It has been a difficult few weeks. I am not sure if the difficulty is because I have a cold that is throwing everything off or if I am just drained by the pure horror of what has been happening in the world. At one point, as I was in the process of reading everything I could about Filianism and Déanism, I encountered the idea of limiting how much media you consumed. Previously, this was an exercise that I did halfheartedly as part of my run through The Artist's Way (from Julia Cameron, ISBN 1585421464). At that time, it was an exercise to help recover my artistic voice by way of filtering out extraneous input.
As the news turned more dire over the last several months, I found it increasingly distressing. As Facebook posts did so as well, I became deeply worried about almost everything. As a person with anxiety problems, even medicated properly, this is not good for me. It has lead to my somewhat conspicuous absence from internet activity. One would think that placing such strict limits on my internet activity would be problematic. After all, it is my primary mode of interaction over the last year outside of my household and a few close friends. Instead, I found myself finding peace. Spending an hour at most online turned my days into spending two hours writing in my journal and more time building things with the kids. (They are very mechanically inclined, it seems, and love building things that have moving parts from random junk. It has been interesting.)
I finally saw the wisdom of that fast from media and careful monitoring of what I was reading. When you are living a life that has your resources limited, you must be careful where you employ them. It is a massive act of self care and healthy life to respect your limits. It is also an act of faith that all shall be well as you take care of yourself and leave the rest in the hands of the Divine.
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