Dani Forrest
@daniforrest.bsky.social
Refugee from the inanity of FB and the MAGA-leanings of TT. Writer, overthinker, underachiever. Childless cat lady. I’ve purged all my f#%*s except a couple of vintage ones I’m hanging onto. So don’t ask me to give any.
2025 wasn’t just chaos. It was training.
Not for survival, but for recognition.
What broke me wasn’t 🍊. It was
realizing what he activated—the need that too many people have for someone to be beneath them so that they can feel okay.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/the-boot-c...
Not for survival, but for recognition.
What broke me wasn’t 🍊. It was
realizing what he activated—the need that too many people have for someone to be beneath them so that they can feel okay.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/the-boot-c...
The “Boot Camp” That Was 2025
What this year revealed about power, hierarchy, and the quiet injury so many of us are carrying
daniforrest.substack.com
December 26, 2025 at 11:25 PM
2025 wasn’t just chaos. It was training.
Not for survival, but for recognition.
What broke me wasn’t 🍊. It was
realizing what he activated—the need that too many people have for someone to be beneath them so that they can feel okay.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/the-boot-c...
Not for survival, but for recognition.
What broke me wasn’t 🍊. It was
realizing what he activated—the need that too many people have for someone to be beneath them so that they can feel okay.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/the-boot-c...
I don’t know how to say “Happy Holidays” without it feeling phony this year. If you’re feeling heavy, disconnected, or just getting through the day — that counts. Staying human right now is an active choice. Thank you—for being here.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/what-i-can...
daniforrest.substack.com/p/what-i-can...
What I Can Say Honestly This Christmas
A Christmas Eve reflection on endurance, truth, community, and staying human in unsteady times
daniforrest.substack.com
December 25, 2025 at 1:57 AM
I don’t know how to say “Happy Holidays” without it feeling phony this year. If you’re feeling heavy, disconnected, or just getting through the day — that counts. Staying human right now is an active choice. Thank you—for being here.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/what-i-can...
daniforrest.substack.com/p/what-i-can...
2025 stripped away a lot of my illusions about this country. What surprised me wasn’t the damage—it was how many people refused to look away, refused to normalize, and kept choosing care over convenience. That’s what I’m holding onto.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/what-2025-...
daniforrest.substack.com/p/what-2025-...
What 2025 Taught Me About This Country
A year of disillusionment, resilience, and why I still believe this country is worth staying for
daniforrest.substack.com
December 23, 2025 at 1:16 AM
2025 stripped away a lot of my illusions about this country. What surprised me wasn’t the damage—it was how many people refused to look away, refused to normalize, and kept choosing care over convenience. That’s what I’m holding onto.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/what-2025-...
daniforrest.substack.com/p/what-2025-...
Winter doesn’t ask us to perform joy.
It asks for restraint, honesty, and the courage not to look away.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/on-grief-w...
It asks for restraint, honesty, and the courage not to look away.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/on-grief-w...
On Grief, Winter, and the Refusal to Look Away
Why visible joy isn’t proof of safety—and why grief can be an act of conscience
daniforrest.substack.com
December 21, 2025 at 11:14 PM
Winter doesn’t ask us to perform joy.
It asks for restraint, honesty, and the courage not to look away.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/on-grief-w...
It asks for restraint, honesty, and the courage not to look away.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/on-grief-w...
This collective grief is disintegration — the necessary undoing before anything honest can reorganize. If you feel stripped down, quieter, less willing to perform, you’re not failing.
Something false is losing its grip.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/collective...
Something false is losing its grip.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/collective...
Collective Grief Is Not Collapse
Why grief is a necessary disintegration — and how facing inconvenient truth restores moral clarity in unstable times
daniforrest.substack.com
December 19, 2025 at 11:50 PM
This collective grief is disintegration — the necessary undoing before anything honest can reorganize. If you feel stripped down, quieter, less willing to perform, you’re not failing.
