What You Focus On Becomes Your Reality

You must learn a new way to think before you can master a new way to be.

Marianne Williamson

Right now we live in a world where the media no longer highlights the stories that show the best in humanity, but rather they focus on whatever boosts their ratings. This means much more time is spent on the stories that scare you rather than those that inspire you. The former triggers a primal instinct in us that draws us in, not because it’s more important, but because we feel it will dictate our survival – making us literally hooked on bad news.

Despite homicide rates dropping 42% over the last two decades, coverage of them has increased by more than 700%.

The Center for Media and Public Affairs

However, I’ve found more and more that these inspiring stories do exist and there are platforms that promote them. You must, however, understand that by ignoring the main media outlets that say the world is ending and focusing your attention on those that show you the beauty in what people are doing right now, you aren’t sticking your head in the sand. You actually are allowing yourself to open up to the world and see how you can help as opposed to shutting down and hiding from it.

For example, I have a friend who has done an incredible job quarantining himself. He has all of the proper procedures of social distancing, hand washing, and cleaning off all of his food and anything else before bringing it into the house. You would think this person would be relaxed and at ease during this knowing how safe they are being during this. However, he spends hours each day reading articles online, watching the news, and scrolling through the worst parts of social media, all of which are highlighting the disaster of this pandemic. So rather than being worry free knowing he’s done the most he can do to protect himself, I can physically see him more stressed out now than ever before.

In reading/watching all the terrible news that’s going on around him, he forms a chemical dependency from the chemicals released in a fight or flight response. It gives him a sense of purpose when in reality he may be losing touch with all of the positivity that’s happening around them. It’s similar to a social media addict saying they “need social media.” He doesn’t, but the chemical dependency from the dopamine he gets when he’s on Instagram is hardwiring his brain to think so. But because he has become dependent on social media and bad news for a certain chemical hit his brain wants, he end up missing out on life and the incredible things that are happening around him.

I won’t deny that every once in a while I find myself prey to these exact things. I deleted social media off my phone a month ago in order to combat this and my encouragement for you is to see what happens when you minimize social media or the bad news you’re taking in. This doesn’t mean to ignore the world around you. You’ll have plenty of people updating you if anything truly important happens. However, you’ll soon see the reality you’ve really been missing out on. It’s one filled with heroes, loving strangers, and people doing their most to help each other.

Viewing the world in this way allows you to be more helpful and loving to those around you. It has also been scientifically proven to reduce stress, allow for better sleep, weight control, increases memory and cognition, and boosts your immune system.

First I’ll give you an easy exercise to work on focusing on the positive and then I’ll highlight some of the heart-warming stories that are happening across the world right now. I’ll also give you some resources I’ve found to help change your media consumption habits and in turn, your health.

Exercise on Media Consumption:

To go back to my post two weeks ago with the +1/-1 exercise, I want you to consider reading news from outlets like Fox News, CNN, MSNBC or any other one that promotes the negatives heavily in a situation a -1. Every time you catch yourself about to turn the tv to one of those channels or read an article online and stop yourself you get a +1. Even better yet, stopping yourself and reading an article from one of the below sites would be an even better +1! Replace the negative news with positive stories and you’ll see your stress begin to melt as well as the impact you’ll have on loved ones and those around you.

Some great go to’s for positive news:

Good News Network – This is the only news app on my phone and it promotes, you guessed it, good news. It highlights some of the little stories like a man outside his local hospital paying for nurses gas (click here) and a college student who has been creating face masks to help doctors communicate with the hearing impaired (click here). It also shows what the world is doing to combat the tougher issues like climate change, like the CEO of BlackRock, the world’s largest money manager, announced the group’s new commitment to investing only in environmentally friendly companies or those working to go carbon neutral (click here). More importantly, here’s some good news we all needed for updates on COVID-19 (click here).

Positive News – This site promotes the best news from around the world as well and has a weekly newsletter you can subscribe to for a boost in your day. It includes stories of how the world is tackling social isolation together (click here), showing you how to get your daily dose of nature from inside (click here), and hundreds of other stories including 10 ways to help others during the outbreak (click here).

The world needs to see these stories because if you focus on the negatives of what’s happening right now, you’ll surely find places like Fox News, CNN, MSNBC and dozens of other media outlets ready to make money off your chemical dependency of that fear. The beauty in humanity and positivity in this world is still out there. All you have to do is be willing to look for it and know how much you’re helping those around you by doing so. Now is not the time for more fear, rather it is more necessary than ever for one another’s love.

I’ll leave you with an incredible series that John Krasinksi created while he’s been in quarantine called “Some Good News.” I promise this will be the best 15 minutes of your day – he interviews a true hero.