building self-awareness and self-support after a big news week
This has been an energetically intense week, so I thought it might be nice to keep things simple today. No audio needed for this email.
Today we are going to do a quick self-check-in to assess where you may be able to offer yourself some more support in light of current events.
I want you to think about your relationship with the news.
How do you access it? (Newspapers / blogs / social media / television)?
Do you tune-in because you want to be informed?
Or is it because on a deep level it validates your feelings?
Are you looking for resources so you can contribute your time and energy to support what you value?
Or are you looking for reasons to feel even more rooted in your beliefs?
In what ways does the news nourish you?
What needs does it meet?
What needs does it block you from meeting?
These aren't questions I can answer for you. And there is no shame in how you answer because there's no wrong answer.
I just want to encourage you to step into your own behavioral awareness.
Chances are your relationship to the news both benefits and detracts from certain needs.
For example, all of the following may be true for you:
High-Vibe: it allows you to contribute to meaningful conversation with friends.
High-Vibe: it offers resources that allow you to support your community.
Low-Vibe: it distracts you from daily tasks, which inhibits your need for structure.
Low-Vibe: it spikes your nervous system so much that it blocks your need for peace, ease, or safety.
When you are keyed into your own behavioral awareness, you can start making tweaks that ensure you are acting in a way that really serves you.
Confusing nourishment with 'comfort food:'
Keep in mind, it's very easy to become addicted to our own low-vibrational thoughts. I know this from personal experience, but it's also a protective strategy called negativity bias that our brains use to ensure survival in the face of threat.
Please be wary of where your relationship to the news may be feeding an addiction to your low-vibrational thoughts. On some level, does it feel good to feel bitter, righteous, angry, scared, or powerless?
Adjusting your actions for self-support:
You can shift your habits to meet your needs in a more direct and informed way.
Maybe you'll decide that watching the news on television spikes your anxiety too much, whereas reading the meat of the issues in a newspaper contributes to your need for information.
Again, you'll know what habits are truly nourishing for you—I can't tell you what they are. But be honest with yourself about where you can cut out behaviors that weigh you down and consciously engage with the actions that DO meet your needs.
When in doubt, self-care:
Part of self-care is just being conscious: are you approaching the news from a nourishment perspective? If not, how can you shift into a space where your actions meet your true needs for information, connection, contribution, and ultimately—empowerment?
If you are attempting to engage with the news from a place of nourishment, but it still triggers you—how will you offer yourself self-care?
Some suggestions could be: disengage for an hour or so to go for a walk, meditate (feel free to use the one below), connect with a friend or your family, dance it out (moving your body helps clear trauma and anxiety), or let your feelings flow! Cry it out, journal your anger, etc. Release! (maybe not publicly, though, until you've regulated).
here's last week's meditation, which connects to a feel-good space within your body, in case you need some guided self-care this week:
That's it! Hope you take care of yourselves this week, friends. It is bound to heated for at least the entire month of January. But with these tools by your side you'll be able to manage the chaotic energy from a grounded place—and protect yourself from spiraling.