What happens to us when we are constantly bombarded by a barrage of outrage fomented by news and social media, or nitpicking courtesy of the news pundits and social media, or constant noise, or people/events that clamor for our constant attention? My friend Jean came up with the term 'psychological suffocation' to aptly describe how we can feel when faced with all of this--smothered, unable to breathe. Psychological suffocation--when the heart and mind can't breathe--can affect us physiologically. Both she and I agree that modern society as we know it is too focused on fomenting outrage and division instead of peace and harmony, too 'in your face', too noisy, and too 'on' all the time. Even if all these things are not intentionally designed to suffocate us psychologically, they have that effect far too often. As she says, the feeling of psychological suffocation makes her want to throw open the windows and the door to breathe in the air, the peace, the quiet of nature outside her door. When I reach that point, all I want to do is go to my garden or for a long walk or bike ride. Just to get away from it all--from the influences that get the heart pounding in anger and outrage and that make it difficult to breathe.
The ultimate solution to dealing with the things that psychologically suffocate us is to prevent them from having that power over us. That means keeping them at bay--shutting out the news or walking away from people and situations that want us to be continually outraged. It means being selective about what we let into our minds and hearts. Garbage in, garbage out, as the old saying goes. It's like junk food; if all we eat is junk food, then our bodies will not be healthy. Likewise our minds; they will not be healthy if all we feed them is outrage, aggression, anger, and more outrage. We are constantly being told how to think and how to feel. I'm surprised that doesn't bother more people.
Both the regular media and social media are invested in riling us up with what I call fake outrage because that's how they drag in viewers. More viewers, better ratings, more money. It's all about the money. If they were really interested in solving the problems in society, they would come up with solutions to problems, even if those solutions were on a small scale. Because I ask you, what is the point of getting riled up if we don't come up with a solution, however small, to deal with whatever problem is brought up? If we do nothing about the problem that we are told to be outraged about, then the outrage is pointless and by extension, false. Additionally, false outrage is demotivating and leads to feelings of hopelessness and despair. As Christians, we are called to act as well as to have faith and to pray. An old Chinese proverb that was adopted by the Christian inspirational group The Christophers as their motto says 'it is better to light one candle than curse the darkness'. I understood this already in my twenties when I discovered The Christophers. If you wait for the big solutions to occur to solve any problem whatsoever, you'll wait a long time. Better to start small. As Mother Teresa said, we can start by loving and showing charity in our own homes and families, before we worry about the rest of the world. She understood that if we managed to do this in our own homes, we would find it less difficult to extend love and charity to strangers. Additionally, if more people did this in their own homes, a number of family problems might actually be solved. Her focus was on starting where we find ourselves on a daily basis--home or work for most people. This makes sense because most of us will never live a life like Mother Teresa's. But she is an inspiration for us when we feel psychologically suffocated, when hope feels like it has disappeared, when outrage and despair take center stage.
Hope. Hope counteracts psychological suffocation. Hope is found in nature, which exists outside of us and carries on despite what goes on in the world. There is the promise of hope in each new season. Prayer also counteracts it, regardless of how we define prayer or of how we pray. Prayer centers us and leads us to a quiet place, far away from the talking heads in the television studios and their obsession with outrage that borders on monomania. Hope and prayer give us the energy to deal with the problems around us. Continual outrage does not; it may seem like it would, but in the final analysis the energy we expend on continual outrage does nothing but exhaust us, leaving very little positive energy with which to work on the problems in the world.
