Awareness Without Overwhelm

This episode explores the tension so many people are feeling right now: how to stay aware of what’s happening in the world without living in a constant state of overwhelm, outrage, or nervous system exhaustion. Susan Sutherland reflects on a recent social media interaction that raised a deeper question — what does meaningful engagement actually look like in a time where we’re constantly exposed to suffering, crisis, and opinion?

At the center of this conversation is one powerful idea: the difference between your circle of concern and your circle of influence. Social media has expanded our awareness to include nearly everything happening on earth, but our actual capacity to create change often remains much smaller and more personal. When those two become disconnected, many people end up emotionally flooded, performative, burned out, or frozen in helplessness.

This episode explores:

•  awareness vs. effectiveness 
•  nervous system regulation and social responsibility 
•  sustainable activism and aligned action 
•  why visible outrage is not always the same as meaningful contribution 
•  social media overwhelm and emotional burnout 
•  community impact, relationships, and embodied change 
•  how to stay compassionate without collapsing under the weight of the world 

Susan also shares reflections from her Process Thought studies and conversations around “read and act” communities — spaces where learning is not just consumed intellectually, but translated into tangible care, creativity, and action within real human relationships.

If you’ve been struggling to balance compassion with emotional health… if you care deeply but feel exhausted by the pressure to constantly react… or if you’re searching for a more grounded, embodied approach to change-making, this conversation will meet you there.

This is not an episode about disengaging from the world.
 It’s about reconnecting to the places where your presence, your voice, and your actions can genuinely matter.

Listen to more episodes of The Remembrance Codes Podcast and explore Susan’s work on embodiment, conscious living, nervous system healing, spirituality, and meaningful change.
You can finder her written reflections on Substack, The Listening Pages:

