I’ve been blessed to have ‘moments’ that shift my life in a significant good way.
I feel slightly embarrassed to admit…one of those moments was triggered by the television show The Good Wife. Tuning into the drama regularly was a way for me to unplug from my world — into someone else’s.
Recently, there was a radical violent exit of one of the shows main characters.
What was significant for me is how traumatized I felt! Recognizing how much of my precious energy I gave to this fictional event feels a bit foolish to me.
The shift for me is being conscious about the things I ‘take in’.
I am stepping up my game a bit…really paying attention to the things that give me energy and the things that take it.
The good thing is there are so many things available that do add value. I plug into the many TedTalks or the History channel, go outside in nature, exercising are great exchanges for me.
What about you?
Oh please young lady. It’s entertainment, and yes we enjoy and get involved in entertainment. Hard to believe an episode of a tv show has made you such a better person. If you have this “compulsion” you are just going to trade it for another compulsion like frantic workout routine. Get back to us in a year or so and we will then determined if this one little event has “so changed your life.”
Dear Parker, Thank you for taking your time to comment on my blog. And, the posting may have seem compulsive but actually I wrote this blog and let it sit in my file for ten days before I posted it —- because I didn’t want to be compulsive. Entertainment is such an individual thing…the violence of having someone open fire and kill people in a court room isn’t entertaining for me. It hits too close to home in my community.
My point of the blog is what do we take in and does it move us toward where we want to be? This happened to be a tv show. For other people it could be negative or unpleasant people, food, drink, etc. It could be reading worthless blogs! Check back with me in a year, you may be surprised!
Thanks again, I appreciate the ‘young lady’…I don’t get a lot of those anymore!
Hi Karen, I found this via your LinkedIn share. As a fan of the Good Wife for the same reasons you state, I can say that the outcome of that episode was an unexpected shock. I appreciate what you’re saying here, though. It’s good to be mindful of where we put our time and energy; how we allow real (or in this case fictional) events to affect us. I often use fiction as inspiration to think about relationships. After all, good stories are rife with conflict.
Hi Jagoda, Thanks for your note! I too enjoy fiction often as inspiration and even use it at times for education. I’ve been known to reference some Friends eposides at a times in my live sessions. I am going to check out conflict tango. My work is grounded in aikido which I understand has some of the same elements as the tango! Enjoy the day!