What do you consciously ingest each day? If you are like most people, food is the first thing that comes to mind - as humans we intentionally consume food daily. It could be said that those who follow trends like mindful eating and elimination diets have a higher consciousness about what they ingest - meaning only that they are very intentional about the food they put into their bodies.
What happens if we expand the concept of ingestion beyond food and consider the content of the world you ingest each day? For example, what type of music plays in your car or office, what type of news do you read and from what source, what type of technology do you interact with and what people and environments do you source from each day?
Now consider, how the content you consume impacts your energy and attitude. Just like with consuming food, not all content gives energy or sits well internally. This can lead to a feeling of emotional or mental indigestion. (And just like with food, sometimes people keep consuming that which is causing discomfort, even after they discover how their body reacts to the input.)
If you feel like you might have emotional or mental indigestion and are curious to explore what types of content may be the source, start by creating awareness around the content you consume each day. For each person the answers will be different - but the questions are the same.
- What type of sound do you intentionally and unintentionally ingest each day? (Think television, music, YouTube, background noise in your office, the soundtrack on your commute and so on.)
- What type of information do you intentionally and unintentionally feed your eyes, ears and brain each day? (Think Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, E-mails, magazines, books, cookbooks, children's homework, newsstands in grocery stores, advertisements, signs in stores and so on.)
- What type of people do you intentionally and unintentionally interact with each day? (Think people at work, on your commute, in your home, in the market and malls, in your neighborhood, your children's friends (and their parents) and so on.)
- What is the first content you ingest in the morning? (Your phone, your dog, your spouse, your children, yourself and so on.)
- What is the first content you ingest before falling asleep? (Your phone, your dog, your spouse, your children, a book, a magazine, yourself and so on.)
Once you have developed awareness around what content you are consuming each day, you can begin to see what content may be linked to any feelings of emotional or mental indigestion. Once you see the link, explore the connection.
The difference between emotional or mental indigestion and physical indigestion is that the solution for content indigestion isn't always elimination. Instead, it can be an illumination of an aspect of yourself to explore more deeply, which could lead to elimination of that content or in some cases a deeper yearning to consume more.
How could your life be different if you were to create more consciousness around what eyes, brain, body and heart ingest each day?