How Much News Is Too Much News?
Do you know your news quota?
There is a lot going on in the world.
Without minimizing current events, this has always been the case and always will.
What has changed is how we as humans consume information. What has not changed is how our body and brain work to digest it.
A looooonnnngggg time ago, people in other lands didn’t even know each other existed. Fast forward to early pioneers, little Bobby had to wait for a man on a horse to deliver news about Aunt Sue a few towns away.
What about before answering machines? If someone called, we didn’t know. How about when we had answering machines? When someone did call, we would need to wait until we got home to get the message. Can you imagine doing that now? My teenage son has NO idea what an answering machine is. Maybe we’ll see one in a museum sometime.
Currently, news – fun, fearful, happy, horrific, sweet, sad – enters our space at a relentless pace allthetime.
I stopped watching mainstream news when Princess Diana died. I was at a retreat center completing a dance & movement training. I was happily grounded, centered, vital, content, and comfortable in my own skin. On a scale of 1 – 10 aliveness, I was an 11! When the news came into our sacred sphere, it felt even more excruciatingly harsh because of the humane state I was in. I decided at that moment, no more news.
What I mean by that is that I’m not going to purposely turn on the 3-letter channels. I trusted that if something happened that I needed to know about it, I would learn about it in some way without the visual and auditory onslaught. This has been proved to be the case time and time again.
I have been questioned, judged, even nonverbally criticized for this choice.
“You’re missing what is happening in the world!”
“Don’t you want to be informed?”
“How can you ignore what is going on?”
Yes, yes, and I can only take in so much.
This is key: I can only take in so much.
> What is true for you?
It is important to be informed, the news is one source, and my self-care is EVERYTHING. I can only give what I have. If I’m a stressed-out wreck, a puddle of grief, or hiding under my bed, there’s not much I can offer the world.
I find the quality of mainstream news to be chronically fear-based, toxic, and depending on how much imagery and sensory stimulation is shared, traumatic. This isn’t by accident. Have you ever heard the saying, “If it bleeds, it leads?” Also, notice the content of the commercials; this is who is paying for the news to be on the air. Money, power, influence.
My intention is not to bash the news. This is a both/and invitation. Decide what kind and how much news to consume AND take care of yourself – whatever this means for YOU.
Some questions to ponder:
How much do you really need to know?
When do you know enough for the moment?
How do you want to spend your precious time?
How do you FEEL?
To what extent does fear, worry, freak-out carry over into other areas of your life, including relationships?
Do you feel inspired AND take action to change something or powerless?
Are you also sleeping, eating, hydrating, moving, laughing, connecting?
Do you still perceive and receive beauty in the world?
Part of our brain is called “reptilian.” Put your hand on the back of your head near the top of your neck. This is the animal part of us constantly scanning for safety. We need it, and we have too many other parts of our brain to be ruled by it. Right?
As humans, we have been gifted with a pre-frontal cortex. Put your hand on your hairline. This is where magic can happen. We want to keep this turned on as much as possible. This cannot occur when we are stuck in an addictive news cycle waiting for another scrap of new information to keep the dopamine (fancy word for feel-good hormone) dripping.
What do I mean by magic? Creativity, connection, collaboration, expanded experiences of consciousness. In other words, how can we make our lives and the world a better place.
There is a question that helped guide me over the last few years:
What is mine to do?
When I felt overwhelmed by the bigness of what was happening, I began to practice the balance of feeling what I was feeling, sometimes hiding under my covers, AND then asking the question above. I needed to keep activating the critical thinking and creative solution finding part of me to engage my inner power, take action, and not feel hopeless.
This action took all forms and at the end of the day, it was grounded in taking exquisite care of my whole Self.
I have discovered my news quota for my unique self and invite you to discern yours. No right or wrong, good or bad – just what is true for you.
What is currently clear to me is to use most of my precious time and energy to fill my inner well-being in a holistic way. Embodying and be-ing more love, more of the time, without bypassing what is occurring on the planet, is the best action I can take.
May you fill your well in ways that work for you.