Growing Roots in Uncertain Times

Growing Roots in Uncertain Times

Two weeks ago, a storm tore through Austin, Texas where I live.

The kind that rattles windows and bends trees sideways. The kind that smells like ozone and sounds like chaos.

When it passed, I walked my neighborhood and felt the heaviness in my gut: so many trees—beautiful, strong, decades-old trees—uprooted. Laid out on their sides. Tattered leaves. Exposed roots. Soil eroded into the streets and drains. Trees I’ve known for almost 20 years—gone.

And not because they were unhealthy. But because the ground around them had been dry for so long, and the wind and rain came fast and hard. Their roots simply couldn’t hold.

It felt like a metaphor.

We’re living in a time of accelerated unraveling—where systems we’ve long relied on are breaking down, and new structures haven’t yet taken root. 

The disruption isn’t just global—it’s personal, emotional, spiritual. The winds are picking up everywhere, and what’s being asked of us isn’t more control, but deeper resilience. The kind of grounded presence that can hold paradox and still choose possibility.

I love Otto Scharmer's definition of a leader:

A leader is defined as someone capable of stepping from current reality into the unknown and sensing into possibilities that exist in the emerging future.

But how do we sense into possibility when everything feels uncertain?

We grow roots.

Not the kind that resist change—but the kind that anchor us in presence. In body. In community. In what matters.

Because when we don’t have deep roots, we get blown around. Reacting. Freezing. Numbing. Over-performing. Making choices from fear instead of from clarity.

Leadership in this moment doesn’t mean having all the answers. It means being able to hold paradox. To stay present in the not-knowing. To listen for what’s needed rather than force what’s familiar.

And here’s the part I want to underline: this kind of leadership isn’t cultivated alone.

I’m exploring what it means to stay connected—especially when the winds pick up. To find practices, people, and places that help me deepen my roots so I can meet the moment (rather than get knocked over by it). 

Anyone else feel this?

I'm looking at what has made the soil go dry and unwilling or unable to hold firm, and exploring what I'm growing my roots into, and what needs to be uprooted.

I don’t have a solution today. Just a thread I’m tugging on—and an invitation to explore it in your own way. What are you rooted into? What feeds you and makes you feel strong? What has you grasping at soil that can't support or nourish you?