Something false is losing its grip.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/collective...
Something false is losing its grip.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/collective...
This moment wasn’t about politics as much as it was about co-regulation. Some attempts to hijack collective grief fail because shared humanity still interrupts the narrative. That’s worth paying attention to.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/when-trage...
daniforrest.substack.com/p/when-trage...
When Tragedy Becomes a Political Signal: Rob Reiner’s Death and the Limits of Co-Regulation
How the shocking deaths of Rob and Michele Reiner and the political reaction to them reveal the fragility of collective emotional cues in America’s fractured media landscape.
daniforrest.substack.com
December 17, 2025 at 12:07 AM
This moment wasn’t about politics as much as it was about co-regulation. Some attempts to hijack collective grief fail because shared humanity still interrupts the narrative. That’s worth paying attention to.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/when-trage...
daniforrest.substack.com/p/when-trage...
When everything feels like it’s moving both fast and not at all, staying human becomes work. I don’t feel like celebrating. I do feel like choosing community, local care, and honesty over pretending.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/sunday-ser...
daniforrest.substack.com/p/sunday-ser...
Sunday Sermon 12/14/25: When Nothing Feels Celebratory
Refusing to normalize cruelty, choosing community, and staying human in a season of forced cheer
daniforrest.substack.com
December 14, 2025 at 11:24 PM
When everything feels like it’s moving both fast and not at all, staying human becomes work. I don’t feel like celebrating. I do feel like choosing community, local care, and honesty over pretending.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/sunday-ser...
daniforrest.substack.com/p/sunday-ser...
We don’t fix harm by pretending it’s normal. So many people defend the familiar because the truth feels destabilizing. But familiar isn’t safe. And calling harm “just how it is” doesn’t heal us—it traps us. Naming it is the first act of freedom.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/why-we-san...
daniforrest.substack.com/p/why-we-san...
Why We Sane-wash Harm: The Safety of the Familiar
How learned emotional patterns shape our political loyalties — and why familiar harm feels safer than unfamiliar change.
daniforrest.substack.com
December 10, 2025 at 11:36 PM
We don’t fix harm by pretending it’s normal. So many people defend the familiar because the truth feels destabilizing. But familiar isn’t safe. And calling harm “just how it is” doesn’t heal us—it traps us. Naming it is the first act of freedom.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/why-we-san...
daniforrest.substack.com/p/why-we-san...
It’s easy to proclaim faith while ignoring harm. It’s harder to notice the ways we use it to justify cruelty, turn a blind eye, or sanctify power. Yet that’s exactly the work this strange, heartbreaking holiday season asks of us—as a nation.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/sunday-ser...
daniforrest.substack.com/p/sunday-ser...
Sunday Sermon 12/7/25: What Exactly Are We Worshipping?
Why faith, conscience, and compassion require more than political loyalty.
daniforrest.substack.com
December 7, 2025 at 11:14 PM
It’s easy to proclaim faith while ignoring harm. It’s harder to notice the ways we use it to justify cruelty, turn a blind eye, or sanctify power. Yet that’s exactly the work this strange, heartbreaking holiday season asks of us—as a nation.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/sunday-ser...
daniforrest.substack.com/p/sunday-ser...
When politics becomes a disturbing force that shapes the people closest to us, it hits a deeper nerve. Especially when those people are family, or elders, or part of our history. The personal and political aren’t separate anymore. They never really were.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/living-in-...
daniforrest.substack.com/p/living-in-...
Living in a Split-Screen Reality
Why caring and gratitude can still feel like moral injury
daniforrest.substack.com
December 7, 2025 at 5:23 AM
When politics becomes a disturbing force that shapes the people closest to us, it hits a deeper nerve. Especially when those people are family, or elders, or part of our history. The personal and political aren’t separate anymore. They never really were.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/living-in-...
daniforrest.substack.com/p/living-in-...
We’re being told to fix what the government is breaking on purpose.
