I’ll admit it. I’m a “news junkie.” I always have been. During the summer of 1973, while most other 13-year-olds were busy at the beach, lake, camp, or doing nothing at all, I was glued to the Watergate Hearings. Senator Sam Ervin, Chair of the Senate Watergate Committee, became my hero.
In general, I love to know what’s going on.
One of my weekly treats is the Saturday Issue of the New York Times week in review “News Quiz.” There are 11 questions, and my typical score is 9.5, but I got a six last week because I couldn’t tolerate the news.
As horrifying as it was, the story of the 85-year-old woman killed by an alligator in Florida seemed the least of it. You’ve heard, seen, or read it all. It’s just too much. Earthquakes and their devastation, Ukraine, Russian spy balloons, and the carnage happening in our backyards in Cohasset, Duxbury, and Andover, Massachusetts? My neuro circuits caught on fire and exploded.
I very much feel part of the world—part of civilization and nature.
Growing up on Good Harbor Beach in Gloucester, I always connected with my community and the ocean. I found a kinship there–a place of belonging. But suddenly, I feel more isolated and separated.
Somewhere in my being is a feeling of responsibility to at least carry some of the burdens of the suffering. Although I am not living in Ukraine, I must be mindful and aware. I need to shoulder some of their suffering, even if it is only my sorrow for them and my prayer for the madness to stop.
The same goes for the suffering families of Massachusetts and the innumerable earthquake victims in eastern Europe. These are my fellow earthlings. How can I turn away? I must feel a sliver of their pain in solidarity.
Right now, I can’t volunteer as a nurse to go and help, and I don’t have enough money to make any real difference. What can I do? I live and work on the North Shore and do my best daily to help the employees, patients, and families in my care. I try to be present and loving to those in my circle.
I’ve always felt that the “circle” is big. I, too, have always over-extended myself. When I see a need, I want to fix it. The book title: I’m Dying to Take Care of You, by Candace Snow and David Willard RN, may as well have been written for me.
How do we “care” and yet fit “self-care” into that model of living? How can I turn off the news? How can I not share the burden of so many who suffer with no apparent solution or end to the madness?
Empathy has a cost to our sense of safety and well-being.
Some discomfort can be essential in being part of the whole. “I am ok, but you are not, which diminishes my being fully and completely OK,” or we would have no charity, no Doctors Without Borders, no helping professions, no Peace Corps, no Habitat for Humanity, no Jimmy Carter.
I have worked hard at life balance, but the grand scale of the horrors we witness feels too much. So, at the moment, I am taking a “news break.” Hard to imagine that the world could continue to turn on its axis without my vigilant attention…
Knowing your “tipping point” may be the key.
The inability to be completely at peace while others suffer makes ethical sense to me. But when it takes a toxic turn, and the percentage of OK vs. NOT OK goes sharp left, it’s time to take notice. One of my wisest teachers always talks about “extreme self-care” during times when the avalanche gets too close. But, somehow, I missed one of the main points in the greatest commandment, which has been the driving force of my life, “love your neighbor as yourself.” As yourself seems sometimes to be left out.
No trite answers or platitudes about how to cope with the madness all around us, except to say it’s all personal. The care needs to start within and extend to those in our immediate circle. We can branch out to the other life circles as we can and then dance back to base as we need to.
Awareness of what triggers and is healthy for us (and what is not) is essential. The old saying you are what you eat, we are what we consume. For now, I am on a news reduction diet. Not fasting, not abstinence, but a reduction.
I’m checking in with my inner self to decide when I’ll be back, but for now, I’ll have to be satisfied with a 5 or 6 on my NYT quiz.
