I’m sitting in my kitchen, reflecting on what is yet another glorious morning, feeling calm, grounded and a definite sense of peace deep within me. I’ve started my day by sharing a beautiful Yoga Nidra practice on Inner Wisdom that I know will help others have a better day, a day where they will also feel more connected, more grounded, more alive and even a little more powerful – a day where we feel able to show up as us, just exactly as we are, no more, no less.
I’m finding I’m having many days now when I feel this way, as I said in last week’s newsletter and from the response I got, I’m clearly not the only one that’s finding a new way.
But, what has really struck me and saddened me over the past few weeks is our ‘media’ and how they appear not to have learnt anything or changed at all, not even one tiny bit. Normally I stay well away from news programs, I don’t think it is good for my well being to be inundated and bombarded with negativity – it really should be called “Bad News” as it so rarely has anything good to offer.
However, like many of you I have watched, read and listened to far more news recently and particularly to our daily briefings from the government. Now, this is not a political statement at all, whether I voted for this government or not is irrelevant right now, whether I voted remain or stay is irrelevant – what is relevant is that we all should be working together to get through these times. That means ALL of us…..including our ‘media’ and regardless of political persuasion.
So why is our newsfeed awash with negativity such as ‘they didn’t react quickly enough’, ‘they reacted in the wrong way’, ‘things are not happening quickly enough’,’ it is all being mismanaged’, ‘they don’t care’, even ‘it’s all been done to us on purpose’, the list is endless……….it really is.
Questioning things is a wonderful freedom we have in our country, and I truly believe it is how we learn, grow and change, but, we have to be able to ask the RIGHT questions. If we ask poor questions, we will only get poor responses, nothing changes, no one gains or moves forwards.
Unfortunately, the questions being asked by our ‘media’ and particularly at the end of our daily briefings are poor! Often, whoever has briefed us has literally just covered that exact point and yet we have a question as if they haven’t listened to what was said at all. More worryingly, the questions appear to be deliberately designed to trip them up, to catch them out, to prove how good the journalists are at their job(!). I don’t believe any of us are interested in that type of questioning – it serves no purpose and is poor journalism.
The quality of the question changes everything and for some reason as WE all pull together, communities helping each other out, supporting our local businesses, looking after our vulnerable, becoming so much more united and caring as a society, the ‘media’ is responding in an all-too-predicable manner – that of trying to cause division, separateness and general unrest.
I for one am not interested in any of that right now, hindsight is a wonderful thing, it is so easy to criticise, to shout from the sidelines but for once, wouldn’t it be nice to do something more constructive and ask quality questions, questions that help us move forwards.
We are in lockdown for the next few weeks, probably months before we can return to ‘normal’, so wouldn’t it feel better if we asked questions like:
What have we learnt during this time?
What could we do better?
What do we need to change moving forwards?
Who are we being during this crisis?
In what ways could we align more to the values of our country?
Are we handling this crisis with integrity?
Are we doing enough to help others, if not how can we improve on this?
and so on……
The quality questions are endless and if we keep asking quality questions we get to start the process of learning, growing and changing.
Right now, we, the public are being amazing, a generalisation I know, but I have been and continue to be blown away about how we are all supporting each other. I’ve said it before and I will say it again, this is our opportunity to change, to chose to live differently and of course that means standing up for what we believe is right, but surely so can the ‘media’, they could be representing the ‘feeling’ of the public and operating more from a place of integrity.
As my daughter once very wisely said “You don’t make someone feel good by making someone else feel bad”.
What questions will you be asking of yourself and others?