The World is in Chaos, Tiffany. What Do I do?
You’re watching, reading and absorbing the news. Everywhere you look, it’s clear the world is in chaos and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Right?
Let’s pretend for a moment you’re sitting across from me, we’re in a coaching session, and you’re sharing how heartbroken you are over the state of the world. You’re really on a roll, telling me all the latest news, the stories that leave you horrified, enraged, scared, and by the end of your story you sit back, slumping into your seat exhausted.
You’ve just relived all those stories as if it were your first time hearing them, almost as though they weren’t just stories, but things that happened to you.
You’re struggling to separate the story from your lived experience, caught up in the extreme emotions and physicality of what you’re watching and reading on a day to day basis.
We sit in silence a few moments, letting you feel. You look sad, drawn, bleak, and worn out. From a coaches perspective, I can see the media - and what they’re telling and showing you - has become integrated into your life, as real as what you yourself are living.
And then you share the final piece of the puzzle:
“It’s all so horrible, and so huge, there’s nothing I can do about any of it. What can any of us do?”
Is there anything more defeating than believing the world is breaking all around you… and knowing you can do nothing about it? Believing you have no agency, no leverage?
So, let’s take a look at it…
We’re dealing with 2 key beliefs here:
The world is a horrible, scary, unsafe place to be. I saw it with my eyes so it’s the truth.
I’m powerless to help in any meaningful way.
Let’s address belief #1
As a species we evolved to believe what our eyes were seeing. This kept us alive in a time where our awareness of the world was limited to what we were directly experiencing. That was it. Anything outside our senses simply didn’t exist.
That mechanism is still alive and well in the brain, causing us to believe - often without question - what we’re seeing and hearing.
And for those of us who have never taken part in a major media production, we have no awareness of the millions of dollars being spent on research, writing, scripting, staging, lighting, etc. that goes into one simple news story. Not to mention the years of training the news anchor undergoes in order to portray each story in a very specific way.
If we could see all of that, our eyes and brain would take even the most disturbing news story with a healthy amount of perspective. An immediate understanding that what we’re seeing is likely only part of the story, and told from a biased perspective.
And there certainly isn’t room here in this post, or in a single coaching session, to cover everything else involved in what makes the news the way it is - the financial motivations of the government, media companies, and the companies that sponsor their content.
Their job is to keep you in heightened state of arousal. Fear, anger, and sadness trigger our fight or flight system, which narrows our focus to one specific point…the screen in front of our faces. We stay glued to it, giving our time and attention. More eyes on their content means more sponsorship dollars and more profit.
And here’s my biased motivation as your coach:
To help you see that the news, media, and social media posts you’re seeing every day are not your reality.
Look up from these words.
What do you see? What room are you in? Where are you? What’s around you?
Now, tune into your body. How does it feel? Can you feel your heart beating? Your blood pumping? If you closed your eyes, what sensations are there that let you know you really exist?
Take a look at your life. What exists separate of any outside input? Your family? Your home? Your possessions, your work, relationships, and the world directly around you.
Because, here’s the truth:
We haven’t evolved much from those early humans. We are still designed to experience life through our senses, physical and otherwise. We are not equipped to have constant exposure to everything, everywhere, all at once.
I’m not claiming that what you’re seeing in the news doesn’t exist. I’m explaining that your reality is limited to your direct experience. Everything else comes in and seems like it’s happening to you. But the only thing happening to you is the horrific thing you’re watching on that screen.
Is it still happening to other people? Perhaps. But not in the way you’re experiencing it through the tiny screen in your hand.
Let me explain…
When I go to Hawaii, there’s often some event that happens there. A storm, an earthquake, something we experience firsthand and then move on with our days. It’s only when I return to the mainland that people start asking me, eyes all wide, if I’m ok. “Huh?” I ask intelligently.
See, they’ve seen the storm on the news, and they’ve heard how awful it was.
“Really? Well, it was windy and there was a lot of rain, but it was kind of fun watching it all happen outside. No big deal!”
Meanwhile, the news had them convinced half the island was in crisis.
And another perspective…
Have you ever gone through something really hard? Like losing a loved one, experiencing a severe illness, or losing a job?
Let’s say you’re at your grandmother’s funeral. You were very close, loved her dearly, and can’t imagine life without her. As you stand there in the line of immediate family members, people from the community file past and offer their condolences.
