On Consumption, Contribution and Capacity
“Keep vigilant watch over your heart; that's where life starts.”
-Prov. 4:23, The Message
We have talked about our minds and our bodies, but taking a look at our hearts is the bravest work for us to do. Even before this pandemic, we were dealing with the highest levels of stress and anxiety that mental health experts had seen. Add in the dear people in our lives that we are losing to this virus, the global, national, and local issues, school, job insecurity, and just the everyday life pressures, it's no secret that many of us are struggling.
For my own well-being and for yours I'm going to name some ways we can “put on our own oxygen masks first” so that we can have the capacity to hold what we need to and lovingly let go of what is not ours to carry.
I want to break down what digital wellness really is and why it’s important for us. Simply put, digital wellness is the healthy use of technology. If the time we spend in a digital space is negatively affecting our well-being (and research is proving too much of it is) then we want to turn that around.
Let’s look at well-being in general and apply that to our digital lives. “Psychological well-being and mental health are two closely related constructs. Both a state of wellness in which an individual feels good, based on having positive relationships with others, a sense of purpose in life, self-acceptance, personal growth, autonomy, and environmental mastery. These states allow people to realize their potential, manage stress, be productive, and make contributions to the larger community” - internationaljournalofwellbeing.org (Ryff & Keyes, 1995).
The goal of digital flourishing is to feel good coming out of our digital spaces. We’re going to look at three areas that highly influence our state of being when it comes to our time behind screens.
On Consumption ~
An important first step is to guard our hearts from information overload and pay attention to how stressful or traumatic information affects us.
Scrolling. Scrolling. Scrolling. No interaction. This is consumption over contribution. Being over-informed and taking in content is not the same as engaging, interacting, and reaching out. Many of us spend more time consuming than we do caring for ourselves and others. What we know is news alerts and social media are extra stressors on our minds, bodies, and hearts.
Of course, social media is a beneficial and brilliant connection point to inspiring stories and people outside of our circles; opening our minds to ideas and our hearts to compassion. In the same way, it is also a tragic connection to false narratives, negative content, and messages that our hearts take in. I’ll say it again, we were not meant to carry all that we’re carrying. Even the most resilient begin to experience compassion fatigue from prolonged exposure to suffering. This form of fatigue is sometimes called a secondary stress reaction.
Here are some symptoms of compassion fatigue. Pay attention if you’re noticing these signs in yourself.
Physical and psychological exhaustion
Feeling helpless, hopeless, or powerless
Feeling irritable, angry, sad, or numb
Detachment or isolation from others
Decreased pleasure in activities
Reduced sense of personal accomplishment or meaning in work
Having an understanding of what is happening in the world around us is important AND being intentional with our own health is a must. Consuming so much will eventually leave us overwhelmed and empty, where we have nothing left to give. Honestly, that’s where many of us are stuck.
On Contribution ~
Scrolling. Commenting. Posting. Active involvement while we’re in the digital space and active involvement in our real-life activities can be life-giving. Remember this research finding I’ve quoted before: “When we use social media as a tool to deepen our strong-tie relationships, well-being increases. When we use it to consume content or compare ourselves to others, well-being decreases. -Digital Communication Media Use and Psychological Well-Being, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication
From our May Newsletter - Oh Sacred Time:
“How are we spending our time?” is not a shaming question, it is an inviting question. Inviting us into spaces of action and creation and the deep waters of life. In the digital wellness world, we look at the three C’s as focus points on how we’re spending our time online:
Creating
Connecting
Consuming
Creating and connecting are both ways we contribute online, whereas consuming is how we take in online content. Focus on participating in the online world rather than simply viewing the online world. Creating and connecting can be a more fulfilling way to spend our time online.
Before we move on to capacity, ask yourself these questions:
How am I showing up in my life - online & offline? Are they integrated? Am I creating and contributing or just consuming? Am I prioritizing physical-world engagement? What can I realign here?
On Capacity ~
How much more can my heart take?
As a teenager, I hated heart shapes. I thought they were cheesy. Maybe thanks to Valentine’s Day highjacking the shape, making it pink, shiny, and cliché. As my sons were growing up Matt and the boys started a tradition of finding heart-shaped rocks on their fishing trips and giving them to me. I would hold the natural stone, rub the smooth texture and it was healing. Slowly but surely I began to love hearts and started to collect them. Realistically, I was also doing way more emotional work and getting more connected to my heart at that point in my life than when I was a snobby teenager. It took a relationship to soften my heart. Our hearts are relationship-centered. Honoring them with our attention opens space for healing with others and ourselves. It gives us the capacity for love.
When we can show up present, full of empathy, and ready for whatever the day brings we know we have done the hard intentional work of building up capacity and resiliency for our life. In these days, particularly, that is so hard but worth the effort. For me, it means deep breaths, a quiet mind, and intentional prayers to start my morning. Letting go of control and surrendering to the day and what it brings. Being realistic about what I can take on and what I need to lovingly release. Lastly, it means paying attention to my digital habits.
We can take action to guard these important hearts of ours so life can flow out of us again.
As Kit De Luca says so well in the film Pretty Woman
“Take care of you.”
-Dawn Wible
Find resources for healthy digital habits at talkmoretechless.com
sources: child mind institute, center for humane technology, digital wellness institute, pew research center,bannerhealth.com, internationaljournalofwellbeing.org