Last week, I announced that I would be transitioning to a podcast, effective immediately, but I changed my mind – I’ll continue posting from time to time AND I’ll also experiment with posting my videos directly in this blog. In the meantime, here’s a “Bonus Track”!

News! News! News! Every day, more news. Bad news, good news, predictions of disaster, actual disasters.

How can we bring mindfulness to this endless barrage?

The news we consume is an awful lot like the food we consume. We can make healthier choices. We can limit our consumption. We can do intermittent fasting. We can cut out junk permanently.

We can start to bring ourselves into a healthier balance by reflecting a bit on our current “diet”. How much news are we actually consuming? How much variety is there in our “diet”? Are we consuming all our news from just one source or a variety of sources?

We can also consider how we feel after we consume. If we spend an hour watching the news, how does that affect our mood? Does it leave us optimistic and hopeful, or depressed? How’s our energy level? Do we have indigestion from what we just consumed?

Some people are more sensitive than others. Maybe you are one one those. Just as some people can eat a meal high in MSG and feel fine, while others get sick or get migraines, so too some people are much more strongly affected by the news. If that’s you, maybe you should stay away.

Lastly, we can bring more mindfulness by slowing things down a bit. Are we consuming the news out of habit, repeating the same behavior day after day, or are we actually CHOOSING to go and spend X amount of time consuming THIS type of news from THESE news sources? Making choices and being intentional is always preferable to mindless, automatic, scripted, behavior patterns.

In short, while it’s important to be aware of what’s happening in the world around us, we need to bring intentionality and choice to our consumption. Let’s make sure we choose from a variety of sources, with a variety of perspectives (balanced nutrition) and that we limit our consumption (no bingeing), and that we are mindful of what effect our consumption is having on us (adverse reactions).

What we put in our bodies BECOMES our bodies. What we put in our minds can, if we’re not mindful, BECOME our beliefs, our attitudes, our thoughts, and even our behaviors. It matters. A lot.

Choose wisely.