Tattling-On Myself
I must confess to breaking a cardinal rule. I have been paying attention to the news.
It’s not making me feel very good. When I feel out of sorts, when I experience that sickening feeling down in my gut, it’s time to reevaluate because what I believe, very deeply, is that any terrible feeling is my Inner Guide desperately trying to get me back on track.
We all have an Inner Guide (soul, intuition; it is called by many names). The job of this guide is to steer us toward our greatest good. The way s/he accomplishes this is through our feelings. It is as simple as this: when you feel good, your Inner Guide and you are in complete accord. The closer you are to getting to what you want, the better you feel. You are being encouraged from within, “Keep going! You’re doing great!” You are in the “flow,” a term coined by Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi, psychology professor at Claremont Graduate University in California, in his book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.
On the other hand, when you feel bad, it is your Inner Guide’s way of letting you know you’re headed in the wrong direction. Your guide doesn’t send these negative emotions. Rather, s/he separates from you—refuses to join you in where you are going—and it is that separation that feels so bad.
Right now, my Inner Guide is only slightly separating from me. What I notice, though, is that the more I reinforce the negativity being triggered by what I am reading, the more wrenching the separation. It’s one thing to read angry news reports surrounding the presidential race, for example. It’s quite another to add to the discord by repeating what I read and getting into an angry discussion about it. Even worse is allowing it to make me sad and depressed.
Every time we focus on something we don’t want, we simply reinforce its existence. That’s why I think that reading or (worse) watching the news is not only a waste of focus, it can also cause you to unintentionally make the problem worse.
You see, your Source Energy (God, Jesus, Mohammed, Mother Nature—whatever name you have for It) doesn’t hear the word, “No;” It only recognizes what you are paying attention to. Whatever you pay attention to, it is like offering up a prayer, “More of this, please.”
Your prayers are answered.
This morning I was thinking about Occupy Wall Street, a movement full of well-intentioned, angry people. They are angry for good reasons but is their anger accomplishing what they want? Instead of being against Wall Street executives and bankers, accusing them of “rigging the system,” why not adopt an approach more like Gandhi, Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King? Be diligently and passionately “for” something rather than angrily against.
Work toward a fair system versus fighting an unfair one. Itmight seem like semantics but look at what those three heroes accomplished and who they attracted to their causes. They managed to harness the power of the Law of Attraction that says, “You get more of what you focus on.” It’s why they were so feared—it’s much easier to rally hatred against hatred. But to rally hatred against passionate, non-violent conviction—that is a difficult game to win.
Whatever it is that you are passionate about, take a look and see if it’s making you feel good. If it’s making you feel sick, it’s time to evaluate whether you are helping or hurting. If nothing else, when you are experiencing negativity, you are hurting yourself. Stress is a silent killer. We have enough opportunities for stress in our lives. As my grandmother used to say, “Why borrow trouble?”
Finally, if you are concerned about being uninformed, don’t be. You would have to be on a deserted island not to know what’s going on. Someone will tell you or you’ll see a headline on a newsstand or on the Internet. Avoid the siren’s song and don’t go any further. Don’t read it. Why ruin a perfectly good day?
