I want to draw your attention to media. You’ve probably heard the saying that ‘there is no such thing as bad publicity’ but I am say that, that is untrue. The reason why, is that we can get so tangled up in publicity, in media, in what we’re hearing on the news, what’s going on, on the radio, the newspaper- This stuff is everywhere!
Adverts, posters, around us and whether you are conscious of it or not, you are soaking up this information into your brain. It may be news to you but that information is going to be affecting your state. i.e. How you feel that day.
If you watch a movie where something very upsetting happens you might notice that in that moment you get a bit upset and maybe even start to cry. Likewise, you’ve probably seen a funny film where it makes you laugh out loud.
So, we know that things that are not your actually reality can affect us emotionally. It can leave us feeling either great afterwards, curious afterwards, sad afterwards. That’s fine when you are deliberately putting yourself in that position because you want to watch a film, but when you are accidentally soaking this stuff up, because you’ve got the television or the radio on from the moment you wake up in the morning (and especially in the morning when they do that really annoying thing where there’s a news update every half an hour. What’s happened in the last half an hour that we need to hear it all over again?!)
I’m not trying to say that you should be unaware of what’s going on in the world, because you know that might be something that you genuinely have an interest in, it might be the case that you enjoy current affairs, for example. That’s fine. You can be informed, you don’t need to be inundated, because you see the thing is, it can be very easy to be sucked into that world of bad news. As human beings, we prefer bad news. It sounds awful, but it’s in our nature, if we know about the bad news, we know what we need to avoid and we know what we need to run away from. That’s how we are wired up from a survival level.
It’s really important that you make a point of using any bad news that you hear and turning it into a positive spin. If you are going to listen to bad news, take something positive from it. So, for example, if you hear something about a natural disaster that has occurred somewhere in the world, do something that makes you feel like you are adding to the relief effort, raise some money for the charity that is going to send the Red Cross in or something like that.
If you hear bad news about politicians spending habits and that they are spending tax payers money which makes you mad as heck, then make a point of checking over your own finances. If you hear about an increase in poor public health, do something that focuses on your own personal health. Because, the thing is, that it is really hard trying to change the world by watching the news, but you can change your world. You can take control over your own life and you can make your own world, your own community, your own friends and family become or be in a better place.
Tip number 1: Don’t indulge in the news.
Tip number 2: If you’re going to watch the news, then take something positive from it and do something useful as a result.
Tip Number 3: Typically with the news, we’ve got our heads in something – the head is in the telly, the news feed on your phone. The head’s in a newspaper, your head’s in the radio! I want to proposition that you put your head outside, in the actual outside world. There’s a whole world out there! Your world – and you could be part of that and you could make something beautiful happen.
