My energy has been very negative in recent weeks and I have an “excuse”. I pay way too much attention to politics, and the recent insanity impacts my thoughts and drains my daily energy. My challenge is to consciously let go of the energy drain while maintaining my desire to stay informed.
It’s becoming obvious that I need to gain more control over a life long habit of following the news, which now comes to me through several avenues – Kindle, IPhone, blogs, television, and the daily newspaper. It’s not easy because I’ve always believed being informed makes me a better citizen, better voter.
However, disingenuous, lying politicians wanting to force their ideology and dogma on the country is not the real issue for me. I can’t control the insanity that’s happening in Congress. The only thing I have complete control over is holding my own thoughts and energy in the present moment so I live my daily life effectively.
When you have a “worry condition” like I do, every little thing can set off a negative chain reaction. One stupid, lying, political hack appearing in my news feed can lead to my worrying about whether the car need new shocks, is Cathy going to be okay driving to the airport today, and will the bank call and say all our money is gone. I know it’s silly but negative thoughts feed other negative thoughts.
When you have a passionate belief in something – religion, politics, sports teams, business vision – it can be a difficult to stay energetically positive when your team, your vision, your belief is challenged by idiots and lower life forms thousands of mile away.
Here’s the overarching truth – I don’t have any control over these remote activities. My primary job is to hold, monitor, control my own thoughts and energy in this moment. It is the only thing I have complete control over. And, it is the most important thing I can and should do to live my life fully and effectively.
My new plan to self correct my energy is to avoid reading the same news report several times on each of my delivery devices; limit my news intake to once or twice a day; set an additional intention every day to be calm, deliberative and objective while reading and then refocus my attention on what lights me up in this moment. I may also switch my news gathering to following the Kardashians rather than politics. Getting some of the vitriol out in this blog has helped.
Staying engaged but not enraged,
Gary
