911th Week: Orienting to What’s Good News, Honoring Wholeness
With all the suffering going on around the world, and all the harshness and conflict on every front, it’s more important than ever to have sources of good news. Seeking good news doesn’t mean you want to ignore what’s going on. Rather, it acknowledges wholeness and the fact that even when things appear to be terribly wrong, there is always something right or positive, as well.
For this practice in conscious living, I invite you to explore some of the websites that orient to positive news and find the one, or the ones, that resonate with you. There are probably more than are on the list below, but these are sources of good news that I’ve discovered along the way. One of my favorites is Service Space, where you can find Daily Good emails, KarmaTube videos, and more. That said, all the sites listed below offer their own take on good news. I’ve listed them alphabetically…
Good Good Good: www.goodgoodgood.co
Good News Network: www.goodnewsnetwork.org
Positive News: www.positive.news
Reasons to be Cheerful: www.reasonstobecheerful.world
Service Space: www.servicespace.org
The Optimist Daily: www.optimistdaily.com
As part of this practice, notice what happens in your body as you explore positive reports and articles. Also notice the tone and quality of your ongoing self-talk when you orient to what’s going right in the world. This doesn’t mean to ignore what’s going on that is part of our collective experience, including all the suffering and contention, but it does mean to include good news as part of your social media diet.
Another aspect of this practice that appeals to me is that it allows us to orient to a deepened awareness of wholeness that exists in ourselves as individuals and in the world. There’s more than just one quality, just one kind of experience, just one point of view in us. This awareness helps us to widen our lens so we aren’t focused on just one aspect of our personal, collective, and planetary wholeness, leading us to ignore all the other facets and aspects of our experience that are part of our wholeness. Remember that a balanced and healthy adult perspective is able to contain both/and—this and that, while a trauma-based perspective is more likely to live in a worldview of either/or—only this or that.
As with all these practices, please remember to bring along curiosity as your constant companion and to pat gently on the head any judgments that may arise, allowing them to move on through without your having to do anything with or about them. Also, please remember to leave room for mixed feelings, as they are part of your wholeness and can arise without your immediately having to do anything about them, either.
Here’s the audio version of this practice if you’d rather listen to it. Also, please remember never to listen to guided audio meditations while driving or using dangerous machinery.
