How is your anxiety today? Are you depressed? Trouble sleeping? Worried about what tomorrow will bring? As you are reading these words is your heart rate speeding up? If I sound like a commercial, good, because I am trying to mimic one. A lot of us struggle with having peace of mind, which leads to many of the symptoms listed above.
When I was a kid, many…many years ago, we had a daily newspaper delivered to our house. It was rolled up with a green rubber band securing the roll. I remember my father used to go straight to the sports section, my mother would take out the shopping ads (Anyone besides me remember Sears?). For some strange reason, when I was old enough, I was fascinated by the obituaries; I would scan through them to see if I recognized any last names. Odd segue, I know lol. My point is, life was simpler then. We did not have a 24 hour news cycle. We watched, if desired, the news at noon, the news at 6pm and the news at 11pm, but typically not all three.
Today, you cannot escape it. The news surrounds you not only on local and cable television, it’s on your phone, tablet, PC. I don’t think you can go out to socialize or shop without the merchant or vendor having a television on, much less being disturbed by news “alerts” on your device. Lately there has not been much good “news”. The Greek alphabet and all the symptoms it embodies has overtaken the news cycle. People are afraid and it is justifiable fear.
We used to have a saying when it came to the mailman: “no news is good news”; I believe that phrase is very applicable today. People often ask me why I’m always in a good mood, and my answer is simple: I very rarely turn on the television and I try and avoid the news at all costs. Think about it really…if you don’t watch the news, don’t you get it anyway? All you have to do is listen to people talk when you’re out and about. You will get up to speed really quick. I prefer to spend time with the Lord and hearing what He has to say. I know this, God always brings the Good News!
So my challenge to you is this: measure your stress level from 1-5 (5 being stressed off the charts). If you are between 3-5 take a break from the media for a day or so and just relax. Put the scary thoughts about variants aside for just one day. On the second day re-measure. Send me a message on how things look. It will be hard: Tik Tok, Instagram, YouTube…trust me, I know, hahaha!
Try it!
Bonita
