Riding the Storm: February

Hello dear friends & readers,

It feels like we’re entering a critical moment in modern-day history. But while the world is ever-more overtly unravelling, I’m settling into my new house, selecting paint colours and ordering IKEA furniture. The mundanity of “adulting” contrasted by the profundity of global events.

I’m trying to stay focused on what I can control. With spring approaching, I’m already celebrating new beginnings; starting a new partnership for my psychedelic retreats with my dear friend, T. I also hosted the first event in my attic last week, which with a bit of love will become a beautiful retreat space!

In this month’s article, I write about how to stay grounded in response to triggering news stories.

I trust you’ll find this a meaningful issue,

Tom 💚

🎓 Compassionate Inquiry, Online Course, Dr. Gabor Maté

I've just completed this incredible year-long course from Dr. Gabor Maté. It's designed for people who work with people, in whatever way. You learn his somatic approach to therapy and it's probably the best learning experience I've ever had. Applications are open for the May 2025 Cohort. Feel free to reach out if you're interested and have any questions.

🧘 Mindfulness in Plain English, Book, Bhante Gunaratana

An accessible guide for your meditation practice. The author explains complex concepts very simply and how to overcome resistance. It's particularly focused on vipassana sitting meditation but is applicable for most types of mindfulness. Kindly gifted as a free pdf by the author here.

🌎 Trump & Global Collapse, Article, George Monbiot, The Guardian
A concise yet informative overview of how Trump’s chaotic policies are enhancing the risk of global collapse. Monbiot closes with a few ways that we can nurture our resilience. It’s all about re-localising, building decentralised networks and community!

💖 “There are Angels”, AfterLife 2-minute clip

Take a breath, then watch this. I was moved to tears when the facilitator of our Compassionate Inquiry course showed this in our closing class last week. I dedicate it to all the changemakers out there working to create a better world.

🌿 Active Hope in the Climate Crisis, this Sunday, March 2nd 🌿

How can we face crises with resilience and creative power?

“Active Hope is about finding, and offering, our best response when facing concerns about our world situation.” - Joanna Macy. We'll explore practices from The Work That Reconnects to hold space for your emotions, build resilience & cultivate empowerment. This is a free event with Extinction Rebellion Rotterdam and is open for everyone!

✨ Conscious Evolution Collage, this Sunday, March 2nd

“Make sense of and find solutions to today's global sustainability challenges through a serious collaborative game.” This donation-based event is offered by Simon Van Meegdenburg, a new friend of mine who’s started facilitating these events to help people think systemically about our interrelated crises. I’d be there if I wasn’t facilitating the event above!

🍄 Psychedelic Life Crafting Retreat, March 8th - 9th 🍄

Ready to experience psychedelics in a conscious, safe space? In the right setting, psilocybin truffles can be life-changing medicines for healing, clarity and insight. Joining a retreat offers the opportunity to take the leap, trusting that I’ll be there to catch you. As a New Story subscriber, you can use the promo code FRIEND40 for a 40-euro discount on a ticket.

👉 Can’t make that weekend? The Hipsy event just went live for the next date on May 17th- 18th Feel free to reply directly to this email if you have any questions.

I'm sorry Daddy didn't see you. Even before Mary Trump's biography was published, it was obvious that her uncle had major daddy issues.

💔 The world is run by traumatised little boys in adult bodies, acting out their trauma on the world. That’s a terrible tragedy.

In his book, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, author and psychologist John Gartner explains how the POTUS has four key issues: “narcissism, paranoia, psychopathy, sadism. These are people who live and breathe rage; if they're not being adored, they seek to destroy and inflict pain on anyone who won't worship them."

But as was recently pointed out to me by a fellow activist; the argument of "you're just an emotionally immature man-baby" is a little petty and more importantly, ineffective. Triggering our outrage and pettiness is exactly the game that Trump plays, baiting us to jump into his cess pit. Because with that rulebook, he's unbeatable.

✊ Don't get me wrong, anger is justified and often necessary.

It provides clarity of what's wrong, helping us set boundaries and fueling us to stand up. But behind anger is always pain. And acting from that place of anger and pain isn't a sustainable strategy to create a more harmonious world.

It reminds me of France's retributive post-World War 1 economic crippling of Germany that arguable sowed the seeds for facism. Forcing working class German men to work in coal mines for your benefit isn't going to win their hearts and minds. Oh wow, high school history class was actually useful.

⚔️ Hate upon fear upon more hate and fear. That's how civilisation unravels.

They can't kill us all. But making us all live in fear of one another is how the Nazi's & Stalin built their power. Divide and conquer is a proven historical strategy across time and space.

Someone says something that we feel hurt by and we get triggered. In this state, we may act from a place of pain, tragically proliferating the existing division. Operating from a triggered state is what makes many progressives (me included) contribute to an “us vs them” rhetoric that in the long-term is doing more harm than good.

🌳 So how can we ground ourselves in the face of triggering far-right rhetoric?

A triggered state can be described as an activation of the nervous system. We tend to blame others for "triggering us" by something they did. But as developmental trauma specialist Dr. Gabor Maté explained during my year-long training with him, triggers are just a small part of the gun. Let's be curious to the ammunition that we're all carrying around within us.

🤯 Trump talks a lot of **** that's designed to explode our ammunition.

According to Gabor, trauma is not about the external events that happen to us. It's about what happens inside of us in response to those external events.

Dr. Maté explains how it’s predictable which soldiers will return from war zones with PTSD. All of them experience atrocious things that no human being should ever have to experience, but the ones who develop PTSD upon return are the ones who were traumatised in their childhood.

🌻 If you wanna be an effective changemaker in an unravelling world, get therapy.

The changemakers who are most affected by the news and likely to burnout are those carrying the most ammunition due to adverse childhood experiences (ACE’s). Something from the past is being triggered inside of us based on this present-moment external event. Good therapy helps us heal those parts of us that are crying for attention; bringing them out of the shadows and into the light.

🥦 The Green Bush Exercise

If I say "you're a green bush." You'd probably think I'm crazy, because evidently you're a human being, not a hairy plant growing in a park.

But if I say to you "you're useless and not contributing enough to create a better world." , you might get triggered. But why? They're both just sentences and words on the screen. It’s because part of you believes that you’re useless. That’s where therapy comes in to unravel those underlying beliefs.

😌 Let go of the doom-scrolling, step out of problem analysis.

You already know what's wrong. Focus on embodying wonderful alternatives to create a more beautiful world, even if you're merely shining a candle in a deep, dark cave. One tiny light can illuminate a whole room.

—

P.S. Trauma is far more complex than I can explain in a 600-word newsletter article. If you’re interested in working with me, or just having a deeper conversation about this topic, feel free to book a “get to know call” in my agenda.

Exploring Zuiderpark, my new local bioregion in Rotterdam. Crisp winter’s days are underrated. Wrap-up warm and get outside! And yes, I identify as a Gryffindor, obviously.

“The challenge of modernity is to live without illusions and without becoming disillusioned… I’m a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will.”
- Antonio Gramsci,

This letter was written during Gramsci’s 11 years of imprisonment under Mussolini’s fascist regime. He reminds us that yes, intellectually, it looks like the world will continue it’s dark descent. But our challenge is to keep trusting in our own power to make it a little bit better.

Thanks for reading and caring about the world,
Tom 💚