MY WEEKLY BLOG<\/p>\n
Sleep With the Angels<\/p>\n
As the deadly war against the Ukraine escalates and the\u00a0pandemic doesn’t want to push back from the dinner table, I can’t watch the
news any more. I feel a little bit guilty about that. I used to be a news
junkie. MSNBC or CNN was always blaring in the background, I liked being\u00a0informed, but somewhere along the line, it started affecting my mental health. When\u00a0I paid too much attention to the talking heads, I started thinking about Xanax.\u00a0I felt my stomach tighten, my breathing become shallow and my anxiety rose. I tried
to take in truth about the world without losing myself, but I couldn’t digest
it.<\/p>\n
Have you noticed that reporters dwell exclusively on\u00a0disasters, including some that haven’t happened. Like predicting the mid-term
elections eight months from now. A lot can happen in eight months. After the\u00a0Academy Awards, they showed footage of Will Smith smacking Chris Rock in the\u00a0face over and over, while they overlooked other talented, kind people who had won\u00a0Oscars. An extraordinary Russian figure skater fell on the ice during the
Olympics, she had never fallen before, and the only footage they showed was\u00a0when she landed on her butt.<\/p>\n
If we watch the bad news long enough, we become victimized\u00a0by it. It seems to sneak up and suddenly and the world looks impossibly grim. But\u00a0there are real things we can do. If you really care about the Ukraine and want\u00a0to help, instead of watching the news looping over and over, you can donate\u00a0money to a legitimate relief fund that helps displaced people who are\u00a0suffering. You can forgive petty feuds in your life, they are in the past, and\u00a0focus on what matters. I like to stop moving, get in touch with my breath and\u00a0slow it down. I meditate in my own way and do what I can do be kind and gentle
with other people and myself. That\u2019s what I want to put out into the world. If\u00a0we can’t stop warring with ourselves and our friends, how can we possibly stop\u00a0a war that is killing innocent people by the thousands?<\/p>\n
When I say that the news is hurting us, I\u2019m not proposing that\u00a0we stick our heads in the sand and pretend nothing is going on. We can stay\u00a0aware, but allowing ourselves to be barraged with negativity all the time, to\u00a0watch constant suffering and fighting is like eating junk food. It has no\u00a0nutrition and it raises your blood pressure, puts a strain on your heart and\u00a0makes you feel listless. Then you’re no good to anyone, especially yourself. \u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a pretty simple concept:<\/p>\n
If we breathe in toxic fumes, we become toxic.<\/p>\n
If we breathe in fresh air, we become refreshed.<\/p>\n
If we keep watching the bad news on \u201cterror vision,\u201d we
dream about terror.<\/p>\n
If we turn our attention to beauty and creativity, we become
inspired.<\/p>\n
If we allow violent images to loop over and over in our
brains, we suffer.<\/p>\n
If we focus on love and kindness, we heal.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a delicate balance to stay informed without becoming\u00a0overwhelmed. We have to watch ourselves carefully and see how the truth is\u00a0affecting us. Sometimes life feels like a lopsided seesaw as we try to\u00a0determine how much can we take in without blowing a gasket. How do we cope with\u00a0reality without spiraling downward into despair? How do we acknowledge what\u2019s true\u00a0without becoming paralyzed?<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve noticed that some people are able to tolerate things\u00a0better than others. But we\u2019re not good or bad according to how much we can
handle. We just have to understand our own capacity and treat ourselves\u00a0accordingly. We can help each other to be aware when we’re habitually taking in\u00a0too many images of violence and suffering. The world is a difficult place,\u00a0there are terrible things going on, but there are blessings too.<\/p>\n
I was scheduled to travel to the Philippines in the eighties\u00a0to study with the healers when the people went out into the streets and
rebelled against the dictator, Ferdinand Marcos. All I saw on TV were bombings\u00a0and brutality and I wondered if it was a bad idea to go. I talked to friends\u00a0there who said it was okay to make my trip so I did. When I landed and took a\u00a0cab through the city, there were no signs of violence. The reporters had found\u00a0the most remote places that have been in what they called a \u201choly war\u201d for\u00a0decades. But in the populated areas of the city, all was well. In fact, people\u00a0were filled with hope. They had carried out \u201ca bloodless revolution\u201d and they\u00a0had ousted the dictator with a minimum of violence.<\/p>\n
We each have our own way of coping with the truth but if you
feel anxious and depressed most of the time, your way isn’t working. It\u2019s\u00a0different for everyone but I make sure to watch something creative, beautiful, or\u00a0funny on television before I turn out the lights and head into dreamland. I\u00a0traveled often with a mentor and friend, Lois Blackhill who blessed me each\u00a0night before we went to sleep. She said,\u201d Sleep with the angels,\u201d and that was\u00a0what I did. If you’re upset and off balance, take a look at your life, stop\u00a0focusing on what\u2019s troubling you and sleep with the angels. See you there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MY WEEKLY BLOG Sleep With the Angels As the deadly war against the Ukraine escalates and the\u00a0pandemic doesn’t want to push back from the dinner table, I can’t watch thenews any more. I feel a little bit guilty about that. I used to be a newsjunkie. MSNBC or CNN was always blaring in the background, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2114,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2115"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2116,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2115\/revisions\/2116"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}