Choose your focus

I felt inspired to write today because so many of my friends and clients are feeling despair and upset with the recent media coverage of our biased news. Many simply don't know what to think!

 Personally I don't watch the TV news and I choose not to read the drama fed out to us through the tabloids. However, it's inevitable that I'll not escape the radio news updates and of course find streams of anger and upset on social media. Having an (almost) obsessive interest  in human behaviour patterns, I find people's emotional response at times like these fascinating to observe.

I am a mum to two gorgeous boys and absolutely know where my focus needs to be right now. We could all choose to wallow in the misery of the fear fed media news AND add to the drama already at fever pitch, or we can switch our focus, be more conscious, be aware of whether our thoughts are coming from a place of love or fear because this will have a huge bearing on our actions and the example we set for our young ones.

Of course the story of the nurse choosing to kill herself and leave her children is sad (it's sad  for the other 14 people in the UK who statistically ended their life that day that the news didn't report because apparently it wasn't dramatic enough) it's sad for the family left behind and also horrendous for the radio dj's who talked to her, how could they possibly have known how fragile the person who picked up the phone would be. There was much hatred for the radio station last week but I'm pretty sure their intent wasn't to kill anyone, there was much compassion for the nurse even though she purposefully took a life and smashed a family to pieces leaving two children with out a their mum. Perhaps a different perspective.

 It's where our focus goes that interests me, perspective when coping with an event is paramount to where we place our anger and/or compassion, to whether we keep on suffering or are able to feel pain and move on. December 14th we were given the news that many young people have been shot by a young man in the US. Again, of course this is horrific and people are outraged, some want to take action to "do" something to perhaps somehow readdress some kind of balance to feeling helpless, sad or panicky partly because this is how media coverage can make us feel. It's made worse because it's the time of year when we're most family minded and thinking of others. 

You know 30,000  children died of starvation in the two days following the Connecticut massacre? and more than 900,000 babies were born? but because the media doesn't flaunt the fact at us it isn't where our awareness lies. The other events that the media chooses not to flaunt are the millions (and possibly billions if you count thoughts) of acts of kindness and love that beautiful human beings give freely every minute of every day.

 One way of "keeping your head" when all around you are losing theirs and keeping your heart coming from a place of love when there is sooo much craziness being thrown at you, is to find perspective that will keep the love flowing, dig deeper than the news paper, expand your conciousness go to www.postivenews.org and celebrate the good stuff, you are not helping ANYONE by suffering for them, send out love to them of course but you can immediately help the collective by switching your focus onto the ones you love and your community. Guide your little ones to realise their own worth, by teaching your children to serve and love themselves and others is your great influence in the world, choose to make this your focus.