Have you ever noticed sometimes after watching a serious drama that your mood changes? You might be a little sad or depressed for awhile, especially if the ending isn’t happy? Or have you ever noticed that after you watch the evening news, your blood pressure might have risen a bit, and you’re feeling a bit more anxious? These are examples of how what we expose ourselves to in our environment can impact our bodies and minds in negative ways.No one is suggesting people stick their heads in the sand and ignore what’s going on in the world, but there should definitely be a balance between the calm good stuff you put into your head and heart, and the disturbing information that bombards us daily in the media. Have you noticed the dark turn it seems in television toward crime dramas, realistic forensic shows, and more focus than ever on disasters, horror, and other darker sides of humanity? You look at the Biography channel, which used to show a lot of great bios on famous and important people, and now their focus is on “I survived” or “Life of a Serial Killer”. The programming is being aimed at our basest nature, and the more we consume these shows, the darker our thoughts can go. We don’t realize when we subject ourselves to hours of negative information and images a day, we are holding all that in our subconscious, ready to come out in the form of anxieties, and stressful thoughts.
Sometimes it feels good to be scared, and for many this can have a kind of cathartic release. It’s okay to do this once in awhile. It’s why we go to haunted houses or ride roller coasters, because we want a momentary thrill. However, if we’re doing these kinds of things regularly, exposing ourselves to large amounts of negative imagery, shocking content, and anxiety ridden information, we are only helping to release unnecessary stress hormones in our bodies. We’re creating our own needless subconscious suffering.
I’ll give you a great personal example. I am going to have a baby soon. I have been watching tons and tons of shows on cable about having babies. These shows are filled with families having wonderful birth related experiences, bringing their babies home, taking care of them, etc. I noticed the more I watched these shows, the more I would cry and started feeling depressed. It took me awhile to really make the connection, that the more I watched these shows, the more I was reminded of how my experience would NOT be so warm and fuzzy. I was over and over again showing myself my own suffering. I live very far from my family and friends, and I won’t have family in the waiting room after my son is born. These are realities I must face, because I chose to move away from my family for job reasons. Anyways, surprise, surprise, when I made the connection, deleted the shows from my dvr, and just focused on enjoying my pregnancy in the moment, my depression and funk lifted.
This is just one example of how what I was putting into my brain from the media was influencing my feelings about my real life. This process of realizing what is making us suffer and how we can stop the suffering are the second and third noble truths taught by Buddha. You don’t have to be a Buddhist though, to appreciate the Buddha’s wisdom, “Every time we ingest toxins into our consciousness, it is like stabbing ourselves with three hundred sharp knives. We suffer, and our suffering spills out to those around us.” Just think about it next time you’re watching some gory crime drama…what is the purpose of filling your mind with those images? How can it possibly help you to feel better, more calm, and at peace?
We all want to escape, and many of the shows we watch, the books we read, and our pastimes on the Internet are designed for just that purpose. But what are we really escaping? These escapes are momentary, and cut us off from our truly realizing what is making us want to escape in the first place. So next time you hear “you are what you eat”, or “garbage in, garbage out”, try to see the truth in those statements and think about how much that went into you really was worth taking in.