What Do You Hold When Everything Is Shifting?

There’s a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from staying composed while everything beneath you is shifting.

Lately, in coaching conversations, a familiar question keeps surfacing:

“What do I hold onto when everything around me is shifting?”

For some, it’s a restructure. For others, it’s a shift in funding, leadership, or purpose. Sometimes it’s personal: a move, a decision, a silent reckoning.

What I’m noticing isn’t just stress. It’s a deeper kind of disorientation, the kind that unsettles identity. Where the ground doesn’t just feel shaky, it feels unfamiliar.

One client put it this way:

“I’m doing everything I can to keep things stable for others. But inside, I feel like I’m floating with no edge to hold onto.”

These moments can shake the foundations of how we lead and who we believe ourselves to be. They tug at our values and unsettle our sense of direction. But they can also open a quiet space, a space to listen inwardly, to notice what still feels true, and to begin again from there.

What steadies us doesn’t have to be big.

Whether or not you hold a formal leadership title, the way you show up, for yourself, for others, in the quiet moments matters.

I've come to believe that leadership is less about roles and more about presence. It lives in how we make decisions under pressure, how we care, how we respond when things shift.

Over the years, I’ve watched people find calm not by solving everything, but by reconnecting with something small and true. Here are a few steadying practices I’ve seen work:

• Name it. Noticing and naming what you’re feeling, without judgment, can create immediate relief.

• Speak it. Sharing your inner reality with one trusted person can shift the weight.

• Return to values. Asking, “What do I still believe in, even now?” can offer direction when decisions feel blurred.

• Choose one thing. When everything feels chaotic, choosing one small, self-honouring action can be powerful: saying no, taking a pause, asking a question.

These are not dramatic. But they’re often what brings us back to ourselves.

I know this not only from coaching others, but from my own moments of floating too. There was a time when the structures I trusted were shifting, and I felt invisible in the process. I remember walking uphill with a tight chest, crying silently, whispering to myself: You are not the problem.

That sentence became my anchor. Not a solution, but a foothold.

This week’s reflection: 
What is your "secret sentence" right now?

The one line that lives under the surface.
Maybe it’s tender. Maybe it’s honest.
Maybe it scares you a little.

Take 10 minutes.
Breathe.
Ask gently: What am I not saying out loud?
Write it down. Just one sentence.
Let it be what it is.

This is where steadiness starts.

→ Download your reflection page here

We don’t always get to control the shift.
But we can choose how we meet it.

Even a moment of honesty can become your foothold.

With you,
Linda

Touching Distance | Within Reach