“Civic duty?” More like moral outsourcing. A nation cannot function when power pushes the burden downhill and then diagnoses outrage as “overreaction.”
daniforrest.substack.com/p/the-cruelt...
“Civic duty?” More like moral outsourcing. A nation cannot function when power pushes the burden downhill and then diagnoses outrage as “overreaction.”
daniforrest.substack.com/p/the-cruelt...
The Cruelty of Moral Outsourcing
Why failed leadership always demands miracles from the people it abandons.
daniforrest.substack.com
December 3, 2025 at 1:10 AM
We’re being told to fix what the government is breaking on purpose.
“Civic duty?” More like moral outsourcing. A nation cannot function when power pushes the burden downhill and then diagnoses outrage as “overreaction.”
daniforrest.substack.com/p/the-cruelt...
“Civic duty?” More like moral outsourcing. A nation cannot function when power pushes the burden downhill and then diagnoses outrage as “overreaction.”
daniforrest.substack.com/p/the-cruelt...
We’re living in a gaslit nation. Every day we’re told not to feel what we feel, not to name what we see, not to react to what is plainly happening in front of us. Feeling heartbroken is a flex in a country asking us to forget how to be human.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/when-the-w...
daniforrest.substack.com/p/when-the-w...
When the World Asks You to Pretend It’s All Fine
A moral weather report for a nation running on denial, cruelty, and collective exhaustion.
daniforrest.substack.com
December 1, 2025 at 12:38 AM
We’re living in a gaslit nation. Every day we’re told not to feel what we feel, not to name what we see, not to react to what is plainly happening in front of us. Feeling heartbroken is a flex in a country asking us to forget how to be human.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/when-the-w...
daniforrest.substack.com/p/when-the-w...
This week stirs things the mind can’t always name. The body remembers fractures, absences, old stories we’ve had to unlearn. If Thanksgiving feels tender, complicated, or bittersweet, there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re human. You’re not alone.
open.substack.com/pub/daniforr...
open.substack.com/pub/daniforr...
The Tender Season
A reflection on memory, tenderness, and the complicated truths we carry into Thanksgiving.
open.substack.com
November 26, 2025 at 11:22 PM
This week stirs things the mind can’t always name. The body remembers fractures, absences, old stories we’ve had to unlearn. If Thanksgiving feels tender, complicated, or bittersweet, there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re human. You’re not alone.
open.substack.com/pub/daniforr...
open.substack.com/pub/daniforr...
We’ve been sold a version of “inner peace” that’s really just avoidance with better branding. Real peace isn’t quiet because nothing’s wrong — it’s quiet because you’ve stopped running from what’s true. There’s a difference, and it matters.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/the-perfor...
daniforrest.substack.com/p/the-perfor...
The Performance of Peace vs. the Practice of Peace
How performative spirituality, avoidance, and cultural pressure distort our understanding of real inner peace — and what practicing truth actually requires.
daniforrest.substack.com
November 25, 2025 at 11:13 PM
We’ve been sold a version of “inner peace” that’s really just avoidance with better branding. Real peace isn’t quiet because nothing’s wrong — it’s quiet because you’ve stopped running from what’s true. There’s a difference, and it matters.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/the-perfor...
daniforrest.substack.com/p/the-perfor...
Authoritarianism is failing here not because we’re noble, but because we’re structurally incompatible with obedience. Even the protests show it: no violence, no “enemies within”—just people refusing a naked emperor. Slow-motion collapse is still collapse.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/why-this-r...
daniforrest.substack.com/p/why-this-r...
Why This Regime Will Fail
A slow-motion collapse, a naked emperor, and a nation structurally incompatible with authoritarian rule.
daniforrest.substack.com
November 23, 2025 at 11:45 PM
Authoritarianism is failing here not because we’re noble, but because we’re structurally incompatible with obedience. Even the protests show it: no violence, no “enemies within”—just people refusing a naked emperor. Slow-motion collapse is still collapse.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/why-this-r...
daniforrest.substack.com/p/why-this-r...
