What atmosphere are you fostering within your home? Fearful atmospheres like fungus on your plants, starve the heart of hope and light, creating dark thoughts that can lead to irrational and reactionary behaviours towards others. It activates the part of our brain that is our survival response to threat. If we are making a habit of viewing the visual details of what is happening in war torn countries, natural disasters and the daily crime and violence happening in our cities our brains can easily become overwhelmed as it concludes that this world is not safe and we need to protect ourselves. I am not suggesting that we become ignorant to what is happening around us, but we reconsider the usefulness of viewing content that ultimately can disturb us and not provoke us into constructive action but paralysis from fear. Our young people are bombarded with this and often told they are the hope of changing the world and we place this burden upon their shoulders to fix all that is wrong in this world. We may even find ourselves feeling guilty about enjoying our lives when we know others are suffering and going without. Can I encourage you, if you are raising children to consider what you are allowing in your homes on a daily basis with the news. Is the news on when you eat? Consistently on in your main living areas? How helpful is it to eat while watching the horrors happening around the world. Emotions that can often come out of fear are anger and frustration, as our brains try to make sense of this world we live in. Peaceful atmospheres, create calmer minds and calmer minds help us to think more clearly and become more creative in our solutions to problems we come across. What small actions can you take this week to shift the fearful atmospheres in your homes and protect each other's minds and hearts, how can you have deeper and more thoughtful conversations that help us to process the pain in our world?
~Angela