Feel it All - Let Nothing Stick
- paigedoughty
- Apr 23
- 5 min read
This is part two of my series Consciously Engaging with the News.
Recently I read an article about a woman who had been killed. My heart broke.
I didn’t analyze the politics or decide who was right or wrong. I simply let my heart break.
I wept for her. I wept for the people who loved her. And I wept for the man who killed her. Because no one chooses something like that from their fully conscious self. It comes from somewhere wounded, somewhere lost. Literally I wept. I put the article down and let the tears stream from my eyes and into my lap. I stayed with the feelings of grief, hopelessness and despair.
When the feelings moved through, I returned my attention to the present moment. To where I was.
To the room. To my breath. To the moment.
And then the day continued. I cleaned up my coffee, tidied the room and got ready for work.
A gentle reminder that in the first part of this series the practice is to choose a time to consciously engage with the news—so you can feel it fully, without carrying it all day.
These days, wherever and however we encounter the news—whether it’s happening in distant places or right outside our doors—something happens inside of us when we read a disturbing headline.
Go ahead and check….You read something difficult, and then something moves in your body.
In nervous system language we–freeze, fight, flee, flop…
For most of us, the instinct is to do one of two things:
Try to fix it– what can I do?!
or
Turn away: this is too much...
Two extremes on the spectrum: Shut down. Freeze. Numb out. Or Fight: rush to act, to solve, to do something immediately. Often our nervous systems swing between these responses: fight, flight, freeze, flop.
Let’s use the news to teach one of the most important—and simplest—lessons of being human: feeling our feelings.
Here is the practice:
-You read something disturbing.
-Instead of running away or immediately trying to fix it (by thinking about or giving up on it), try this:
Read the headline.
Feel the feeling.
Children have been hurt.
Someone has been killed.
Let your heart and body respond.
Weep if that is what comes. Shout or exclaim if that is what comes. Let the feeling move through you, express if needed. Don’t keep going. Don’t read the next article. Stay.
A feeling actually lasts for a very short time when we allow it fully, mine seem to pass through completely in as little as 3 seconds. Neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor’s research shows that most emotional waves last 60-90 seconds. BUT that is without adding thoughts to the feeling. This is key!!
Feeling the feeling does not mean thinking about it. It means feeling it directly in the body.
Then come back to the breath. Come back to where you are. Return to presence by noticing your body in space and time. And move from there.
That’s it. Feel it all. Let nothing stick.
Over and over, every single day, with headlines, at the grocery store, with your partners, friends, and children. Feel your feelings and let them go. (If this practice is new for you, be gentle with yourself. It can be intense to do if we’ve been suppressing feelings for a long time– it can also be incredibly liberating!)
So consciously engaging with the news begins inside.
Read, watch or listen to the headline or story.
Feel the feeling.
Let it move through.
Return to presence.
Feel it all. Let nothing stick.
THE ALTERATIVE: Feel nothing and let everything linger!!
Most of the time, we’ve been conditioned to skip the feeling entirely.
We read a disturbing headline, feel the disturbance-unconsciously for half a second, and then scroll to the next story, the next ad, the next task on our list.
When we skip the feeling, it doesn’t disappear.
It accumulates.
All those unprocessed reactions gather quietly in the nervous system, and what we experience later is a vague but constant background anxiety. A feeling like there is “something wrong,” a downward trajectory we are riding without intending to… we feel a victim to “it all.”
And the news itself keeps coming. It always has. This is why it’s imperative to pay attention to what our own mind’s are doing with the information and events we receive every day.
IT’S ALL TOO MUCH!?
Many of us have asked the same question:
Is there actually more happening now, or do we simply know about more?
There are certainly more humans on the planet than ever before, so in that sense there may be more human events unfolding.
But on a planetary scale, I’m not sure…For when was there “a time” when there wasn’t “a lot going on in the world,” or the universe for that matter? Some golden age of neanderthals? Or perhaps a pre-human moment when the Earth was a bunch of tectonic plates, volcanic explosions, death, creation and the evolution of life through increasingly challenging and creative circumstances… There has always been “a lot going on” in the world.
The idea that it’s all “too much,” is a convenient escape hatch to continue to spin in anxiety and dread, rather than stepping off of the wheel of suffering, and into your own freedom and light full of love and effective wise action in the world.
When we learn to feel our feelings—without unconsciously spilling them onto others or into the next moments of our lives—we create the possibility to act from clarity and freedom. Then, if any action arises in response to what we witness in the world or our community, it comes from peaceful presence rather than agitation.
And that is something humanity has rarely tried: acting from clarity and freedom, from peaceful presence.
I don’t pretend to know the answers about what “the world” should do next. But I know this in the depth of my being: What happens next will largely depend on where we are acting from. And the only place we have real agency is here—inside ourselves.
Life is not a static image.
The news unfolds on a massive scale, far beyond our immediate lives, and yet it connects us deeply to other human beings. It can invite us to attune to our shared oneness, or pull us into the recesses of our own minds—into doubt, fear, anxiety, and separation. It can close us off from our own good-heartedness and joyful essence, or deepen our capacity for love and connection.
So whenever you choose ( and make sure it is a choice!!) to read, watch, or listen to the news—especially when the information is disturbing—begin in presence. Feel it all. Let Nothing Stick.
Stay tuned for Part 3 in my series on Conscious Engagement With The News: This Just In People Sit Still.
Additional Resources for Further Exploration:
I’ve officially made my way onto Substack. If that’s your reading home, come join me there. |
Comments