Individualism sold itself as empowerment, but it quietly gutted our safety nets—social and emotional. No wonder everyone feels overwhelmed. We’re carrying loads that were never meant for one person. Community isn’t optional. It’s the missing variable.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/the-ache-t...
daniforrest.substack.com/p/the-ache-t...
The Ache That Individualism Can’t Heal
These are the days when it feels like the whole culture is asking us to be selves without a society.
daniforrest.substack.com
November 23, 2025 at 1:26 AM
Individualism sold itself as empowerment, but it quietly gutted our safety nets—social and emotional. No wonder everyone feels overwhelmed. We’re carrying loads that were never meant for one person. Community isn’t optional. It’s the missing variable.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/the-ache-t...
daniforrest.substack.com/p/the-ache-t...
A lot of us are feeling it: the collapse that won’t collapse. The slow-motion downfall. The weight of a country running on rejection wounds and rage. You’re not imagining it.
open.substack.com/pub/daniforr...
open.substack.com/pub/daniforr...
The Neverending Downfall
Why this moment feels like a collapse without the collapse — and what the collective rejection wound has to do with it.
open.substack.com
November 22, 2025 at 1:22 AM
A lot of us are feeling it: the collapse that won’t collapse. The slow-motion downfall. The weight of a country running on rejection wounds and rage. You’re not imagining it.
open.substack.com/pub/daniforr...
open.substack.com/pub/daniforr...
There’s a specific heaviness right now — the kind that comes from knowing before anything is officially acknowledged. The weight isn’t the news; it’s the silence around what we already see forming. You’re not imagining it. The body knows first.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/the-weight...
daniforrest.substack.com/p/the-weight...
The Weight You Can’t Put Down
Why the hardest part of this moment isn’t the news — it’s the knowing.
daniforrest.substack.com
November 19, 2025 at 11:48 PM
There’s a specific heaviness right now — the kind that comes from knowing before anything is officially acknowledged. The weight isn’t the news; it’s the silence around what we already see forming. You’re not imagining it. The body knows first.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/the-weight...
daniforrest.substack.com/p/the-weight...
You’re not imagining it.
What so many of us feel right now is moral injury—the shock of realizing people don’t share the basic decency we assumed. It’s not politics, it’s the enjoyment of cruelty. If it hurts, it’s because your humanity is still intact.
open.substack.com/pub/daniforr...
What so many of us feel right now is moral injury—the shock of realizing people don’t share the basic decency we assumed. It’s not politics, it’s the enjoyment of cruelty. If it hurts, it’s because your humanity is still intact.
open.substack.com/pub/daniforr...
The Grief of Living Among the Unmasked
On moral injury, the enjoyment of cruelty, and the collapse of a social contract we thought was real.
open.substack.com
November 17, 2025 at 11:44 PM
You’re not imagining it.
What so many of us feel right now is moral injury—the shock of realizing people don’t share the basic decency we assumed. It’s not politics, it’s the enjoyment of cruelty. If it hurts, it’s because your humanity is still intact.
open.substack.com/pub/daniforr...
What so many of us feel right now is moral injury—the shock of realizing people don’t share the basic decency we assumed. It’s not politics, it’s the enjoyment of cruelty. If it hurts, it’s because your humanity is still intact.
open.substack.com/pub/daniforr...
We’ve crossed into the part of history where scandals barely register, institutions hesitate, and the machinery of enforcement starts to question the orders it’s given. Chaos? Or is the spell finally—mercifully—breaking?
open.substack.com/pub/daniforr...
open.substack.com/pub/daniforr...
