Practical Psychology: How 2 Deal with the Negative Skew of News and Social Media

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A Sacred Journey Podcast

With so much media buying for our attention, how can we develop that desperately needed inner sense of peace? This is especially true as it relates to the negative bias most sources of information used to play upon the strengths of the autonomic nervous system that will shut down executive functioning when faced with either real or perceived dangers.

In this episode, Dr. Tom explores why news, social media, and other so-called information sources use a negative distribution skew common to statistics to capture and sway the psyche’s attention to capture the element of time, that one resource that is even more valuable than money itself.

We are the sum of what we focus. To focus on anxiety provoking events, we manifest more to be worried about. No wonder hypertension and its effects on heart disease, obesity, and a plethora of other symptoms associated with it act as the number one killer in the United States. While medicine tries to treat the effects of this state, it is up to us to take an active role in decreasing its effects.

What can we do?

Let us challenge the skew and be observant of the present moment. You see, when you watch life behind a screen, you get a perspective of what others want you to see. Is that real? No, it is not. Instead, observe your physical surroundings. Smell the flowers, feel the blades of grass beneath your feet, see the flowers in the meadow, taste the remnants of the coffee undertones present from your morning cup. Be here, now. Is the world as dangerous as what is being sold? I would bet that it is not.

I wonder, what came up for you in this exercise. Were there immediate dangers. You see, if there was, you would not have even began the exercise in the first place. Let us have faith in our ability to overcome any odds we are sent. For one thing I know, when a door closes, there is another that opens.

What doors do you need to shut. What doors will that create time so that you may open them and undertake a path to newer greatness.

Many gratitude my friends. May faith and blessings find you on your journey to advance confidently in the direction of your dreams, the guiding posts for any practical psychology.

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