When The World Shifts Beneath You, How Do You Stand Firm?

I've lived through the slow suffocation of democracy before. I don't know how this ends, but I've got some thoughts on how to navigate it.

Image: Freepik

Friends,

Right now, the world is watching something unravel in America. Something bigger than civil liberties, bigger than politics, bigger than any single law or policy. It’s the dismantling of the reality we thought we lived in.

The rules that governed the Free World, and we once believed were fixed — rules about fairness, justice, and how power is supposed to work — are being rewritten in real time.

We fear what happens when the institutions meant to protect Americans are no longer neutral, when the legal system serves an agenda rather than the law. We fear what it means when the press is no longer free to report; when corporations become enforcers; when the right to speak, to gather, to challenge authority shifts from a constitutional guarantee to a calculated risk. But it doesn’t stop there.

There’s a deeper fear, harder to name but impossible to ignore — the fear that this isn’t just a political shift, but a fundamental restructuring of society itself. That the freedoms we once assumed were permanent might not be. That the American economy — the largest in the world by nominal GDP — might be redesigned to serve only a few. That the systems of governance, justice, and finance may no longer function in ways that recognise the rights of the American people at all.

It feels like the slow suffocation of democracy, and I've been through it before.

In 1995, I was living what many would call the American Dream —except I wasn’t in America.

I had studied Economics in Scotland, before moving into the investment sector, and then, sensing new opportunities in the cross-border financial market, relocated to Zimbabwe. There, I became a prominent young businesswoman, providing investment advice to influential and ultra-high-net-worth investors in the nation's capital and beyond.

I had worked hard to get where I was, and was reaping the rewards. A beautiful five-bedroom country home on 27 acres, just outside the capital. A pool, views to die for, fully staffed, and no mortgage. I chose when to work and when to vacate, enjoying five-star holidays and first-class travel.

But behind the scenes, something was shifting.

The government had signed a deal that was supposed to boost economic growth. Instead, it gutted industries, slashed wages, and widened the gap between the powerful and the powerless. Meanwhile, corruption and cronyism tightened their grip. Decisions weren’t being made in the interest of the people — they were being made to serve those in power.

For a while, it didn’t seem to matter. Money still moved, businesses still operated, people still believed things would stabilise. And, to be frank, my lifestyle was blinding me to what was happening around me. I’m embarrassed to admit that because everything was going well for me, I didn’t look beyond that.

But then came the inflection point, the moment when it became impossible to ignore.

The Zimbabwean dollar crashed 72% in a single day. And I saw, with absolute certainty, that things weren’t going to stabilise. They were going to collapse.

Inflation soared. Prices doubled, then tripled, then exploded beyond comprehension. Food and fuel shortages developed, and hit hard. First, certain products disappeared —sugar, milk, flour — then entire supermarkets went empty. We queued at garage forecourts for 15 hours just to get half a tank of gas.

Power outages became commonplace. Electricity, communication networks, even running water — none of it was reliable anymore. Foreign investors pulled out. The same businesses that had been booming just a few years earlier shut their doors and withdrew.

The Zimbabwean people were angry, disillusioned, desperate for change. Opposition grew, and protests erupted.

How did the government respond? It doubled down.

Protest was crushed. If you spoke out, you were beaten, imprisoned, or worse.

Laws were rewritten. Anything that stood in the way of the President’s control was dismantled.

The press was silenced. State propaganda became the only voice allowed.

By then, I had seen how corruption had infected the financial system. I could stay silent and stay safe, or I could speak out. To me, silence made me complicit, so I sent an email warning my clients. Within days it had gone viral, spreading across the Zimbabwe diaspora, and triggering a run on the banks.

First came the threats. "Recant!" they said "Don't make us bruise you for the sake of bruising you!" I stood firm.

Then came intimidation from Central Intelligence Officers — Mugabe’s secret police, who made people disappear. Badly shaken, I continued to stand firm. Finally, the State’s top prosecutor — the same one handling the Opposition Leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s treason case — was brought in.

The intimidation campaign lasted over a year — threats, surveillance, warnings — but, even though I was afraid, I stood.

In the midst of this, I shuttered my business. If my clients’ offshore holdings were exposed, they’d be seized. With no income, I had to sell my possessions to survive.

And then came total collapse. The economy imploded. Law and order disintegrated. Armed gangs, looting, home invasions — no one was safe.

Those who could flee the country, had already done so. Eventually, after evading an armed home invasion, I left too. Pregnant, alone, with my worldly belongings crammed into two pieces of hand luggage, I boarded a flight to the other side of the world, to start again.