You Are Here ❌: The Map Has Torn
When the scandals stop shocking us and the institutions start hesitating, that’s not normalcy. That’s collapse in slow motion — and the first cracks of refusal.
open.substack.com
November 17, 2025 at 1:28 AM
We’ve crossed into the part of history where scandals barely register, institutions hesitate, and the machinery of enforcement starts to question the orders it’s given. Chaos? Or is the spell finally—mercifully—breaking?
open.substack.com/pub/daniforr...
open.substack.com/pub/daniforr...
When politicians force births, gut social supports, and hand vulnerable kids to private companies, that’s a pipeline—not protection. We’ve seen this pattern before — and pretending it’s an anomaly is how it metastasizes.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/when-the-u...
daniforrest.substack.com/p/when-the-u...
When the Unthinkable Becomes Policy
How forced birth, privatized foster care, and political moralizing create the perfect conditions for systemic exploitation.
daniforrest.substack.com
November 15, 2025 at 1:36 AM
When politicians force births, gut social supports, and hand vulnerable kids to private companies, that’s a pipeline—not protection. We’ve seen this pattern before — and pretending it’s an anomaly is how it metastasizes.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/when-the-u...
daniforrest.substack.com/p/when-the-u...
If your morality collapses the moment the person is politically useful, it was never morality.
And people can feel the difference.
open.substack.com/pub/daniforr...
And people can feel the difference.
open.substack.com/pub/daniforr...
When the Church Refuses to Say “Enough”
Why selective morality among American Christians is fracturing the faith far more than any political scandal ever could.
open.substack.com
November 14, 2025 at 12:16 AM
If your morality collapses the moment the person is politically useful, it was never morality.
And people can feel the difference.
open.substack.com/pub/daniforr...
And people can feel the difference.
open.substack.com/pub/daniforr...
This morning I saw a blue crate that said “Girl Scout Food Pantry—Donations.”
At a time when the powerful protect each other instead of the vulnerable, it’s the kids who are remembering how to care. That little crate broke me open. 💙
daniforrest.substack.com/p/the-girl-s...
At a time when the powerful protect each other instead of the vulnerable, it’s the kids who are remembering how to care. That little crate broke me open. 💙
daniforrest.substack.com/p/the-girl-s...
The Girl Scout Food Pantry: When Children Carry the Conscience of a Nation
At a time when power protects itself and indifference has become patriotic, it’s the kids who are quietly doing the work of compassion.
daniforrest.substack.com
November 13, 2025 at 12:00 AM
This morning I saw a blue crate that said “Girl Scout Food Pantry—Donations.”
At a time when the powerful protect each other instead of the vulnerable, it’s the kids who are remembering how to care. That little crate broke me open. 💙
daniforrest.substack.com/p/the-girl-s...
At a time when the powerful protect each other instead of the vulnerable, it’s the kids who are remembering how to care. That little crate broke me open. 💙
daniforrest.substack.com/p/the-girl-s...
The government “reopens.” But what does that even mean when the foundation itself was never sound? Maybe what’s collapsing isn’t a country—it’s a myth.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/the-founda...
daniforrest.substack.com/p/the-founda...
The Foundation Was Always Rotten
On the illusion of “reopening,” and the work of rebuilding something worth living in.
daniforrest.substack.com
November 12, 2025 at 12:53 AM
The government “reopens.” But what does that even mean when the foundation itself was never sound? Maybe what’s collapsing isn’t a country—it’s a myth.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/the-founda...
daniforrest.substack.com/p/the-founda...
Even in the wreckage, something glimmers. ✨ Hope may not win easily, but it refuses to disappear. We’re learning that small lights can outlast the spectacle.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/glimmers-i...
daniforrest.substack.com/p/glimmers-i...
Glimmers in the Wreckage
Small refusals, local courage, and why the people are the story
daniforrest.substack.com
November 11, 2025 at 1:36 AM
Even in the wreckage, something glimmers. ✨ Hope may not win easily, but it refuses to disappear. We’re learning that small lights can outlast the spectacle.
daniforrest.substack.com/p/glimmers-i...
daniforrest.substack.com/p/glimmers-i...