Part of me hesitates to write this message, but my heart is telling me it needs to be said as yet another community — Highland Park, Illinois — has suffered an unimaginable tragedy.
Please know that:
💛 You do not need to know all about current events to be “responsible.”
💛 You do not need to check for news updates to be “an informed citizen.”
💛 You do not need to stay on top of emerging details to be a deeply compassionate person.
Perhaps like you, I used to be a news junkie.
I thought it was important to know all the things. After all, it’s what we’re taught at home and at school.
Then my mom died, and two months later I gave birth to our first child. In that intense time of deep grief, I found that consuming the news dramatically elevated my chronic anxiety and caused more frequent intrusive thoughts (seemingly out-of-nowhere disturbing visions.)
That was 11 years ago.
I decided to better care for myself, and my newborn daughter, by nearly eliminating my news consumption.
It hugely benefitted my life.
And, I continue to significantly limit how much news I consume.
I believe reducing news consumption — a little or a lot — is vital self-care for empaths and other highly-sensitive women.
Don’t let anyone tell you you’re irresponsible or ill-informed or naïve. This is not about digging your head in the sand.
You don’t make the world a better place by becoming overwhelmed, wanting to curl up in a ball and never go out in public again.
You can care deeply and not know every emerging detail.
You can grieve without reading every live update.
You make the world a better place by regularly tending to your energy, by tending to your light.
So you CAN take heart-led action. Guided by your light.
And, our world needs your light right now.
Today, I heard a message from our lovely butterfly weed that’s in full blooming glory right now.
Butterfly weed was very clear that I should sit down with them. (I literally felt pulled down to the ground.) To simply be there.
To be. To breathe. To ground. To send out healing energies and prayers. To tend to the light.
Butterfly weed encourages you to sit with flowers that are around you. Any flowers. Perhaps do it when you feel the pull to check the news again.
Be still with them. And breathe.
This one simple act will bring needed healing to your life and, through you, to all of the world.