There are striking parallels between what’s unfolding in the U.S. today, and what I experienced in Zimbabwe, particularly in how power is being consolidated, dissent suppressed, and fear a tool of control. The methods may differ in degree and execution, but the patterns are eerily familiar.

But here's what nobody's telling you…

Regardless of what happens next, you have the capacity to find a way through it. Just so long as you:

1. Don't Stay Frozen in Fear.

Fear is immobilising. It’s a primal response, designed to keep us safe when danger is near. But while freezing might protect you in the face of an immediate physical threat, it’s catastrophic in a crisis that unfolds over months or years.

Freezing keeps you locked in place when you should be adapting. It convinces you to wait for clarity, for certainty, so that you know what to do to move forwards. But when the world is shifting around you, that moment never comes. And the longer you stay frozen, the fewer choices you have.

Fear narrows your focus to immediate threats, making it harder to think strategically. It keeps you reactive instead of proactive. It drains your energy, erodes your confidence, and worst of all, it feeds the illusion that you have no options, when in reality, you do.

That’s one of the reasons I’m writing Your Time Starts Now — to share the strategies, tools, and mindset shifts that help you break free from that frozen fear response. Because no matter what happens next, the ability to think, adapt, and act will shape your experience far more than the crisis itself.

2. Stop Playing 'The Blame Game'

When things go wrong, our instinct is to find someone to blame. It’s natural — we want an explanation, a cause, someone to hold accountable for what’s happening. And in polarised countries like the U.S., blame has become a reflex.

Democrats are pointing at Republicans, saying, "You did this!" Republicans are pointing at Democrats, saying, "Well, if you hadn’t done that, we wouldn’t have had to respond like this!" And so it goes, an endless back-and-forth, with both sides convinced the other is responsible for what's happening now.

But here’s the problem: blame is just another form of paralysis.

It tricks you into believing that if only the other side would change, things would get better. But that thinking puts your future in someone else’s hands. Because when you’re waiting for someone else to fix things, you’re not taking action yourself. And it becomes just another way of staying stuck.

The truth is, no matter how justified your anger, no matter how real the betrayal or the incompetence that led here, pointing fingers won’t change the reality you’re living in right now. The only thing that will is taking responsibility — not for what happened, but for how you respond to it.

You don’t have control over the past, and you may not have control over those in power. But you do have control over yourself — over your mindset, your actions, and the way you navigate what comes next. It's your 'response-ability'.

The moment you shift your focus from who to blame to what you can do, you get your power back. That’s how you move forward.

3. Guard Your Attention

Your attention is one of your most valuable assets, especially in times of crisis. But if you’re not careful, it will be pulled in a hundred different directions — news updates, social media outrage, political arguments, economic forecasts, endless speculation.

It’s easy to justify consuming it all. After all, staying informed feels like the responsible thing to do. But there’s a fine line between being informed and being overwhelmed —between understanding what’s happening and drowning in it.

When you don’t guard your attention, fear and confusion take over. You become reactive instead of intentional. You spend hours spiralling through bad news, yet feel more lost than before. Worst of all, you end up mentally exhausted — too drained to take action, too paralysed to make decisions.

But attention is a resource, and like any resource, it needs to be managed wisely. So:

• Be selective. You don’t need to track every headline in real time. Choose a few reliable sources, check in at set times, and then step away.

• Limit engagement with outrage — even those on ‘your side’. Not every argument needs your input. Constant exposure to anger, fear, and division only erodes your clarity and resilience.

• Prioritise what moves you forward. Ask yourself: Is this helping me think, plan, or act? Or is it just keeping me stuck? If it’s the latter, step back.

In uncertain times, your ability to think clearly is your greatest asset. Guard it fiercely.

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If you take one thing from Your Time Starts Now, let it be this: you are not powerless.

No matter what happens next, no matter how much feels beyond your control, your response is always yours to decide.

I know what it’s like to watch the world shift around you, to see the things you relied on start to crack, to wonder if life will ever go back to the way it was. But I also know this: waiting for stability that may never come is not a strategy.

That’s why I created Your Time Starts Now — not as a place to dwell on what's going wrong, but as a space to focus on what actually helps. How to stay clear-headed when everything feels uncertain. How to break free from fear, overwhelm, and inertia. And to help you remember that even in uncertainty, there is always a way forward.

The world isn’t going to pause and give you time to adjust, so if you want to learn how to lead yourself through change, I invite you to join me as a Subscriber.

Because no matter what happens next, Your Time Starts Now.

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