You’re sitting there, coffee in hand, and suddenly the floor falls out. Not literally, hopefully. But metaphorically? It happens all the time. One day you have a job, a routine, and a sense of where the North Star is, and the next, you’re staring at a "restructuring" memo or a breakup text that changes everything. That’s it. That’s the feeling. But if we’re looking at what does upheaval mean in a way that actually helps you navigate it, we have to look past the dictionary.
The dictionary will tell you it’s a "violent or sudden change or disruption to something." Boring. Clinical. It doesn’t capture the way your stomach drops when you realize your 10-year plan just evaporated. Upheaval is basically the universe hitting the "shuffle" button on your life when you were perfectly happy with the current playlist. It’s messy. It’s loud. Honestly, it’s usually pretty exhausting.
Whether we are talking about a political revolution in a country far away or just the upheaval of moving to a new city where you don't know where the good grocery store is, the core of the experience is the same: the old rules don't apply anymore, and the new ones haven't been written yet.
The Geology of Your Life
Think about the earth. Geologists use the word upheaval to describe the crust of the earth being pushed upward. We’re talking about mountain-building stuff. Tectonic plates grinding against each other until something has to give. When that pressure builds up, the ground moves.
Life works the same way.
You might think an upheaval is a single event, like a sudden firing or a natural disaster. Often, though, it’s the result of pressure that’s been building for years. Maybe you’ve been unhappy in a relationship but ignoring it. Maybe a company has been mismanaged for a decade. Then—boom. The upheaval is just the moment the surface finally breaks. It’s the visible part of a very long, very invisible process.
Why it feels so visceral
Neuroscience actually has a lot to say about this. Our brains are basically prediction machines. We spend most of our energy trying to guess what’s going to happen next so we can keep ourselves safe. When you experience a massive upheaval, your brain’s predictive software crashes.
You can’t find the "blueprints" for how to act.
This sends your amygdala into overdrive. This is why, during periods of big change, you might feel shaky, lose your appetite, or find yourself staring at a wall for twenty minutes wondering why you went into the kitchen. Your brain is literally re-mapping your reality in real-time. It’s a high-energy process. No wonder you’re tired.
Upheaval in the Real World: It’s Not Just Personal
If you look at history, upheaval is the primary mover of progress. It’s rarely peaceful, and it’s almost never organized. Take the Industrial Revolution. That was a massive social upheaval that moved people from farms into crowded cities. It broke families apart, changed how we perceived time, and created the concept of the "weekend." At the time, it felt like the end of the world to a lot of people.
Or look at the tech world.
When a "disruptive" technology enters a market—think of what digital photography did to Kodak—that’s a corporate upheaval. Kodak didn't just have a bad quarter; their entire foundation shifted. Thousands of jobs disappeared. New industries grew out of the rubble.
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- Economic shifts
- Political regime changes
- Technological breakthroughs
- Personal loss or sudden gain
- Environmental disasters
Each of these categories represents a different flavor of the same thing. The common thread? A total loss of the "status quo." You can't go back to how things were on Tuesday because Tuesday's world doesn't exist anymore.
Sorting Through the Chaos
A lot of people confuse upheaval with "crisis." They overlap, sure. But a crisis is usually a point of intense danger where a decision must be made. An upheaval is the broader state of things being turned over. You can be in a state of upheaval for months or even years.
Take the work of William Bridges, a transition consultant who wrote the classic book Transitions. He argued that there’s a difference between change (the external event) and transition (the internal psychological process). Upheaval is the external event that forces you into a "Neutral Zone."
The Neutral Zone is where the old is gone, but the new hasn't started.
It’s a weird, foggy place. You feel like a ghost in your own life. But Bridges and other experts like Pema Chödrön—who wrote When Things Fall Apart—argue that this specific "falling apart" is actually the only time we are capable of real growth. When the structure is gone, you’re forced to see what’s left. Usually, what's left is you.
Misconceptions about "Getting Back to Normal"
The biggest mistake people make during an upheaval is trying to "get back to normal."
I’ll be honest: normal is gone.
If you try to rebuild exactly what you had before, you’re usually just building on cracked ground. The point of an upheaval isn't to survive it so you can go back to the way things were. It’s to see what the new landscape looks like and build something that actually fits the new terrain. If you lost your job in a dying industry, "normal" was actually the problem. The upheaval is the (painful) invitation to move into something that actually has a future.
How to Handle the "Big Flip"
So, what do you actually do when you’re in the middle of it?
First, stop expecting yourself to be productive in the way you were before. If your life is in an upheaval, your "job" is navigating the change. That takes mental bandwidth. You wouldn't expect someone to run a marathon while they're moving house, so don't expect yourself to be a "high-performance" machine when your personal life is in pieces.
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- Focus on the "Micro-Routine." When the big picture is a mess, make the small picture perfect. Make your bed. Drink water. Walk for ten minutes. These tiny anchors give your brain the "predictability" it craves.
- Audit the Rubble. Look at what changed. What was actually lost? Sometimes we realize that the things we lost in the upheaval weren't actually serving us that well anyway.
- Find the Signal in the Noise. Ask yourself: "What is this change demanding of me?" Does it require more courage? More patience? A new skill?
- Accept the Mess. There is a period of every upheaval that just sucks. There’s no way around it. You have to sit in the discomfort without trying to fix it immediately.
Actionable Steps for Navigating Upheaval
If you're currently feeling like everything is spinning, here is how you ground yourself. This isn't about "fixing" the situation—because many upheavals are outside of your control—but about managing your response to it.
Identify the Type of Change
Categorize what’s happening. Is this a structural upheaval (losing a house/job) or a relational one (divorce/death)? Knowing what "room" of your life is being renovated helps you stop the panic from leaking into every other area. If your work life is in upheaval, try to keep your home life as stable and boring as possible.
Control the Information Flow
In times of social or political upheaval, we tend to "doomscroll." We think that if we just get more information, we’ll feel safer. It’s a lie. Your brain can only process so much volatility. Limit your news intake to 20 minutes a day. Spend the rest of that energy on things you can actually influence.
Build a "Transition Team"
Don't go through a major life flip alone. This doesn't mean you need a therapist (though that helps), it means you need a few people who aren't in the middle of the same upheaval. You need people who are on solid ground to help pull you toward the shore.
Document the Process
Write it down. Seriously. In two years, you won't remember the specifics of how you felt, and seeing your progress from "total panic" to "slowly figuring it out" is the best way to build future resilience. You’re building a manual for the next time this happens. Because it will happen again. That’s just how life is built.
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The goal isn't to be "unshakable." That's impossible. The goal is to be like a building in an earthquake zone: designed to sway so you don't break. Upheaval is the swaying. It feels scary, but it’s actually what keeps you standing.