Where is the time for mourning?
Between all the shootings, the previous pandemic, and the political/social mayhem today, we have almost become anesthetized by grief. The deaths have come quickly and in number and there seems to be no time or breather available for which we can mourn.
Mourning is a way to come to terms with death. It is a time in which we feel the loss and take stock to regroup. But, no one is regrouping anymore. It seems that people would either take to social media to verbalize their anger, or take negative action against strangers because they have no outlet to grieve as it becomes something they have not had a proper time to deal with.
I don’t profess to have the answers. But I do know this: the news media and social media is directly responsible for whether you are able to mourn or if you are going to arm yourself with hate. I do know that If we stay away from that steady diet of hate news, we will be a step closer to being able to properly mourn and actually help ourselves and our country out of the place of mourning into a place of correct, helpful action.
My suggestions:
Don’t make your day a steady diet of communicating online.
Notifications - turn them off. There is no such thing as “need to know” anymore.
Allow yourself only one time for news and one time to communicate about that news.
Meditate. It will help you to not react which is with emotion. Instead you have the opportunity to respond which is with reason. It’s not easy easy as it sounds, but it’s a definite help if you adopt the practice daily for these 10 minutes.
How you absorb information is very important. Personally, I am cutting back on my own time so that I am not inundated with the feelings, the mood, and the mindset of people who are indirectly associated with it. There’s enough that comes to us directly that we need to absorb.
Try the above suggestions to help you clear the way for your mourning process, and see what a difference they can make to your own wellness.
Published on July 10, 2024 on Medium.com
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