I recently attended a Zoom even hosted by Mitra Rahbar, a spiritual teacher, healer and poet, titled Tools and Tips for 2021. In the seminar, she offered a number of extremely helpful suggestions on how to navigate through this already rather turbulent year. Mitra shared some of the tips from the seminar on Facebook.
I’m practicing a number of her suggestions already, and have added others to my “coping toolbox.” One thing she mentioned during the seminar was how to deal with the overwhelming amount of information we are exposed to every single day, especially on social media.
Managing your social media feeds is a bit of a mixed blessing these days. On the one hand, it’s a wonderful way to connect with others, especially since many of us are so isolated right now. But yet, how many times do you find yourself scrolling through your newsfeed, hoping to find nothing but cute cat photos, only to be bombarded by distressing messages and links you’d rather not see?
Mitra offered a simple solution: walk away. She’s not suggesting that you should just quit all your social media (although I suppose that’s one way to deal with things, but for most of us, the benefits of connection probably still outweigh the negatives or else, we wouldn’t continue to be on social, right?) No, she means literally walk away. Get up, walk away from your computer, go into another room in your home for a few minutes, and clear the energy.
I started practicing this whenever I get upset or angry about something I see on social, and it’s making a remarkable difference. It’s also helping me to not fire off ill-advised comments on posts that upset me.
If you find yourself upset by what you see on your social feeds, I encourage you to try this. Let me know how it works for you!
Never give up on another way to hook up with a friend, business partner, relative and those faith filled places that build up our spirits. There’s always a new place around the corner and when you do get to your destination you’ll find it was worth all the extra work to take the extra time to get there. And please remember to take the extra time to stop at your animal shelter, even if it’s to peek in the window and rub noses with all those lonely cats. Have a great week my friends and give all your animal friends an extra kiss, hug or tummy rub. Love ya all!
Great thoughts and advice Ingrid!! Thank you for sharing!
Mitra’s suggestion to walk away is an excellent one. I’m finding that I’m spending an increasing amount of time on social media, and becoming more upset and anxious about matters that are out of my control.
What I can control, however, is how I choose to engage with social media and how I choose to react. Walking away would enable me to still engage with the healthy aspects of social media and help to eliminate the destructive effects of the unhealthy aspects. I too have fired off some ill-advised comments on posts that upset me, so you are not alone, Ingrid!
I love you blog Ingrid; you not only help our beloved cats through your blog, but also us humans!
I love cat pictures on social media. They always make me smile. I have learned not to go on the news pages. Those places are filled with hate in the comments.