The Fast
It's been a strange week, but a good one. I missed blogging last week-- it was general conference weekend for the church, and that pretty well took over my weekend. I ate too much sugar (yikes, we went through an entire Costco size bag of Halloween chocolates and two bags of candy corn) but I loved the feeling that filled our home as we spent the days listening to messages that seemed written directly from heaven to lift me up. Saturday night, President Nelson issued four challenges to the women of the church, and the first one was to hold a ten day fast from social media, as well as any media that brings negative thoughts to our minds. I'm not the world's biggest social media user, but I immediately quit checking facebook. So far so good. It's now been a week-- an eternity in social media time-- and though I feel a little out of it (hopefully none of my friends are going through crises that I should be aware of) it's been a nice breather.
The bigger impact came from the other stuff I decided to cut out, which included any news sites and some of the other blogs I follow. I really feel ignorant without checking any news, but I found that my mood is absolutely, unequivocally better without being constantly bombarded with tragedies and disasters and political craziness (especially the political craziness). Even the writers' blogs that I follow tend to bring my mood down lately-- I end up discouraged and doubting my own writing more often than not. Since I am currently trying to finish up book #6 before November, doubt and fear were not helping. The result? I've written something like 12,000 words this week, and I'm starting (maybe) to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Or at least the possibility of wrapping up this series.
It's odd, because I never considered myself someone who was wrapped up in social media or addicted to it, especially after I made a conscious effort a year or two ago to scale back my engagement with it. I got rid of the facebook app on my phone, refused to sign up with any of the others (you won't find me on twitter or instagram), reducing my own blogging to about once a week. But even still, to take a whole week off has been hard. I didn't realize how often I was "checking in," even if I never posted anything myself. And I can see quite clearly now how that affects my mood.
So I have quite a bit to chew on. When the next three days of the fast finish, what changes will I make permanent? I'm not sure yet. But all in all, this has been a very valuable experience.
The timing was probably perfect, for me personally. At the beginning of this week, I was wracked with anxiety. I had several things looming in front of me, small and large, that I was just scared of. There's no other way to put it. I was a quivering, shaking leaf Sunday night. And a hormonal mess. (You know, that time of the month is never convenient.) Having a break from negativity was a lifesaver. Now I'm on the other side and I can laugh at myself a bit. Next week I need to jump back into the full swing (we've had staggered fall breaks but all the kids will be back to normal schedules soon), and I'm doing it with more confidence and less fear.
Here we go!
The bigger impact came from the other stuff I decided to cut out, which included any news sites and some of the other blogs I follow. I really feel ignorant without checking any news, but I found that my mood is absolutely, unequivocally better without being constantly bombarded with tragedies and disasters and political craziness (especially the political craziness). Even the writers' blogs that I follow tend to bring my mood down lately-- I end up discouraged and doubting my own writing more often than not. Since I am currently trying to finish up book #6 before November, doubt and fear were not helping. The result? I've written something like 12,000 words this week, and I'm starting (maybe) to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Or at least the possibility of wrapping up this series.
It's odd, because I never considered myself someone who was wrapped up in social media or addicted to it, especially after I made a conscious effort a year or two ago to scale back my engagement with it. I got rid of the facebook app on my phone, refused to sign up with any of the others (you won't find me on twitter or instagram), reducing my own blogging to about once a week. But even still, to take a whole week off has been hard. I didn't realize how often I was "checking in," even if I never posted anything myself. And I can see quite clearly now how that affects my mood.
So I have quite a bit to chew on. When the next three days of the fast finish, what changes will I make permanent? I'm not sure yet. But all in all, this has been a very valuable experience.
The timing was probably perfect, for me personally. At the beginning of this week, I was wracked with anxiety. I had several things looming in front of me, small and large, that I was just scared of. There's no other way to put it. I was a quivering, shaking leaf Sunday night. And a hormonal mess. (You know, that time of the month is never convenient.) Having a break from negativity was a lifesaver. Now I'm on the other side and I can laugh at myself a bit. Next week I need to jump back into the full swing (we've had staggered fall breaks but all the kids will be back to normal schedules soon), and I'm doing it with more confidence and less fear.
Here we go!
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