Lately I’ve been listening to an audio book by the late Joseph Murphy, a very interesting and remarkable man. I don’t know that I can accept all of the claims in this book, but there’s no doubt in my mind that he is correct when he talks about the power our words have over our subconscious mind, the seat of our unconscious beliefs and of our emotions.

In short, what your conscious mind repeats on a regular basis, your subconscious mind is going to believe. This process starts when we are very young, when we start telling ourselves stories about the world around us (often wrong ones, for example attributing our parents’ behaviour to something we have done, when it has nothing to do with us). We tell ourselves that we are unlovable or invisible or unworthy, and our subconscious mind makes it so.

As a result, many of us end up spending our adult lives replaying scenarios from our early childhood, based on beliefs that may have been true and helpful at the time, but are definitely not true anymore. But the process continues, and especially in this stressful time, it’s important that we pay attention to the stories we are telling ourselves and others.

While I am a great fan of our local news media, and applaud everything they do to pry information out of our reluctant provincial government, I would recommend not spending a huge amount of time ruminating on the increasing COVID numbers or the situation south of the border. If there are things you can do, do them – wash your hands, wear a mask, reduce your number of contacts outside your household. Don’t go out if you feel ill. If you are a USAmerican, vote. 

Then stop filling your mind with fear, speculation and conspiracy theories. Stop posting to Facebook, and especially Twitter, whipping yourself and others into a frenzy of fear. It doesn’t do any good, and it tells your subconscious mind that that is what is important to you right now.

Your subconscious mind is infinitely wise, but it’s not very smart. It takes you at your word – if you are constantly fretting about the state of the world, it will make sure you get more of what you are thinking about. It’s kind of like the Facebook algorithm – if you keep clicking on conspiracy theory links, it will show you more and more of them, until your world is full of nothing else.

STOP. Go for a walk. Get some fresh air and sunshine if at all possible. Turn off the TV, stop doomscrolling. Get the information you need and then go do something that makes you happy. Knit. Bake. Exercise. Listen to music, or even better, if you can, make music. Talk to a friend about something that has nothing to do with COVID or the election or anything else that makes you anxious.

How are you keeping your sanity nowadays? Hit the comment button and let me know!