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04 May Avoiding Mind Pollution When You’re Stuck at Home

After the last presidential election the internet went wild, creating a polarity that damaged friendships, split families, and even destroyed marriages. For many people it was disturbing but for people like me, someone that worked in social media all day long, it was nothing short of traumatic.   Every day I had to sift through the growing stream of virtual sound bites to find good curation sources. Every day I saw both sides of the argument get stronger and stronger, and frankly it drained me. Three months after the election I had to go entirely off the grid for four days. I realized my mind had become polluted. I was chronically tired, angry, sad, stressed and experiencing a lot of other emotions at the same time. I had to come up with a way to manage my time online that didn’t damage my energy and my emotional wellbeing. Literally, I had to find a way to clear the fog in my head. As we protect ourselves against the virus, many friends are home spending a lot more time in social media - and their minds are becoming polluted as well. It doesn’t matter if you’re right or left – the techniques used by today’s influencers (many of them either trained by Steve Bannon or copying his methods, bless his black little heart) are being used not just to influence us but more importantly - to make us angry enough to do something.  Are you feeling overly fatigued, angry, frustrated? It might not just be the quarantine. Here are few ways I handle mind pollution that might help you as well.

• Try to remember that hardly anything you read as a headline or sub-headline is a fact.