Bombarded By News

Back in the day, the only way we’d receive political news was if someone told us about it, if we chose to pick up a newspaper, watch TV or if we turned on the radio. However, it seems these days, we have less choice about whether we want to pay attention to the news, as it is infiltrating our worlds from so many sources.

No longer is the news something we can sort of listen to, rather we now see Canadian flags on aisles in grocery stores that encourage us to shop local, because of political news. We have news pop up on our personal devices in the palms of our hands, it comes up regularly in conversations and reminders seem to be everywhere that instantly draw us in to thinking about and being consumed by what’s taking place in North America.

The fears are real and it’s an unprecedented time. However, when things are bombarding us, we often feel we have no choice in anything, when in reality, peace grows when we recognize what we do have choice about, and turn our attention there. One way we can do this is to ask ourselves: What do I need to be paying attention to today and how much time do I want to give each of those things? By doing this we are immediately stepping away from future fears, and instead gently guiding our thoughts towards things that are more hope-filled.

Then once we have an idea of a few areas that are important in our day, when the news pops up or wants to take our attention from what is right in front of us we might ask ourselves: How does this align with what matters to me right now? Is there something I would rather be thinking about right now? Is there something I’d rather be spending my time learning about and growing in?

We never want to dismiss things that are important. That’s not what this is about. However, as the stress of the news is currently bombarding and trying to steal so much of our peace and present-day focus, we are allowed to take a moment, reflect on how we’d rather be spending our time and choose what thoughts and feelings we want to be apart of that.

Authored by: Christy McLeod