Post on February 7, 2026
Lots of people these days are feeling upset, distracted, exhausted by the news. It’s the state our world is in, and it’s not easy to deal with.
But not following the news doesn’t feel like a good option. I did that for a few years — I just wouldn’t read or watch the news, except once every month or two, when I’d try to catch up. For most people, that doesn’t seem responsible.
I feel lucky in that I’m now able to follow the news but stay relatively grounded. I get upset by things, of course, and I’m not happy with the state of our world. But it doesn’t throw me into a spin or drain me excessively. I’m able to focus, on most days (though I’m far from unaffected).
So how do you manage that balance, between being able to follow the news and not getting so upset you can’t function during the day?
I’m going to share how I do it, but first I’ll share a couple of mindset shifts that can be helpful.
There are two mindset changes that have helped me a lot. The first was taught to me by Pema Chodron, one of our best living Buddhist teachers. The second, by the Stoics and Zen alike.
1: Let the news connect you to humanity. When I see some terrible news, instead of letting it make me think of how terrible things are (a valid way to look at it) … I let it be a moment of practicing compassion for others.
Pema, in her book “Welcoming the Unwelcome,” talks about how falling into gloom and anxiety when we read the news can lead to a defeativist attitude.
“Why try to do anything to improve the future if it’s hopeless anyway? But according to the teachings on karma, the future is unwritten. What we do now does matter, not just to ourselves but to everyone who is part of this interconnection that we call Mother Earth. Even smiling at someone once can have tremendous ripple effect that goes out and out- who knows how far? If this is the case, then think of how much we can affect the world by enthusiastically training in opening our hearts and minds, day after day.” — Pema Chodron, “Welcoming the Unwelcome”
So this is how I practice. If there’s a shooting, or a war, or people losing their jobs … I let my heart open for a minute to feel for the people affected. I feel a little heartbreak. I send them a compassionate wish. I might feel some anger sometimes, and let myself feel that, but I don’t focus on hatred or judgment. I focus on the hearts of the people involved, and opening my heart to them. I think this matters.
2: Focus on what you can control. A lot of the times, news can be stressful because we feel powerless. It helps to remember the idea that we can’t control everything — but we can choose to focus on what we control.
So I like to focus on the things I can do something about. It could be writing to a legislator, or signing a petition, or supporting a non-profit organization that’s helping, or spreading important information, or just educating myself about an issue so I’m less ignorant, or connecting with people. I don’t do it every day, to be clear, but I ask myself, “What can I do about this?” If nothing, I focus on something else in my life that is more actionable.
With those in mind, here’s what I do to follow the news in a grounded way:
This all takes practice! It doesn’t come naturally to me. But for me, it’s important not only to stay informed, and to feel for people and care about what’s going on … but it’s also important to be able to be resourced and able to take on what’s important to me and within my control.
I hope this helps! My wish is for you to have peace in your life.
Posted on February 6, 2026
Post on February 6, 2026
Post on February 4, 2026
I have been studying under a great teacher of the wisdom and reading many esoteric books, which are the teachings of Djwal Khul, (DK), "The Tibetan," as channeled and written down by Alice A. Bailey, as well as the Theosophical teachings of Helena Blavatsky. This email follows on from the previous one, but can also stand alone in it's information. I write these to share with you what I have been learning, that has made a profound difference to my life, in grounding and answering some of the greater questions about consciousness, the Universe, and life. I am not selling anything, and simply want to give you the opportunity to read some of this information for your own illumination. In the wording below I refer to God, not in a specific religious manner, and not excluding any religions, simply as the Universal Mind, Energy, Force, the Absolute, the Unknown. In our human form we truly can't comprehend God due to the limitations of our physical brain. We can't comprehend the true extend of what this is, but for now let’s use universal mind/consciousness. |
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The Soul - Part 2 What is the Soul? Can we define it? What is its nature? The Soul can be spoken of as the bridge between Spirit and Matter, an expression of the mind of God, and is therefore the embodied life of God coming into incarnation in order to reveal the quality of the nature of God, which is essentially love. This life, taking form, nurtures the quality of love within all forms, and ultimately reveals the purpose of all creation. The Soul can be regarded as the principle of intelligence—an intelligence whose characteristics are mind and mental awareness, which in turn demonstrates the power to analyse, to discriminate, to separate, and to distinguish, and to choose or to reject. The Soul is (and here our words limit and distort) a unit of light, coloured by a particular ray vibration, this vibration influences particular disposition qualities. It is one of seven (rays) groups of billions of lives which in their totality constitute the One Life. From its very nature, the Soul is conscious or aware in three directions. It is God-conscious; it is group-conscious; it is self-conscious. This self-conscious aspect is brought to fruition in the phenomenal appearance of a human being; the group-conscious aspect retains the human state of consciousness, but adds to it awareness of its ray life, progressively unfolded; its awareness then is the awareness of love, of quality, of spirit in its relationships; it is God-conscious (only potentially), and in that unfoldment lies, for the Soul, its own growth upward and outward after its self-conscious aspect is perfected and its group-awareness is recognised. |
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The Soul is sentiency, underlying all outer manifestation, pervading all forms, and constituting the consciousness of God itself. When the Soul, as it expresses itself in all the subhuman kingdoms in nature. It is immersed in substance, and is simply sentiency, however it produces through its evolutionary interplay an addition, this is a quality and a capacity to react to vibration and to the environment. When the Soul, an expression of sentiency and quality, adds to these the capacity of detached self-awareness, there appears that self-identified entity which we call a human being. When the Soul adds to sentiency, quality and self-awareness, the consciousness of the group, then we have identification with a ray-group, and there appears the disciple, the initiate and the master. When the Soul adds to sentiency, quality, self-awareness and group consciousness, a consciousness of divine synthetic purpose (called by us the Plan), then we have that state of being and knowledge which is distinctive of all upon the Path of Initiation, and includes those graded Lives, from the more advanced disciple up to the planetary Logos itself. But forget not that when we make these distinctions, it is nevertheless one Soul that is functioning, acting through vehicles of varying capacities, of differentiated refinements, and of greater and lesser limitations, in just the same sense as a man is one identity, working sometimes through a physical body and sometimes through a feeling body (Astral Body), or a thinking mental body. All information above is taken from The Soul: The Quality of Life. By Alice A. Bailey. Does this begin to tie together for you, the various stages of the Soul and it's development and evolution. You are welcome to agree or disagree with what is written above. I hope you come back to me with some questions. Please drop me a line and let me know your thoughts. with Love and Blessings |
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Post on February 4, 2026
