Coping with Hopelessness as an Activist in Challenging Political Times

As an activist, the weight of social and political injustices can feel overwhelming. With each headline, policy shift, and setback, it’s easy to become disillusioned. Hopelessness can creep in, making you question whether your efforts are making a difference or if the world will ever change. This feeling is common during times of political unrest and social upheaval. Still, it does not have to define your journey.

Here are some strategies for coping with hopelessness while staying grounded in your activism:

1. Acknowledge Your Emotions Without Judgment

Begin by allowing yourself to feel what you’re feeling. Activism often demands strength and persistence, which can lead to the suppression of doubt or despair. But these emotions are valid and deserve attention. The work of challenging power structures is exhausting and emotionally taxing.

Instead of criticizing yourself for feeling hopeless, approach your emotions with compassion. Moments of doubt do not lessen the importance of your work. Sitting with these feelings can help you move through them rather than carry them silently.

2. Reconnect with the Roots of Your Activism

In moments of discouragement, it helps to revisit why you started doing this work. Reflecting on the values, experiences, or injustices that moved you to take action can reignite your motivation. Whether it was a personal moment, a community need, or a vision for justice, returning to your "why" can ground you.

Sometimes, remembering past victories, even small ones, can help restore hope. Progress is often slow and not always visible right away, but your efforts are part of a larger shift. The changes you help make can ripple far beyond what you can see.

3. Practice Self-Care as an Act of Resistance

You’ve likely heard about the importance of self-care, but it is often presented as a surface-level solution. Bubble baths, breaks, and solo retreats may help briefly, but deeper care is necessary to sustain you through long-term struggle.

Audre Lorde offered a powerful reframing of self-care in A Burst of Light when she wrote:

“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”

Lorde reminds us that caring for ourselves is a refusal to be consumed by systems that thrive on our exhaustion. For those who are Black, queer, trans, disabled, or otherwise marginalized, rest is not a luxury. It is a vital form of resistance.

Self-care in this context includes protecting your energy, setting boundaries, and tending to your body and spirit. It also includes refusing to sacrifice yourself in service of movements that need you to survive and thrive. This is not about retreating from the world. It is about preparing yourself to remain in it with strength and integrity.

4. Connect with a Supportive Community

Activism can be isolating, especially when progress feels slow. Having others who share your values and understand your experiences can ease the emotional toll. Solidarity and mutual care are essential for sustainability. Whether through local organizing spaces, online communities, or trusted friendships, seek out support that nourishes you.

Collective care reinforces the idea that your wellbeing is not separate from the movement. When you care for yourself, you also protect your capacity to care for others.

5. Focus on What You Can Control

The political landscape may feel out of reach, but you still have power. Taking action in areas you can influence helps restore a sense of agency. This might include organizing locally, writing, teaching, creating art, or having one meaningful conversation at a time.

Small, intentional steps add up. You do not have to fix everything at once. Start where you are and trust that consistent effort, no matter how small, contributes to broader change.

6. Engage in Creative Resistance

When traditional approaches feel heavy or ineffective, try creative resistance. Art, music, writing, performance, and storytelling have always been vital tools for transformation. They allow us to express grief, joy, rage, and vision in ways that logic or policy alone cannot.

Creative resistance gives you another way to engage when you feel worn down. It allows space for imagination, play, and connection. These are not luxuries. They are essential to building the world we want to live in.

7. Remember That Change Is Nonlinear

Progress rarely moves in a straight line. There are setbacks, pauses, and moments of apparent regression. This can be frustrating, but it is a natural part of collective movement work. History is full of moments when change seemed impossible, and then it came—because people kept going.

Your work may not lead to immediate results, but it still matters. You are helping to build the conditions that make future breakthroughs possible.

8. Cultivate Joy and Celebrate Small Wins

Joy is part of the struggle, not a distraction from it. Celebrating wins, even small ones, is essential. This might mean recognizing the strength of a single action, a new connection made, or a moment of beauty shared with your community.

Joy helps us remember what we are fighting for. It feeds our imagination and sustains our spirit. In a world that often tries to take that joy away, choosing it is a radical act.

Hopelessness does not mean you are failing. It means you are paying attention and deeply invested in making things better. You do not have to carry that weight alone, and you do not have to stay in despair.

You can rest. You can grieve. You can care for yourself. Then, when you are ready, you can continue.

Audre Lorde’s vision of self-care invites us to treat our bodies, minds, and spirits as worthy of protection and reverence. In doing so, we strengthen our capacity to resist and to dream.

You matter. Your care matters. And your vision for justice, even on the days when it feels far away, is helping to shape a more livable future for us all.