have to be the same answer you would have given yesterday, and it doesn’t have to resemble what another person needs. Part of mindfulness is becoming familiar enough with our own experience that we have more information about what care might look like here, under the circumstances we are actually living through.
Sometimes, caring for ourselves also means reaching for support.
Taking Action When So Much Feels Outside of Your Control
One of the stickiest parts of world-on-fire stress is how much of what affects us lies outside of our individual control. We can stay informed and follow events, care deeply about it and reach the uncomfortable edge of what any one person can actually influence.
That can make finding something that you can do especially meaningful. And hold up- if you’re thinking I’m not there, I’ve got you, this is an invitation not an expectation. Having some sense of agency, the experience that our choices and actions still matter, can help counter some of the helplessness that feeds anxiety around this kind of stress. Research on civic engagement also suggests that meaningful action can bring connection, purpose, and a stronger sense of possibility, although getting involved can become stressful too when it turns into more pressure to take on more than we’re able to in any given moment. So this is not an invitation to simply get busier.
Therapy can help to sort through where action feels meaningful and aligned with your values, and where it starts becoming another demand. Paying attention to what you actually respond to and where you do have some influence. Is there something that you want to contribute, change, or feel more connected to? Are there any places where you are asking too much of yourself?
For some, taking action includes finding others who are already responding to issues they care about. Portland organizations such as Q Center, Oregon Food Bank, APANO, and Don’t Shoot PDX offer different ways to connect with community, find support, participate, or get involved. Joining an organization is only one possible next step. Helplessness can feel different once we begin identifying where our own choices still have some reach.
And seeking therapy is a form of action too. Reaching out can be a way of deciding that what you’re experiencing deserves attention and that you want some help figuring out what support, care, and choice look like in the life you’re living now.
Finding Support in Uncertain Times
Hope can be active and fluid, we don’t have to convince any part of ourselves that everything will work out fine to feel it. In uncertain times, it can be practical: remembering that not every choice has been taken away from us. We can still decide where to place our attention, what deserves our effort, who we want alongside us, and when we want help.
Therapy won’t change the news or make uncertainty disappear. It can give you somewhere to explore how world events are affecting you, sort through what genuinely needs a response, and decide where you want your attention and energy to go.
I offer online anxiety therapy in Portland and throughout Oregon for adults dealing with worry, overwhelm, and the strain of living with uncertainty that has real consequences. My approach draws from IFS therapy, mindfulness and self-compassion, and Person-Centered therapy. I also offer LGBTQ+ affirming therapy, with particular care for the ways identity, community, and current events can intersect without assuming that identity explains everything about you.
I offer a free 15-minute phone consultation and welcome you to reach out to schedule yours. We can talk about what has been weighing on you, what you’re hoping therapy could offer, and whether working together feels like a good fit.
Schedule your free consultation directly from my website or feel free to call me at (971) 533-5590 and we’ll find a time that would work for us.
Eric Goodwin is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Oregon and offers online therapy in Portland and throughout Oregon.
Eric works with adults navigating anxiety, harsh self-criticism, high internal pressure, and identity-related stress. His approach is warm, affirming, and focused on helping people better understand themselves while creating more room for ease, clarity, and self-trust.
He offers support for anxiety, LGBTQ+ affirming counseling, and Internal Family Systems, IFS. You can learn more about Eric here.