Why reality depends on us - a guide to mindful choices in a fast-paced world

If the news feels like a hallucination, and your social feeds (if you are on there) are brimming with content that you can’t trust or is simply unbearable to contemplate, you are not alone, and this issue of Practical Magic is for you. 

In 2023 I wrote about consuming versus creating, and it strikes me that in a world where we are continuously consuming an enormous amount of information and opinion (much of which is unsettling and negative) this is a good time to refresh and build upon my original piece from the perspective of today's context. So in this issue, I would like to invite you to look more closely at your rates and types of consumption and creation, because while there are many benefits to be had in different ways via both paths, more often than not due to the society and times we live in, we are understandably so often choosing convenience over joy, numbing over feeling, and reinforcing the perspectives of scarcity and fear. 

Consuming

Capitalist culture suggests we spend a lot of time trying to be more ‘efficient’ and ‘get sh*t done’.  Not, by the way, for the sake of greater flow and quality of life, but for the benefit of capitalism. It suggests we generate, but only in specific ways that benefit materialism and the idea that there is ‘not enough’ (time, money, etc). While choosing convenience is sometimes beneficial in a life full of ever greater energetic demands, the danger is that this approach becomes second nature and robs us of our critical thinking and our presence to the beautiful complexity of life. 

When our default is to take the easiest/quickest route, while we may gain time or money, that comes at a price. We can also:

• Lose pockets of mental space (the quiet reflective time that is so needed in this digital age). E.g. doom scrolling while our robot hoover does the chores.

• Lose quality presence and connection in the moment - E.g. watching TV, eating takeout with your loved ones vs communally preparing a meal, checking in with each other, having conversations etc.

• Devalue our wellbeing, because the effort we are trying to avoid could have brought us health benefits. E.g. eating processed food vs cooking from scratch, or walking to the shops and chatting to our neighbours versus getting a delivery from a stranger. 

I hold no judgement here, because survival comes in many forms. Survival in a war zone looks different to survival in the form of ever present fear of persecution, which looks different again to survival in the form of consistent underlying stress. Regardless of the reason we are stuck in that mode, I believe that those of us who have any capacity at all (in the form of time, desire, ability to be still, to reflect) would hugely benefit from considering how life might be different if we were to consume less, and be very discerning about what and who we consume, in the form of physical intake and movement, people, environments, perspectives and rhetoric. We can so easily become worn down (or even seduced) by loud voices. Because we are already overwhelmed, outsourcing our thinking is a huge temptation - one that comes at an incalculable price. 

Some questions for your consideration

Consumption can include anything from food/drink, drugs, television, clothing, to energy, nature, social media, news, other people's ideas etc. Here are some prompts for reflection (writing or speaking are great ways to explore your thinking):

• What are you consuming because you’re trying to give yourself something you are missing?

• What are you consuming because that is all you have the mental/energetic capacity to do?

• What are you consuming because you are trying to please someone / be liked or approved of?

• What are you consuming because you believe that you ‘should’? And importantly - what is the belief promising that consumption will achieve?

• What are you consuming because you are in the habit?

• What are you consuming that depletes your energy?

• What are you consuming that gives you energy?

• What are you consuming that is out of alignment with your values and ethics?

• What are you consuming that you could create yourself if you believed it was possible?

Creating

Where default consumption can keep our heads above water while also preventing us from being present in our lives, making an effort to question and create requires an investment of some kind (the price) and brings challenge, which also brings flexibility, flow, growth, legacy, expression and connection (the payout).

Through creating we keep our human range of motion (and e-motion) intact, and we humans were born to move. So why don't we do it more often? Our environment, our past experiences, our family legacy, our health, our epigenetics, and conditioning all have a hand. In addition to that, many of us fundamentally find the idea of creating rather than consuming (especially if we are novices) quite scary. Partly because our school systems instilled in us a fixed and perfectionist mindset (“if I don’t get the answer right immediately, I am a piece of human trash” thinking), and a narrow field of vision (“this is history” rather than - this is the Eurocentric version of history etc) and partly because we are also constantly inundated with choices of ready made solutions. Our decision-making muscle is so fatigued by modern living that the thought of starting anything from scratch can feel exhausting before we even begin. I call this “wearing a coat of heavy expectations”.