They hold your hand, tears streaming down their faces, telling you how sorry they are for your loss. Meanwhile, their grief is plain on their faces. They’re genuinely suffering because they believe your grief must be too much to bear.
You find yourself comforting them, assuring them you’ll be fine. Because you don’t want them to be so sad. You don’t want them to experience your grief as if it were their own.
And because you know you’re strong enough. You can handle this experience, you can hold it, grieve, and move on with your life. That’s what your grandma would want for you, and it’s what you want for yourself.
Meanwhile those funeral attendees go home distraught, believing you’re a victim to your circumstances, and they can hardly stand knowing how much pain you must be in.
They’re experiencing your pain as if it were their own. It’s a type of empathy, but it’s not healthy. They’re assuming your burden, believing they’re supposed to be sad for you, that it’s their responsibility to feel bad.
See where I’m going with this?
As the person actually going through the catastrophic event, we experience it, feel the emotions, go through the motions of recovery, take care of all the practical necessities like funerals, storm clean-up, or finding a new job. We are resilient, and we become more resilient with each challenge we experience. We’ve got this!
But if we knew there were millions of people watching us on the news, grieving for us, feeling scared, horrified, sad, and lying awake at night believing this story they just watched is more evidence the world is a scary, unsafe place to live? We’d be horrified, right?
“Hey! This is my story, it happened to me, you’re fine…and I’m going to be fine too!”
The only people who benefit from millions of people experiencing calamity as if it was happening to them are the companies and institutions who profit from your undivided attention.
Now, on to belief #2
There’s nothing you can do. Right?
Wrong. I love you, I do. But… there’s always something you can do.
First… reframe your reality. Unplug from the news because you now know it’s not real. It’s not happening to you. And you know that by giving it your attention, you’re giving it your life. Your life, like mine, is measured in minutes. 42,000,000 minutes in the average life span.
Depending on how old you are, and how long you think you’ll live, how many minutes do you think you have left? Really think about that for a sec.
I’ll wait…
Maybe half that? Less? How many minutes will you spend sleeping, eating, sitting at red lights? And how many have you already spent with your eyes unblinking, focused on the little screen in front of you? I do it too! I’m not immune.
But I never, ever watch the news.
Does this mean I don’t care? Absolutely not.
Here’s what I do make time for:
Acknowledging that every single person on this planet is struggling with something. Everyone experiences pain. And there are forces at work trying to undermine our freedom, our financial stability, and our very safety.
And here’s the question I ask myself:
Do I want to give my attention, focus, and my precious life minutes to those people? Hell, no.
Do I want to be part of the problem? Or part of the solution?
If you’re reading this, I’m going to go ahead and guess you want, very much, to be part of the solution. And even more, you want to believe you can be part of it, and that you can make a difference.
I promise you this: if you turn off the news, unsubscribe from the newsletters, the blogs, the podcasts, and unfollow every single person posting fear-based content, and focus instead on becoming the change you want to see in the world, you will make a difference in the world.
It’s science.
Each part of the equation, no matter how small, that turns it’s polarity to positivity, contributes to a world that has more joy, love, and kindness in it.
If you want freedom for all, practice being free.
If you want more kindness in the world, be kind to yourself and watch as you become more kind to others.
If you want more safety, create it for yourself. Be that safety for yourself and others.
And if you’re finding your thoughts veering to skepticism? Don’t want to believe this actually works?
Ask yourself if those thoughts and beliefs are really from you, or if perhaps they’ve been programmed into you by a society that profits from those beliefs.
Question everything, my friends. Open your eyes to the world around you. Feel your body where it exists in space. Release the belief that watching the news is how you show you care about the world.
Sit down for 5 minutes and beam love out to everyone you can think of.
BE the change.
I’ll be right there with you.
That’s how 1 becomes 2, 2 becomes 4, and 4 becomes 40,000,000. The exponential curve that happens when one person decides they can make a difference.
Want to spread the change around the world? Send this post to as many people as you can, start a conversation, and keep it going.
And if you’re looking for support on your journey to becoming the change you want to see in the world, book a Clarity Coaching session and we’ll get to the heart of it.
I love you, I believe in you. You got this!
Tiffany
P.S. If you're struggling personally and want a step-by-step way to process what you're feeling, read this next.