REST Day 11: When Sadness Can be Good
I know most people know that social media is a distraction.
We laugh about it.
We shrug and make jokes about it.
It's a fact: social media can be the biggest time-suck if we let it.
But I've discovered that it can be something else: a numbing agent.
I hope anyone reading my blogs understands that I don't believe social media to be evil. I believe it is a tool, and like any tool, it can be used for good or bad.
Some people can use it and get on with their lives just fine. I just find that I can let it fill up my headspace to the point that it defines much of mind's mental patterns. Not always good when you need to live in the real world
I realized this weekend that for me, social media is a numbing agent, something that prevents feeling. More than a distraction it can also be like an emotional separator.
My family has carried some sadness this weekend with a loved one who passed away and a very sorrowful death that occurred in a church member's family. I wept a lot today, and I wondered what allowed my tears to flow so freely.
I think I wasn't so numbed.
I think I wasn't so distracted.
Instead of closing my heart tightly and turning to the phone-scroll, I was left to talk with God, my husband...or that's pretty much it. Little else demanded my attention except grief.
I know it's a little hard to read about someone's sadness, or writing about grief. I don't like the emotions very much, they are thick like mud and hard to wipe or clean away very easily.
But I thought today how, without my phone, my head, heart and body were permitted to feel without distraction. To grieve without immediate cheering. It was good. I felt calmer, and even as I twitched a little for my phone to carry me someplace less sad and difficult, I tried to hold it, accept it, and honor it with quiet, not numbness.
Here's to closing the emotional separator in our lives.
JOURNAL PROMPT:
Do you notice that you turn to social media to avoid certain emotions? Which ones? and why?
We laugh about it.
We shrug and make jokes about it.
It's a fact: social media can be the biggest time-suck if we let it.
But I've discovered that it can be something else: a numbing agent.
I hope anyone reading my blogs understands that I don't believe social media to be evil. I believe it is a tool, and like any tool, it can be used for good or bad.
Some people can use it and get on with their lives just fine. I just find that I can let it fill up my headspace to the point that it defines much of mind's mental patterns. Not always good when you need to live in the real world
I realized this weekend that for me, social media is a numbing agent, something that prevents feeling. More than a distraction it can also be like an emotional separator.
My family has carried some sadness this weekend with a loved one who passed away and a very sorrowful death that occurred in a church member's family. I wept a lot today, and I wondered what allowed my tears to flow so freely.
I think I wasn't so numbed.
I think I wasn't so distracted.
Instead of closing my heart tightly and turning to the phone-scroll, I was left to talk with God, my husband...or that's pretty much it. Little else demanded my attention except grief.
I know it's a little hard to read about someone's sadness, or writing about grief. I don't like the emotions very much, they are thick like mud and hard to wipe or clean away very easily.
But I thought today how, without my phone, my head, heart and body were permitted to feel without distraction. To grieve without immediate cheering. It was good. I felt calmer, and even as I twitched a little for my phone to carry me someplace less sad and difficult, I tried to hold it, accept it, and honor it with quiet, not numbness.
Here's to closing the emotional separator in our lives.
JOURNAL PROMPT:
Do you notice that you turn to social media to avoid certain emotions? Which ones? and why?
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