Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday – Watch What you Let In

Tags

consciousness, facebook, Negativity, News, social media, spirituality, Stress

“Negativity sells.” – Stephen A. Smith

I follow Stephen King on Facebook and he mentioned today that he was leaving Facebook because there was so much false and misleading information on the platform. I agree, but Facebook has one primary purpose for me–to stay connected with friends and family.

When I first started using Facebook, I’d accept friendship requests from anyone. Then I began to learn my lesson rather quickly. Fake profiles, crazy crap showing up on my newsfeed, and people pestering me for money on Facebook messenger. Lesson learned. In early 2017 I went through my entire list of “friends” on Facebook and developed my own simple rule: If I haven’t worked with someone, met them in person, went to school with them, served in the military with them, or met them through a trusted source, like WordPress, friendship is rejected. You know what? My newsfeed is now filled with wholesome, funny, and relevant content that I enjoy.

The false and misleading information doesn’t stop at Facebook. It is all over the news. Another lesson: Stop reading the news. I scan the news, because I like to stay up on world events and know what’s going on, but I do not open up any news articles unless it’s from my hometown newspaper or it covers something I am interested in, like STEM topics, productivity, psychology, writing, or movie/music/book reviews. If I read something outside of my interest areas, it is purely for entertainment. You know what? My stress levels decreased immeasurably. Just because I refuse to get sucked into articles that are designed to piss me off, stress me out, or make me worry about something.

I guess what I’m trying to get across is the importance of maintaining your sanity by paying attention to what you let in to your consciousness. If you enjoy reading articles filled with lies, exaggerations, and are so slanted one way or another to fire you up, go for it. I choose not to. I’d rather fill my mind with the next scientific discovery on the horizon, look at terrific photos of landscapes, animals, or outer space. I’d rather learn something than read about all the infighting that has reduced our political dialogue to two monkeys throwing shit at each other at the zoo.

Read fulfilling literature, poetry, a well-written non-fiction or fiction book. Watch a good movie. Listen to healing music (classical, sound scapes, and instrumentals are my favorite). These are the things I use to build myself up.

The next time you feel yourself getting stressed out, check what you are letting into your life. I think you’ll be surprised at the stress you have that is self-inflicted.

I hope all of you have a great weekend!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Ted Talk Tuesday – How Do You Know You Exist?

Tags

consciousness, Descartes, Existence, James Zucker, reality, Ted Talk, TedEd

Here’s another great TEDEd talk. Today, we’re going to be shown a cartoon about Descartes, a philosopher who questioned reality and existence. Watch this short, entertaining video that explains what he came up with.

Until next time…

Dave

Stretching the Mind…

Tags

answers, consciousness, Emotions, ideas, Intellect, memory, questions, subconscious

“A mind stretched by new experiences can never go back to its old dimensions.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

The mind is a collection of neural pathways forged by our senses, thoughts, and our experiences. The mind collects. The mind compares. The mind stores.

Each of us is unique because our senses and the neural pathways they create are forged by our circumstances. But is the mind all there is?

A mind is a tool. We exist beyond the mind but need the mind to negotiate the reality of this reality. We are our consciousness.

Think about emotions, memories, intellect, and subconscious. These collectively represent the mind, the combination of which are infinite when we deal with the world. When a particular experience is over you will come away from a collective experience with your own unique version of it. You interpret the event with your emotions, any memories that may provide some background, you evaluate the input with your intellect, and there may even be something in your subconscious that contributes to your experience. If you talk to others who experienced the event, there will be differences in each person’s unique way of interpreting the event.

Our consciousness allows us to be aware of things and to accept or reject them. Our consciousness is what allows us to think of things beyond what the mind has seen or collected. Our consciousness allows us to find new ways of doing things. How does this occur?

Consciousness is connected to a greater expanse. Some call this expanse God. Others call it the Universe. The name that is given to it is irrelevant. We can contact this expanse and find what already exists somewhere in infinity.

By doing so, we stretch. We become more aware each time we tap into this greater consciousness. The next time you have a problem to solve. Ask the question. Write your question down. Think about it before you go to sleep. The answer will come in some way. It could come while listening to a radio program, watching television, or surfing the Internet. You could see your answer on a billboard, in a book, or overhear someone in the coffee shop you frequent. The more aware you are, the easier it will be to find the answer to your question. The only caveat to this is to test the answer you receive. Ask for a confirmation. Sometimes the mind gets in the way. It doesn’t believe the answer it receives and will block some of it out. We will misinterpret the response we get to our question. The answer comes. They always come. What is important is becoming aware enough to receive them.

Until next time…