Transcript

Awareness Without Nervous System Overload

Circle Of Concern Vs Influence

Learning New Language For Connection

Turning Ideas Into Community Action

Integrating What You Learn

Choose Depth Over Diffusion

Joy Plus Action Closing

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Hello, friends. Today I want to talk about the difference in being aware and being effective because I think a lot of us are actually carrying the weight of the world without being in spaces where we can change anything. I was recently having this contemplation after going to the Zach Bryan concert with the bigs. Mark and I took the oldest two to the Zach Bryan concert and we had a rip-roaring good time. It was a blast. And in the morning, I was just kind of sitting there contemplating how much joy and happiness and laughter and just wonderful feelings I feel right now. And how that is in opposition with how a lot of the world is experiencing this time. And it just made me really contemplate the and that there can be injustice, that there can be struggle, that there can be really hard situations going on, and I can be happy, and I can live in ease, and I can have these magnificent moments with my children. Anyway, I shared that being aware doesn't require overwhelm, that you can have awareness of what's going on and also not be reactive in your nervous system. I can witness it without owning it as mine to carry. And somebody responded in the comments saying that silence is essentially a privilege, that people like me, particularly white people, don't get to be quiet right now when our brown and black brothers and sisters are struggling and need our voice. And I actually do understand where that comes from. What she couldn't see is where I do use my voice. And she was implying, because I don't use it in the same way she does, that it wasn't being used at all. But part of maturity, real maturity, is releasing the expectation that everyone should respond to the world the way you do. Some people are vocal publicly, and some people work quietly in communities, and some people translate ideas into action, and some people hold space and build and teach and create. Some people have a podcast in which they share more freely than they might on Facebook because the audience matters. There are different roles, but it's the same care, it's different expressions of responsibility, and none dismiss responsibility, they take form differently. I read something recently that really has me revisiting this topic and thinking about what she said, what my role is, how I show up in this world. This writer said that my circle of concern had become massive, whereas my circle of influence was microscopic. And I think that's where a lot of us are living. Everything that we are aware of, and this new cycle can allow us to be aware of every corner of the earth. We can feel into the situations of places that we may never have heard of before, places we will likely never visit. We feel their experience and we can consume all of it. It is all available. And often how we consume it are from ways that are meant to keep us dysregulated. But our circle of influence, where we actually have impact, those are in the conversations we're part of, in the communities that we are in, in the actions that we can take. When those two circles get out of proportion, we don't become more helpful. We become overwhelmed. And overwhelm doesn't create change, it creates paralysis or performance or contribution to the fear and to the noise. When we are expecting this action to look big and visible, there is this subtle pressure to prove that you care by being visibly upset. But visible emotion isn't the same thing as meaningful action. I have not told y'all this, but I am right now in a certificate course for process thought philosophy. How I got there, a nudge from Katriona, and then it felt right, and how I ended up in a very time-consuming, very academic course that will last through December on process thought philosophy is it's a wild journey, but it is amazing because it is giving a lot of language to what I was walking through. And um, I'm not ready to talk to y'all about that yet because Alfred North Whitehead, who we are studying, he created his own language. And I understand that when you use words, they already have assigned meaning. And so when you are talking about new concepts and ideas, you need to give this give new language to it. But when you are describing those words with words you already know, you are still, you know, shoving your new word into existing containers. Anyway, it is it is complicated and it is hard to get my head around. And at some point, I will have the language to let y'all know what I'm learning, but I don't yet. So we're not going to talk about that. But it was interesting to me that right after these posts transpired, I'm sitting in our course on Wednesday night for two hours and our workshop on Saturday morning for a couple of hours, and I am sitting with people from I think there's 17 countries that are represented in this course of less than 40 students. It is a very diverse group of people who are in all stages of life. Okay, I'll give you nuts and bolts is that everything is an experience. Instead of there being a you and a me, there is the experience we are creating right now. And the past informs this moment, and then this past expires and it becomes the datum for the next moment. Anyway, we can get into all of that and how that applies to healing and what I am learning from that. However, it is about interconnectedness and how we relate to one another and how that impacts the experience of everyone. So, as we're sitting here, there are people from all of these countries who are learning about this in ways that they can impact their community. And so it was interesting to me after being kind of called out for not using my voice to just understand that our presence in these small groups that matters. That's actionable. That is where your sphere of influence can be. And that's where we really need to put our heart into is where can you make a difference? And a lot of time that's not in the noise, adding to the noise. It's adding to the action. In one of the workshops, they had different speakers who are using process thought understanding in different applications, in different spheres of influence, whether it's with young people or education or ecology. One of the speakers came on and she runs the Flagstaff Communiversity. And this is a community university in Flagstaff where when there is an area of intrigue, what do we need to know more of that is in service to humanity, that deepens our relationship with the earth, that advances our community experience, they learn about it in the communiversity. And then there are actionable steps to take. This is how we take this information and how we apply it in service to our community. They have a book club that is not to inform. This is a book club that at the end of reading this book, we will figure out creatively how to do something with it. How do you take the information and then apply the information? And so the book is not just one more book read. It is one more book that inspires action. And I just loved hearing from all of these different pockets, from China and Hong Kong and Flagstaff and California and the UK and South America and all of these different people who are taking this information and are applying it in their communities. So it really brought home the idea that a lot of times what we are concerned about is so big. But when we shrink down where our true focus is, what is the heart of the matter here in my family, in my neighborhood, in my community, that is where we can make impactful and monumental change. It is that grassroots effort of the sphere of influence that I have. Now, some people have big, bad, massive influence globally. Great. It's not me. So I have to focus on why does this matter? I've even had some really profound parenting moments recently that once we have walked through them, I will share. But this is how I could respond to this situation. But in this moment, what I'm thinking is how do I nurture this relationship? Because what lives after we walk through this situation is the relationship. How do I nurture this relationship in a way that serves? When we think about our actions like that, this is how we make an impact. It is not how many ears hear you when you are screaming, but how many people could you inspire to take action? How many people are you willing to get your hands dirty with in the action yourself? I just really love the concept of learning something and translating it and then creating something from that, applying it in real life. It makes learning not be abstract. It makes our brains and our hearts not just this database for, oh, I learned that. I learned about this. And that was truthfully, that was my healing journey for several years is consumption based. How much can I learn about all of these things? And it's like, wait a second, if you don't slow down to apply and integrate this, it's kind of worthless. And I think that's what we do a lot of times. It is, it let me analyze it, let me understand it, let me have awareness. But if you haven't integrated, if you haven't walked it, if you're not living it, then you are so far short of where we are meant to be. So I guess that is my invitation for you this week is what if instead of expanding our awareness endlessly, we got more honest about our influence. Where do I actually have a voice? Where am I in relationship with people? Where can I create support, build, or shift something tangible? Because that's where change happens. So I don't want you to think this is about disengaging on a national level. It's about directing, it's about choosing depth over diffusion. Because I stand by it. Your awareness does not require overwhelm. And care doesn't require performance. The question isn't do you care enough to react, to get mad, to be enraged? The question is where does your care actually create change? So I hope you're with me on dialing it in. Dialing down your circle of concern to a level where you think your circle of influence can rub elbows. It's gonna be smaller, but the change can be greater. So that's what I've been sitting with. Let me know how it lands for you. Let me know what your circles feel like. Maybe they're massive, maybe they're balanced. So I thank you for listening, for engaging with this podcast, for sharing it with others. And I want you to remember that your joy is what we need. We can't all live angry all the time. We need your happiness, we need your joy, we need your playfulness, and we need your action. Have a great week.