It's time to refocus our critical thinking skills.

"I know I shouldn’t be. I know it’s not helping me – but I just can’t get past the anger and judgement when I see some of the things that are going on out there."

This is a quote from a client of mine and she's not the only one feeling it.  I see and hear it everywhere.

Politics
Economy
COVID-19
Environment

Each of these issues are a hotbed of expectation, opinion, judgement, fear and anger.  And that little cocktail of emotion is keeping our bodies in a perpetual state of high alert.

It’s making us sick.

According to the Mayo Clinic, each of these ailments can be directly related to chronic stress:

• Heart disease

• Asthma

• Obesity

• Diabetes

• Headaches

• Depression

• Gastrointestinal problems

• Alzheimer's disease

• Accelerated aging

• Premature death

The issues facing our world right now are serious.  But the way we are managing them is equally serious.  It’s literally killing us.

So, what do we do? 

Of course, we lean into things like breathing, meditation, mindfulness and yoga to calm and heal ourselves, but we can’t stop there.

The way we process information has to change - we need to relearn how to think critically.

Although there is not one universally recognized model for critical thinking, they all include these key skills:

• Recognizing and/or identifying the issue.

• Collecting information and filtering it for bias and relevance.

• Inferring (making an educated guess).

• Cultivating open curiosity.

And this my friends, is the issue at hand. 

At no other point in history have humans been so constantly immersed in information of every kind. 

We used to get one or two newspapers and listen to one or two newscasts each day.  We had time to absorb the information and form opinions. When we discussed those opinions, it was face to face, human to human and if we applied critical thinking skills, we learned a lot and real progress was made.

It’s different now.

Platform based algorithms feed us news that we already agree with creating a marketplace for news agencies to target the emotions and opinions of specific consumers rather than attempting to speak to all.

Our opinions naturally become stronger and more assured because they are continuously reinforced by the virtual microcosm we inhabit.

We communicate through comment sections and tweets where open dialog is difficult under the best of circumstances and virtually impossible when the pool of information is selectively disseminated, spun, and often contradictory.

We believe that our opinions and fears are based on critical thinking, but engulfed in a world where the information readily available to us is so polarized, we rarely see its bias.

In the midst of this virtually unlimited data, most of us live in an information vacuum that makes us feel stuck, angry, and judgmental.

We long for a way out.  We long for progress.

This Week: 3 Keys to Letting anger and judgement go.

1. Keep up those practices that clear your mind, energize your spirit and nurture your body.  Eat real food, rest, exercise, experience nature, meditate, breathe, etc...

2. Trust in the positive intent of others:

• There are really smart people on ALL sides of every issue.

• ALL people want to be seen, accepted, respected and loved.

• What ALL people choose to do is based on what they believe will protect that and those which they most value – including their beliefs about right and wrong.

3. Challenge your own critical thinking skills by collecting and filtering information more carefully, searching for bias in your own inferences, and remaining open and curious about all ideas and opinions.

Together, we are always stronger.