What are you filling your mind with?

If I want to get somewhere by car I need to make sure it is sufficiently fueled with petrol.   I’m not going to get far if I fill the tank up with vinegar.

If I want to have enough energy to get through a busy day I need to make sure that my body is fueled with good, wholesome, nutritious food. I’m going to run out of energy pretty quickly if I start my day with either no food, or some quick-fix junk food.

What about my mind?  If I want to be different and create a different life, I have to change my thinking.  (Because really, it’s my old thinking that has gotten me to where I am today).  So if I want change, I need to shift that thinking. And if I want to get to a new level of thinking, then I need to look at what I’m fueling my mind with.

It always astounds me when I hear about a new study that links violent video games with violent behaviours in children.  Really?  You need a study to prove that? We know this as a matter of common sense.

It also astounds me when I hear, otherwise rational, compassionate people, speaking of other cultures, races or religions in a vile, hateful and incredibly ignorant way.  And these can be people I know and love. So what makes a person, who is otherwise highly intelligent, kind and sweet, come up with these beliefs?

It’s all to do with what they let into their minds.

Watch the news consistently and you’ll believe that we live in a violent and dangerous world. There is always an enemy to be wary of.  That enemy may change every one-to-two decades, but there is always an enemy. And there is saturation of news stories that ‘justify’ that the particular culture/race/religion deserves to be titled ‘the enemy’.

Now, I’m not going to go into a rant about how the media manipulates people’s thinking – although it is very tempting.  What I want to do is keep this conversation at a personal level.

There is so much going on around us that our brains naturally filter what information to let in and what to keep out. We let the brain know what is important to us by what we focus on, and then off it goes and starts filtering things in and out accordingly.

Think about the last time you bought a new car.  Before you bought it, did you see many of the same make and model on the road?  Probably not.  But isn’t if funny how after you bought it, these same cars were everywhere!

That’s the brain’s filtering process in action.

The same filtering process works on all areas of our lives.  When we focus on something, like the negative stories in the news, our brain will get into action:  “oh, this is important so I’ll start bringing more and more data to support this view and I’ll remove any data that doesn’t support this view.”

Many people believe that thoughts just happen and we have no control over them when in fact, we actually do.

You choose what you want your brain to filter by consciously choosing what to focus on.  By changing your focus, you’ll be instructing your brain to change what it lets in.

This isn’t an easy thing to do, not initially, anyway.  You need to consciously decide what you want to expose yourself to.  I for one, don’t watch the news on TV anymore. I still know what’s going on – I have a quick look at the headlines of the day’s events and that’s enough.

I don’t want to be sucked into the negative, nasty and bitter depiction of the world that is portrayed by the media.  Why?  Because I have no interest in being negative, nasty and bitter nor seeing the rest of the world in that way.

I know there are negative things that happen in the world. But I also know that there is incredible joy and kindness in the world, too.

That’s what I want to focus on because that’s what I want more of.

And frankly, I’m not going to get that from watching the TV news.