Emotional Weather

Handling Fear, Doubt, and Hope in Uncertain Times

Welcome to Week 3 of the Life Transitions mini-series. If you just landed here for the first time: We're unpacking what it means to go through big changes and how to meet life when the road ahead is foggy, messy, or entirely underwater.

Catch up by reading:

Week 1 – Why Life Keeps Asking Us To Grow (The Nature of Change)

Week 2 – The Identity Gap (How To Navigate The Space Between Who You Were And Who You Are Becoming)

This week's forecast? Emotional turbulence with a 60% chance of spiraling. Unless…

This post is about the psychological climate during uncertain times, those deeply human moments when life stops making sense, decisions feel high-stakes, and the future looks like a choose-your-own-adventure book by Kafka. Whether political upheaval keeps you up at night, a major move, a divorce, or the terrifying exhilaration of starting something new, uncertainty opens the door to anxiety, fear, doubt, anger, alternating with hope, faith, enthusiasm, even gratitude, if you're lucky.

Why Uncertainty Feels So Bad (And Why Struggling Is Not Weakness)

Your brain is a prediction machine built to reduce uncertainty by recognizing patterns, reminding you of lessons learned, and keeping you out of harm's way. According to neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett, the human brain constantly anticipates what's going to happen next and prepares our body accordingly. But when it can't predict accurately, whether due to political chaos, a job loss, or your ex getting married two minutes after breaking up with you, it sounds the internal alarm, getting your attention to prepare and protect you.