Don’t Take the Bait

If you are my patient- you know that this is one of my most common refrains.

Don’t take the bait.

Don’t get sucked in. Don’t let someone else hook you because they know where you are sensitive or know what makes you reactive.

Think back to the issues you had with a parent; your mom telling you to do something, and you react to it way more intensely than was needed.

A friend may say something that hurts your feelings or triggers an intense set of emotions that may not be warranted.

So much of our emotional work is noticing what makes us react and doing the opposite. 

Not allowing ourselves to get hooked by our reactivity. If we respond instead of reacting, we can change the pattern. By doing this, we change our own feedback loop. We alter our relationship cycles and change our reactivity forever. 

Watching the news and social media is the very same concept.

These news and social platforms are created to trigger, intensify, and hijack our attention. They feed us information that incites us. It captivates our nervous system, increases our anxiety, and forces us to be transfixed. 

What I have to say to this is simple-
don’t take the bait.

The election cycle is beginning. The anger, hostility and rage is starting to swim across the screens. I don’t care if you are CNN or Fox News. You are still a human. For the most part, humans were built for good. Maybe we have different ideas about where we want to spend our money, but that does not distinguish good people from bad.

Spewing rage and rhetoric, making fun of people, devaluing them, and calling them names does not have to be our world. 

For whatever reason that I don’t understand, we seem to be embarking on an election cycle where there are two candidates that no one wants. We have two men on the precipice of running for office who, in my opinion, both need to vacate their spots for the next generation to step up and step in.

If we cannot do that, if we cannot allow new voices to shape our future, then we can choose to respond and not react. 

Our attention, energy, and reactivity give all of this rage and hostility its power.

Turn the news off.

Get off the ‘gram.

Delete TikTok.

I am not saying become apathetic, but get the news you need and get out. Find tangible ways to make change. Call senators, phone bank, volunteer, and do whatever keeps you alive and connected to our world.  But do not allow your days and nights to be filled with the sounds of the news in the background.

We are not prisoners; we have autonomy and power. Turn it off.

Please- just turn it off.

Give yourself one hour a day. Find two media outlets from different perspectives and read them both. See what the other side sees. And then SHUT IT OFF.

Spend time with your families that you can’t get back. Work out with a friend, go out for dinner, watch a movie. Cool the reactive loop.

The age-old question- when a tree falls in the woods, and no one is there to see it, does it make a sound? So now is the challenge- When people are spewing rage and fury, and everyone refuses to listen, will the media engine lose its power?

I believe it is up to us to make it stop. 

Don’t take the bait.