The other day I watched a reel by Kimberly Ann Johnson that hit me with a wave of deeper understanding on a topic I spend a lot of time thinking about. You can find the reel here, and I highly recommend you watch it, because she speaks with the kind of embodied wisdom that can’t be summed up in a simple paraphrase.
In it, she talks about the waves of existential dread many of us are feeling right now—not just as a psychological condition, but as a symptom of disconnection from the very activities that make us human. Activities like growing food. Making clothes. Crafting tools. Creating what we need to live. She reminds us that for most of human history, survival and meaning were woven together. You didn’t have to search for purpose; you lived your purpose, every single day.
This struck a nerve.
As an existential therapist, I’ve spent years reflecting on what it means to live a meaningful life. But somehow this angle—subsistence living as a cure for existential dread—hadn’t quite landed in me before. And now it feels… so obvious. So important. So timely.
Kimberly’s books The Fourth Trimester and Call of the Wild were already powerful companions for me at two very different times in my life. But this short, intuitive teaching cracked something open in me. It challenged the quiet assumption I didn’t even know I was holding: that existential dread is a modern problem because we have too many options and too much time to think. I used to believe that the overwhelming complexity of modern life, the disconnect from our instincts, the expectations of capitalism—those were the root causes.
And they still play a huge role. But now I see another layer.
Meaning as a Physical Act
Modern society has severed us from the core acts of survival that once gave our lives rhythm, coherence, and built-in meaning. Even when we do these things now—gardening, crafting, cooking from scratch—it’s often framed as a hobby. A lifestyle. An aesthetic. In the Western world, old sources of meaning (making food, gathering, weaving, building) have become outsourced or optional. But there are people all over the world for whom subsistence living is not a hashtag. It’s life. Whether by choice or by necessity, they are doing what needs to be done.
Some people think of this way of life as sad, primitive, or too hard. But the more I sit with it, the more it seems to me that it is full of meaning. Not in the glamorized, Instagram tradwife way. But in the gritty, grounded, deeply human way.
With the systems we’ve come to rely on beginning to wobble, self-sufficiency and community care suddenly feel less like fringe values and more like a very wise kind of preparation. Maybe the collapse isn’t coming tomorrow. But maybe we don’t have to wait. We can make the shift before we’re forced to. We can choose to put the power back in our own hands.
It’s not about becoming perfect or self-sufficient overnight—it’s about reweaving a relationship with life.
A Garden, a Mirror
Without realizing it, I’ve been experimenting with this idea in my own life. For the past three years, I’ve planted a vegetable garden that barely produced anything. I’ve blamed my ADHD. My schedule. My black thumb. But maybe the problem wasn’t me, it was my relationship with the whole idea of gardening.
Now, I’m realizing that the garden didn’t thrive because I hadn’t made it meaningful enough to prioritize. Maybe gardening isn’t a chore. And maybe it’s not a hobby, either.
Maybe it’s a way of coming home. A previously overlooked relationship with myself, with the land, and with the food chain.
Where Meaning Went
In my work, I ask people all the time: What makes you feel alive? And sometimes the answer is obvious. But more often, people look at me with that lost expression that says, I don’t know.
I’ve been there, too. But now, I think I know where to start looking.
Modern life has taken meaning out of the body and put it in the brain. I’m starting to see that I’ve been overthinking things (following my longstanding pattern as an intellectualizer). That true self energy might lie in our hands, not our heads.
Presence. Simplicity. Craft. Slowness. These are portals not just to feeling better, but to reconnecting with true self energy. With personal power. With meaning that isn’t fabricated or forced. Meaning that arises from doing what humans do.
A Note on the Complexity of Modern Life
Let me be clear: this isn’t about romanticizing the past or suggesting we all need to turn off our electricity and live off the land. The modern world is complex. Beautifully so, and painfully so. And I’m not turning away from it.
I believe in art for the sake of art. I believe in play, in hobbies, in doing things just because they light something up inside of you. That’s human too. It’s how we learn, explore, rehearse, experiment. It’s where joy and growth and identity live. Art is just… fucking wonderful—and that alone means something.
So no, this isn’t about rejecting the modern world. It’s about acknowledging that if you’re feeling existential dread, if you’re struggling to feel alive or connected to something real, there might be wisdom in turning toward something more elemental. Something ancient. Something that humans have always done.
Make something you’ll use.
Grow something you’ll eat.
Knit something to wear.
Repair something that matters.
Not as a moral project. Not because it’s better. But because it might reintroduce you to your own hands. To the rhythm of your breath while working. To a different kind of knowing—one that doesn’t live in your mind.
This isn’t a solution. It’s just a lens.
But if you’re looking for your true self energy, maybe this is a place to start looking.
The Power of Doing
For me, this means getting back into the crafts I love, with a new mindset. Making clothes. Leaning into fibre work not just as art, but as utility. I want to shift my mindset from needing the things I want to wanting the things I need. I want to put my hands in the dirt, not to escape the modern world, but to remember that I have a place in it—a real one.
Existential therapy is, at its heart, about helping people create meaning. But maybe meaning doesn’t always have to be created from scratch. Maybe it’s waiting for us in the simple acts of being alive: feeding ourselves, making shelter, growing something with care.
And maybe the way through existential dread isn’t to think our way out of it. Maybe it’s to do.
To build.
To plant.
To mend.
To begin again, with our hands.
An Embodied Practice: Begin with the Hands
Try this simple practice this week:
- Sit somewhere quiet with your hands resting in your lap. Bring your attention fully to them. Notice the sensations—the warmth, the texture, the pulse. Now imagine all the things your hands have done today, and all the things they could do: chop vegetables, write a letter, dig into the earth. Let your breath follow your attention. Let your awareness soften. Let the hands remind you what it feels like to be human.
This is a beginning.
If this spoke to something in you, there are a few paths you can follow from here:
Work with Me
Personalized therapy (in Canada) and coaching (worldwide) for deep, relational support.
The Wolfskin Project
A growing library of free resources for self-exploration, myth, and everyday magic.
Each door leads somewhere different. It is my hope that all of them lead back to you.
<3 Rachel
What are your thoughts?