What we feed our minds is in many ways as important as what we feed our body. The information we take in has a huge impact on our state of mind, belief system, the choices we make, how we view the world and our emotional state. So, it would make sense to focus on things that make us feel good, and help us become better and happier. This is easier said than done, however. Sometimes we just can’t help what we hear and see. But, we do have a greater degree of control than we think. But, exercising this control to the maximum extent involves making more conscious decisions about what we choose to expose ourselves to. We do a lot of things without really thinking about why we are doing them or the impact such choices make. The good news, is, reading a blog post such as this helps you become more aware and raises your consciousness. Here are some helpful tips for purifying your mind diet.
Frackin’ Facebook!
Ugh, Facebook. Like many people, I have a love/hate relationship with the site. I love it because it is a great place to store my travel pictures, and helps me feel connected to my friends and family, even though I am thousands of miles away from them. But, then I kind of hate it too because people post stupid shit, and seeing a picture of someone’s food get 80 ”likes” makes me feel kind of sad for humanity. It can make people feel badly. I don’t think most people are consciously trying to pump themselves up; it is just the fact that we are more likely to share good things than bad–though some people are perfectly comfortable doing the latter. There are several things you can do to reduce the negative impact this site has.
First and foremost, make use of the ”unfollow” option if you are worried about any ”repercussions” the ”unfriend” option may bring. I thought this was something that everyone knew about, but a few conversations recently led me to discover that some people had no idea they could take people out of their feed without unfriending them, hence my discussing it here. You can do this by either going to their page, and clicking the ”following” tab, or clicking that little upside down triangle thingy next to a post and click the ”unfollow X” option.
If you are lamenting your single, childless status, or your difficulty getting pregnant, and the people who incessantly post pictures of their children, or can’t go a day without telling everyone how much they love being a mommy, make you feel down, get rid of them. If you get annoyed by the posts of that girl from high school you never liked much, anyway, get ’em out.
If someone’s constant negativity gets you thinking negatively too, you know what to do. If you are not the best at handling other people’s differing political views, get them out of your feed pronto. If you simply just don’t care about what someone posts because you have absolutely no relationship with them outside of the internet world, why are you wasting your time reading their updates? Get rid of them!
If you feel the need to disagree with something someone posted, do you think you have the strength in you to just not do anything? What is the point in getting into some discussion through a comment section? This is not like a face to face conversation where you may feel pressured to respond–you have total control over not typing something.
Like pages that post positive information, like healthy diet tips, or tips to improve yourself, or discuss your personal interests. This is one of the great aspects of the site, and you should take advantage of it.
You don’t have to be at the mercy of your feed. Take control of it!
Watch Your Intake of the News
You can be an informed citizen without ingesting every piece of news you come across. I personally do not read or watch the news that much, unless there is a topic that I find particularly intriguing. I am well aware there are lots of horrible things happening in the world, and it is not necessary to constantly be feeding my brain all that misery.
There are lots of good things happening in the world too, and I try to focus on that more. Let’s be honest..most of us are not going to try and do anything about most of the terrible things we are seeing; we are simply going to go about our lives as we normally would, so what is simply knowing about something doing for you anyway? I don’t mean that to sound callous or to imply we should not care, because we should. But, in most cases, there is not much we can do about a particular situation. The best most of us can do is try and focus on our little corner and see how we can make it better.
Choose TV Shows Carefully
I love watching television as much as the next person, but over the years I have gotten a bit more discerning about what I watch. Even fictional shows can do a number on us, and totally bring down our vibe. I love Criminal Minds, for example, but do not watch it as much anymore because I find it quite upsetting most of the time.
While the actual stories are false, there is very realistic element in that there are all sorts of sick people out there who really do these types of horrific things to other people. And, the show reminds me of that, and then I start to feel anxious and upset by all the evil in the world. Unless I am particularly in the mood to watch a dramatic movie or show, I stick with comedies because they uplift my mood and keep things light. Start paying attention to how certain programs make you feel, and see if you may be better off not watching them.
I will gladly feast on this KC! The news is a snooze, watch it and lose. Unless you’re going to take up arms or march for peace you’d serve all better by being a positive light, and inspiring others through blogging or speaking.
Tweeted! Stumbled! G Plussed!
Thanks so much Ryan. Like you said, our time can be better spent seeing what we can do to improve the lives of people around us, rather than lamenting about issues that our beyond our reach.
Kelli, you are so right about watching your mental input. Like you, I all but stopped watching the news and violent or crime tv shows. I made it my policy to only watch comedies or escapist shows, of which there are tons of reruns on cable. Also I realised that dwelling on people who were unfair to me or judging me was a waste of my time, so I refused to see them any more or think about them. Basically anything negative that I couldn’t do anything about, I decided to ignore it completely. This even includes charities, so I don’t get sucked into pity or feeling responsible for other people’s misfortunes (I have had misfortune and other people’s pity has never helped me, in the end the only person who could help me was me). It has made a lot of difference to my state of mind.
Hi there
Thanks so much for your comment and sharing your experience. When we begin to realize how precious our energy and state of mind are, we become much more conscious of various stimuli and how it affects us. I too am a fan of lighter entertainment that makes me feel good–it is a great way to raise our vibration and get into a good feeling space. Constantly taking in the news simply for the sake of being informed really does little good. That is great you made the step to remove people from our life that were bringing you down–this is one of the most profound changes we can make, but also one of the hardest. I love your point about the charities and dwelling on misfortune. That sense of pity is very pervasive and only feeds the situation. If we can raise our energy and shift our efforts to providing ways to empower people, and not just assist them with the idea they are helpless on their own, we can create huge changes. Great insights here!