What I've found in my work with clients is that taking the coat off is the key. Pretty much every time, the things that (if prioritised) would really move the needle for them, turn out to require much less effort than they had expected once we get things down on paper. Expectations are heavy, they weigh a lot, and worst of all, they do not genuinely protect us from anything, they are pretty much completely useless as a coat of any kind.

Some truths:

1. Creation takes effort and so it is often viewed as pressurised/uncertain/challenging. Creation slows us down, enabling more flow and presence and connection.

2. Consumption is at times both necessary and helpful.

3. We have a systemic cultural bias toward consumption. 

If we now also add in the new and inescapable presence of AI in our lives, a whole additional layer of discernment comes in. Suddenly, in some cases (mainly digitally) creation can be even faster than consumption. Where we might have had to learn a whole system designed by someone else, we can make our own unique system just for us. We are gaining some unimaginable creative freedoms. At the same time, our consumption of content may indeed need to slow down. We do not know whose data we are accessing, we cannot trust images, we cannot verify the enormity of what might be presented to us, so we need to fact check and use our critical thinking much more often than we have ever felt the need to before when that work was held for us by dedicated channels. There is a real shift happening, and it is a lot to digest. With laws coming into place slower than the technology is moving, it behooves us now more than ever to use our own ethical moral compass and discernment. 

Practical questions

There will be times where it best serves us to consume, and times it would enrich us to create. Here are some things to consider next time you are wondering how to decide which route is best for you…

• What is the kindest approach to me as a human right now given my capacity?

• What action is most in line with my values?

• Is this something I am capable of creating myself?

• Is this something that only I can create?

• How long would it actually take me to consume this vs create it?

• Could I create this over time?

• How will consuming this or creating this “feed” me?

• What will consuming this or creating this cost me?

• How will creating or consuming this benefit me? 

• Will taking this approach also benefit others? 

And now for some magic

Given the complexity of today's context, it is understandable to be feeling confusion and pain. Anything that is harmful to others is fundamentally rooted in a power imbalance. Whatever the reason for the origin of the violence, ultimately the act of violence itself stems from a fear of some kind. While the news and world events can be terrifying - for some of us especially, those of us who are sensitive - the importance of stepping out of the endless news cycle and promotion of fear is greater now than ever. 

Imagining bad things getting even worse, focusing solely on destruction and loss and “bad news”, will most likely cause us to behave from a place of fear. That fearful behaviour leads ultimately to separation. What I hope and believe can happen instead is a coming together, a forming of communities, a shared humanity working together to move away from those who seek to harm and towards a collective. 

If we are to behave from a place of love instead of fear, we need nourishment, support, inspiration and community. Fear cannot create the solution to the world's problems. Fear has never created an equitable solution. Fear is an outcome. Love is always a solution and can also provide an outcome.

Just as business people often make money so that they can make more money, artists make money so that they can make more art. Let's aim to be artists. Let's aim to give - some kind of virtuous circle of expression and love and kindness back into the world - rather than embodying the extractive nature of those who are currently in power, consumed by their own wounding and their own greed. Because all of those people out there doing horrendous things are in fundamentally the same position: either they are psychopathic or sociopathic and incapable of feeling human emotion, or they are showing up as our collective wounds and acting from that wounded place.

It is time for everyone to work together, to heal as much as possible, and to step into love in order to prevent further wounding and suffering that is completely unnecessary. If we all understood that we are all enough, we would all understand that there is enough. This world is enough. Our resources are enough. We are enough. It is this misunderstanding that has caused many lifetimes, civilisations, and timelines to crumble and fall - and I sincerely hope to be part of something different.

So some magical questions to sit with: 

• How and where am I directing my attention? (where focus goes, energy flows)

• In what direction is my energy contributing to the collective? 

• How and where am I directing my imagination? 

• What kind of world am I choosing to co-create by my actions/inactions/imaginings?

Finally - an interesting exercise in the excellent book Heal Your Attachment Wounds by Dr Diane Poole Heller. Simply imagine your parents having every single one of their needs met, and all of their ancestors before them. Every human in your lineage healed, happy, resourced, resilient and loving. What would the world be like? How would people be with each other? If everyone knew they were, and had, enough? 

Thank you for reading, and as always, I welcome your thoughts.

Best,

Freya