In a recent post, Tiffany Yates Martin offers advice for keeping your sanity when the news keeps testing it. “I stay informed because I want to know what’s happening in my world, to be an engaged and aware citizen, to form informed opinions for myself, to avoid a bubble,” she writes. “It doesn’t always make me feel all that great—in fact most days it makes me a little hyperventilatey—but I feel as if it’s my civic duty, and as if putting my head in the sand is a copout when there’s so much suffering and strife in the world.”
On the other hand: Gross! To restore her equilibrium, Yates Martin came up with a three-part psychic cleanse.
- Control Your Narrative. Writers are imaginative folk and we have a bad habit of imagining worst-case scenarios from even the simplest news. Instead, Yates Martin says we should practice healthy detachment (or conscious uncoupling, as Gwyneth Paltrow might say). “Rather than letting myself be sucked into a frenzy of either despair or delight, I’m trying to simply observe,” Yates Martin writes. “The truth is that staying abreast of every last distressing reality in the world does nothing to affect them, and there’s little we can do about most of it. But we do get to decide how much of it we allow into our own lives.”
- Take Agency. Can you make a difference in a matter that concerns you? Then do so. Yates Martin devotes a few minutes each day writing letters to intermittent voters, encouraging them to vote this year. She also donates to organizations whose goals she supports and has joined an effort to convince her city to put in a crosswalk at a busy intersection. She also uses her blog to encourage creative people in their work, which is no small thing.
- Notice the Good. Finally, Yates Martin reminds us to not lose sight of what’s good, whether that’s family and friends, your health and creativity, good weather, a political victory, or even a good book.
