So, here it is. Part 2. I know you think that I am going to wax eloquent about #Metoo movement and my opinions on the significance of last week’s events. But you would be wrong. Sure, I have opinions on that kind of thing, but “This is about us…all of us.”
So, there are plenty of great conversations and some not so great ones happening about the Dr. Ford/Judge Cavanaugh issue and I will encourage you to go look at those to have more discussion about that issue. This blog is going to cover a broader issue that is more interesting to me. What issue is that you ask? Well my peeps, that would be the mental health of all us and how what we are seeing play out in the media is having a toll on us all.
If you are continuing with me from last week’s blog, you recall that I took us through an exercise of evoking emotion. It wasn’t a long blog and the visualization was rather simple, and yet, when done right should have evoked some real emotional response from you. (If you haven’t read that blog, go back and do it…it’s a good one, I promise). So, think for a minute about how much of an emotional response you had last week after reading the blog and also think about what, if any, affect it had on you the rest of the day.
Why is this important Doc? And why do you find this interesting?
Well folks, here is why. We are steeped day to day in stress. Good stress, bad stress, fun stress, strenuous stress…all around stress. It comes from our responsibilities to family, friends, coworkers, and honestly to all of us. A good stress for me is having to get up earlier than I would like to get both myself and my three and half year old ready in the morning. She is so into brushing her teeth and picking out her clothes and showing me how big she is. It’s darling, but it is also an extra half hour of an already crunched morning. I am tired just thinking about it right now, and yet I wouldn’t give this stress up for the world. A strenuous stress for me is cleaning the house, which I would love to give up if anyone is offering.
When we know our baseline is stress and then are inviting in more emotionally evoking activity into our “down time”, what do you think is going to happen? You got it…more stress. And how much stress do you think any one of us can take? Well that is the really interesting part for me. Of course, the standard answer to this is “It depends”. But no lie folks, it REALLY depends. It depends on how much resiliency you have built up, what your home life is like, where you work or whether you work, how your social life is, your genetic make-up, and on and on and on.
So, the upshot of my point today is, this level of conflict in our life is detrimental and if not well balanced out, it will start to leak out in ways we may not mean or want it to do. Remember how I asked what you felt like the rest of the day after reading my blog…well, this is what I am talking about. If you evoke negative emotion it will come out. If you consume negative emotion it will come in. And once it comes in, it will make its way out again. Your resiliency will predict if that is done in a healthy way or in non-healthy and sometimes even abusive way. And when I say abuse, I am not using that word lightly. And I am using it in a broad sense. We “self” abuse through negative self-talk, emotional eating, abuse of drugs and alcohol, among other things. And we “other” abuse when we cause conflict, yell, say hurtful things, and otherwise cause relational disruptions. This is real people. If you have ever seen the movie The Green Mile I would liken it to the green cloud of bug like stuff that the John Coffey character would suck out of one person and then spew into another. When that stuff was sucked in it made him sick until it was released. And when it was released it made the receiver sick as well, unless of course it was released into the air and disbursed without harming anyone. Every time you read, watch, or otherwise engage in the “Us vs Them” conflicts that you are seeing used in all media platforms, you are sucking in some of that bad stuff. That negative emotion has been absorbed into you and will have an impact on you or others if not disbursed in a constructive way.
Remember this as you are engaging with this emotionally laden material. Even when the topic is a good one to be aired, the emotional toll it takes on all of us is very real. Be mindful of this. Take care of yourselves with it. And do not underestimate how much of a disruption it can and will cause you if you aren’t taking it seriously. This is the landscape in which the stress you already have in your life will be occurring. How much of it do you want to let in? Be intentional. This is an added emotional need you will have to address. Be sure it is something you are choosing and not something you are inadvertently exposing yourself to because the average American adult looks at their phone somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 times a day depending on age.
What is happening in the media is affecting all of us, whether we directly engage or not. Because as long as some of us are engaging, all of us are in play to be affected by the negativity that can result from these conflictual interactions. Now, here is the good news…(It’s about time, Doc because this has been a Debbie Downer blog today.)
…the positive energy of emotion works the same way. It will spread with the same amount of fervor and I would contend is the only real solution to dispersing the negativity in a healthy way. How you ask? Well that will be part 3 of this series.
Did it again, didn’t I? Looped you in for another blog. Come on, at least you may have learned something. And if not learned something you at least want to go watch a really good movie, The Green Mile.
‘Til next week…be well my friends.