Time Out

For the last month, I have cut myself off from about 95% of the news. I am not anti-news, and I am not against being informed. I just can't find the benefits to being the recipient of harsh events, usually slanted in a way I may not even be aware of, dished out to the public over and over and over. When something awful happens, we are exposed to commentary, video, and sound bites many times over the next few hours or days, until something else grabs the media's attention so they can dump that on us again and again. The nervous system was not created to handle such deluges. And when we are helpless to do anything, when the event takes place somewhere across the country or world, the helplessness we feel can be another whammy slamming us.

Even though we don't have a television in our home, and I don't listen to any radio that gives the news, I still know most of what is going on in the world (the internet makes sure of that). I just don't have to be repeatedly exposed to it.

I had set out to avoid news for the month of September. I figured that everyone else in the world could take care of the big things for a month while I focused on what was happening more close to me. It's not like we can't help the world if we don't stay on top of the news.

Now that it is October and my thirty day trial is over, I find I actually have even less desire to open myself up to receiving constant — or even sporadic — news. But for some reason, my phone decides on its own to alert me to certain breaking stories. It does this once, sometimes twice, a week. And this morning, the first thing I read was about the shootings in Las Vegas.

When I read about the shootings, I felt like I had been punched in the gut. I immediately held myself and listened to my sadness. Then I told myself, "I am here for you. I will always be here for you."

With a history of not being available to myself, always believing that I needed to put myself aside for others, and letting myself down by offering near-constant criticism and harshness, I am noticing how kind it feels to finally know that I will do the most loving thing for myself. And from that full place of knowing that someone has my back, someone cares, I am able to open my heart as fully as possible to others. 

I don't think I could have found this space of peace and tenderness while in the midst of being thrown about by the media's stories. And aren't peace and tenderness qualities so very needed in this world?