To put it simply - there’s no such thing as “good news”. So, for that reason (and I know this may sound strange to many people) I haven’t watched the news for almost 12 years!
Despite not tuning into every daily news update, I am still totally in the loop. I believe that vital information will always find its way to me through social media or by word of mouth with friends or family like my husband. I trust that if it’s significant, the people close to me in life will let me know.
You may be thinking “Is it because you can’t handle it?” and the answer is not really – I believe I can handle almost anything in life. However, I think choosing when I expose myself to the severity of the news is a much healthier approach. Before, when I watched the news almost religiously, I witnessed the relentless atrocities existing in our world. I allowed the media to condition my thought processes, focusing my mind on the negatives and thereby allowing it to consume me. The result? I was totally distressed - I felt the world was a dark and dangerous place where I no longer felt safe. It felt like I was quite literally living through a horror movie! And yes, you guessed it, none of those either – they scare the sh!t out of me.
After a while I started to wonder how much I’d allowed the media to distort my view of the world. I decided to take a step back and reconsider whether my opinion was ever really my opinion at all. I had not been careful with what information I fed to my brain and so in many ways I had allowed my views on the world to be manipulated.
I understand that there are countless bad things out there and I have learned enough to acknowledge the negativity and evil in the world. Yet, in my head and heart, there are (mostly) good things that I hold very dear and believe this type of negative energy could disturb my natural vibes. My feelings tend to be naturally drawn to things that make me see the world in a positive light. Nonetheless, making this decision was difficult but this choice has no doubt provided me with a lot more happiness and what else is more important?
Let your own life’s problems inspire you
I am in no way trying to influence people to ignore the problems in the world. I am simply trying to explain that if you take a break from the media’s influence and form your own decisions we will all naturally stumble into our own life’s problems, where we can allow ourselves to digest the issue, make a plan of action and overcome the problem. The alternative, is to keep up to date with as many problems in the world as humanly possible, feel bad about those problems, realise you can’t possibly fix all those issues, which inevitably end up with most of us feeling so miserable that we lose all of our productivity. In summary, don’t allow the world’s problems to hold you back from letting your own life’s problems inspire you.
Me overcoming my life’s problems like healthy eating, using less plastic, reducing my carbon footprint or being a great mum, might not affect millions of people. But hey, I will be doing something positive! A tiny something that serves at least me but hopefully many more. The world is an amazing place, full of incredible people! We are capable of so much more than what we give ourselves credit for. You might not know it, but by changing even little things like your energy, you will plant a seed in others too.
Beauty is everywhere. Love is everywhere. If you can’t see it, well my friend that means you need to put it there.
Love and light,
Andrea