From Star to Constellation: The Journey of Political Burnout (in 3 stages)
I have seen this pattern repeating way too many times
And it started with me.
Phase 1: "It's Not Me”
In the beginning, traumatic experiences often feel intensely personal. It’s easy to think, "This happened to me because I wasn’t strong enough, I am unlucky” or what the western/wellness therapeutic world loves us to believe “I attracted this!”.
We carry our trauma like an individual burden, feeling like it’s a flaw in our own character or resilience. This is the result of living in a world shaped by Western individualism, where we are taught to internalize our struggles, seeing them as personal failings.
And individual, western therapy THRIVES on this belief. When trauma are personal failings, we tend to hide with a practitioner/therapist to detangle what is “wrong” with us. So many folks have come to me from political spaces even using the word “broken” to describe them.
But when we start to step back, we notice patterns. We begin to realize that our burnout, trauma, and grief aren't unique—they are part of a larger picture. The systems around us create conditions that harm us. This is the first key shift: "It’s not me." We start to understand that what we’re going through isn’t just a reflection of our individual selves but the consequences to hundreds of years of structural violence.
Phase 2: “It’s Not Just Me”
Once we recognize that we’re not alone in our struggles, we begin seeking others who see the same connections. This is the phase where community becomes vital. Finding a political home, a space where others are also resisting systems of harm, allows us to share our grief and rage. We realize, "It’s not just me." Our pain is in fact a collective experience, and by grieving together, we create meaning out of our trauma. Collective grief and rage act like glue between people, and what a relief to know we don’t have to carry this alone.
Through organizing and healing spaces, we understand that our individual pain is actually a part of something much larger. This shared understanding is where the real healing begins—it turns personal tragedy into collective mourning and transformation.
Phase 3: "The Structures Live Through Us"
Finally, we reach a point where we realize that the very structures we’re organizing against also live within us. The systems of oppression—racism, capitalism, patriarchy, urgency, ableism—are not just external; they shape how we move, relate, and exist.
Organizing spaces are often birthed after the state’s latest act of violence and forged in reactive urgency. It’s not bad per se, but that requires a lot, A LOT of care. We all come together distressed, scared, hurt and traumatised, ready to act towards liberation and change. Although filled with the best intentions, we often do not take the necessary time to realise that we all carry those structures deeply in our tissues, too. So we just redistribute trauma downward (we pass down violence to the most vulnerable of us).
This is perhaps the most difficult phase, as it requires us to confront how these structures have influenced our own behaviors and relationships. And it’s also accompanied with a lot, A LOT of disappointment, grief, anger, hurt, we even sometimes feel completely betrayed. We think folks are pieces of hypocrite shit.
We decide being safe means being alone.
Healing, at this stage, becomes an ongoing practice of self-awareness and collective accountability. It’s about recognizing that while the systems are not our fault, they live in us—and it’s our responsibility to dismantle them, starting with ourselves.
Political burnout is not a sign of failure; it’s a sign that we are navigating oppressive systems that harm us all. The journey from “It’s not me” to “It starts with us” is a transformative one and can be a very painful/lonely one.
But what if I told you: you’re not alone? What if I told you it’s a call to move beyond individual healing and embrace collective accountability?
As a somatic practitioner mostly working with folks who have been organizing for years (whether is through direct action, with artists, care workers, and folks who are all of those things at once), I can assure you: so many of us are going through this. And maybe this is the process. Because of this, I am feeling more and more that I need to get away from 101 work and start really investing in collective work.
101 work is beautiful, don’t get me wrong, and necessary. But it’s not enough.
In other words, and maybe this sentence is enough:
why be a freaking star when you could be a goddamn constellation?
Our hearts are not to be kept, it is to be planted. And this revolution needs us to plant something really, really different y’all.
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Ok, I hope you’re taking care of you, you’re precious and we need you to make change happen,
Stay safe & ungovernable,
Care