So, the government shut down. People are not working; the future is uncertain. So I heard.
A part of me says, “Carly, you really need to look at the news and see what is happening in the world,” and the other part says, “Why do you need to know?”
I’ve made it part of my strict diet to avoid the intake of toxic information, negative news, misaligned situations, people that drain my energy, and doing anything that doesn’t support well-being.
Why? Multiple reasons.
I really want to preserve my state of wellness and bandwidth for my somatic therapy clients that I work with. I also want to focus on what is positive in life. Outside my window and in my little planet, everything appears normal.
I get to empathize with my friend whose job working with environmental conservation is on hold until the government comes back. In the meantime, he’s spearfishing and enjoying his days off. I imagine he may have a lingering sense of concern, asking himself, “How long will my money hold out?”
But besides that, and potential delays in flights due to lack of air traffic control, my life is still brilliantly wonderful.
I also write this with a tiny voice that says, “Carly, you’re going to get criticized by people who do care and are affected by this. They’re going to say you’re selfish and should open your eyes to the tragedies going on around you.”
I do question my potential ignorance and am blatantly stating this here. I might be completely narcissistic by only thinking of myself and my clients.
Yes, I also teach my clients to learn to focus on what does work in their lives. You can notice the dead palm frond and the lively green one just perking its pretty head over the top of the trunk. We can see both and not judge either one. It just is what it is right now.
I know that I feel everything, and when I begin to immerse myself in world news, I will most surely feel multiple pangs of pain as I connect to everyone experiencing hardships right now. But I also do that individually with each person I work with.
We used to live in villages, and the news we knew about was what came to the village or a neighboring village. Our expansion of world awareness remained local. We still worshiped the stars and the sun and considered everything else divine or a mystery. Now we know more than ever—millions of bits of information at our fingertips at all times.
It’s scary and miraculous. No longer do we need to sit around a dinner table and philosophize about the meaning of the world, pelagic creatures in the sea, or what Africa is like. We can just ask ChatGBT, and it tells us everything we need to know and more.
No more space for the question, the critical thinking, the dreaming and fantasizing. It is all revealed—instantly. The unknown becomes a thing of the past. We can now know everything about everyone all the time.
You know what? That’s too much for my brain to handle. Rather, my brain might read the info and compartmentalize it somewhere, but my body has to digest this info. When I open my phone to scroll (which I basically stopped doing), I get an overload of body sensations from scrolling for one minute.
I really do want to choose what I decide to bring in, process, digest, integrate, and poop out the rest.
I don’t want to binge on news that doesn’t support life—and the expansion of life.
I want to feel amazing in my body. I want to look at the world as a beautiful place. I want to see random small acts of kindness and let them fill up my sphere with goodness so that I can sleep in peace every night.
It might be selfish.
What would not selfish look like?
Scroll. Watch the news, repeat the same information, and let myself get appalled and heartbroken multiple times. I can read the stories of hundreds of people I have never met—how they lost their jobs and are struggling to stay afloat, going to the food bank, and trying to feed their hungry kids.
I can add to it by ingesting some more junk between some random influencer doing a stupid dance and then the war—all in the same gulp.
Then I can talk about it with my friends and make them see the reality of the world we live in so that they too can feel hopeless and experience the sense of impending doom.
Then we can all reminisce and drink alcohol to wash away the reality of the world we live in, feeling hopeless to do anything about changing it.
Is that what not being selfish looks like?
For now, I’m choosing to continue nourishing my mind with life, beauty, and health. As I come across people who are experiencing hardship, I can experience the joy of connection through empathy and understanding.
I choose to surround myself with beauty every day. I choose to wake up and, instead of thinking of my to-do list, I list ten new things I’m grateful for.
I choose to filter out my thoughts. Each time an energy-depleting thought arises (“The world is collapsing,” “I don’t have enough of this or that,” “This person is mean,” etc.), I send it away as fast as I can become aware of it.
We really do have the capacity to step into an incredibly beautiful life—like the chord of a guitar playing a note and another instrument resonating with the same chord across the room, without even touching it.
I want to play a chord that resonates joy, delight, and gratitude. I know that I attract more and more situations in my life to support that, and together we build a pool of overflowing joy, delight, and gratitude through perpetuating it daily.
That’s the news I am choosing to follow today.
