I used to have a rather dreadful habit of reading the news when I first woke up in the morning. I’m a voracious reader, I’m curious, and I have a bit of a “need to know” type of personality. All of these are my excuse for reading the news first thing in the morning. I read a variety of news sites to get different perspectives on what’s happening in the world and it seems no matter the site, it’s always bad news. I know better, and yet I seem to be drawn to bad news in a rather sadistic, dysfunctional sort of way.
Thus, I am up, cranky, and convinced that the world is going to hell. Not exactly an upbeat way for a generally optimistic life coach to start her day. Coffee helps, particularly if my husband makes it for me and yet, I still often have a lingering discontent and it’s not even 8 a.m. I’ve tried numerous tricks to change my habits and I’ve been somewhat successful in that now I mostly just read headlines and I close out the news apps on my iPad as quickly as possible. It’s helped, but not completely.
The other thing that I do almost every morning is take a walk. I’ve come up with a walking plan through my community that incorporates some forest preserve trails that harbor deer, geese, and other interesting wildlife. Yet for some reason this year, the wild flowers seem to be yelling at me to pay attention to them. I like flowers, but I’ve never gone overboard for them. Yet now, I can’t seem to stop looking at them. I have no idea what types of flowers they are. Some of them may even be weeds.
Things grab our attention but ultimately, we get to decide if we keep our attention on the misery or if we keep it on the beauty. #news #misery #beauty Click To TweetI take close up pictures of said flowers, almost obsessively. The colors, how they move in the wind, how their shapes and colors change by the day…I just can’t stop looking. And there it is. Those flowers draw me in just as much as the bad news does, which gives me some relief that I’m not truly a misery-seeking human. Things grab our attention but ultimately, we get to decide if we keep our attention on the misery or if we keep it on the beauty. It’s cliché, I know, and yet it makes perfect sense.
My flower seeking mission isn’t in place of staying aware. It’s not a spiritual bypass ploy. Rather, it’s a different view of a different aspect of the world. Yes, the news is often quite bad and yes, wild flowers are beautiful. Both can be true and seeing both feels better to me than just seeing one. Those wildflowers remind me that if I look, I can see beauty even amongst the bad news. That’s enough to pull me out of the bad news doom loop and head off to a happy and productive day.
Love,
Lisa Kaplin Psy. D. PCC