I’ve always been a bit of a news junkie.  My day went from one news source to another:  morning radio, morning newspaper, noon TV news, 4pm TV news, 9pm TV news.  But as I have brought more and more Light into my life, the darkness created by too much toxic information has become more and more evident.

We are all bombarded by news and commentary designed to alarm us rather than inform us.  It comes at us from every direction because we are so tuned in to our wonderful “devices”.  Gory details rain upon us concerning multiple wars, heinous crimes, horrid abuse of women and children and animals, raging diseases, wide-spread prejudices, misuse of political power, global poverty, and so on and on.

The result is that we live in fear, and when we live in fear we lose our ability to create any change for the better.  It is easy to blame “the media” for our “dis-ease”, but I would argue that we each bear responsibility.  It is us, the public, who eats all this negativity up and begs for more.  Who else but us is buying newspapers and magazines and tuning in to TV around the clock, buying all that verbal and visual junk that spews out at us.  We love the sensationalism.  We love to see the evidence that other people have it worse than we do.  And if there is bloodshed we love it even more!

I can’t change the whole world, but I can change my little part of it. I want to live in a place of Light and Joy, and to radiate that outward from my soul.  That’s not possible if I am wallowing around in a sea of negativity as presented on the evening news.  So I am making every effort to pull my feet out of the muck and rise to the Light above it.

To want to be totally unaware and uninformed would be silly, unrealistic, and unwise.  Of course.  But some adjustments are in order.  I still love my morning paper but I am skimming the headlines and ignoring the gory details, fully enjoying the comics and the NYT crossword puzzle.  For TV news I tune in just long enough to get what will be the lead stories, and maybe the weather report.  I’m not watching the shows that thrive on celebrity gossip in the name of entertainment.  Crime procedural shows bore me so I don’t watch them.  These days most sit-coms aren’t much fun.

But I love to watch TV just as much as anyone!  So what could THWAM and I be watching? We’re mining Netflix and Hulu and Amazon Prime for some good stuff.  The Brits are our favorites:  Downton Abbey, Call the Midwives, Ballykissangel, Miranda, Derek (Ricky Gervais!), and more.  I adore watching Ellen in the afternoon, and am okay with the dancing shows, and am sort of morbidly fascinated with The Biggest Loser, probably because weight has always been my issue.  I also know a whole lot about choosing and fixing up houses, and more about cooking than I will ever use.  We test our brains with the oldies like Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune and rejoice loudly when we get a correct answer.  Maybe these choices strike you as a bit goofy, but at least they aren’t lobbing great gobs of negativity our way, and they can make us laugh.  Laughter neutralizes negativity.  Everybody knows that.

Of course the most worthwhile and uplifting moments are spent with good books and the good company of friends and family.  No muckiness there!

Where is the negativity in your life?  And what can you do to change it?

Love is everything.