As I sit on the side of my bed, I scroll through Instagram and Twitter like a zombie. Sure I need to get going, but my brain says I need to keep skimming. One more hit. One more profile. One more meme, quote, or friend’s birthday party. I’m struck by how much time goes by without me knowing it. Ten minutes turns to thirty turns to forty. Mind you, if I had this same wait in the DMV, standstill traffic, or a doctor’s appointment, I would not be this mesmerized. I would be angry, shifting in my seat, annoyed. And everyone would likely hear about it. Somewhere. Probably Instagram. Twitter if I’m feeling extra snarky. With maybe an @ sign in front of someone’s name. Someone I could blame, no doubt.

My feed is a range of things most days. But today is the day of a school shooting. A shooting of small children. An unthinkable, murderous rampage. Senseless, cowardly violence for absolutely no reason. I am outraged, shocked, saddened, but also, if I am really honest with myself, I am numb.

HOW CAN THAT BE? This is really horrific!!!!!!!!! Like, world turning upside down horrific!! Mothers and fathers left bereft and in disbelief. Grandparents wondering what could have gone wrong, no doubt checking and rechecking their steps.

“First I packed a lunch, then put her on the school bus, then….What?”

“I just saw him alive. This morning. He was here in my kitchen and we were arguing about which shoes to wear and why he had to brush his teeth…”

Another wave of numb. It washes over me. Because when I open myself to the pain, it threatens to swallow me whole.

And I have to wake up and make my bed, and make sure I turn my curling iron off before I leave the house, and water that fern on the front porch I keep forgetting because it will surely die in this heat and I will feel badly about buying another plant and it shriveling up into a hairy, brown mess. And then I have to drive to work where I will sit, as a therapist, in the pain of others who are numb and reeling. Reeling and numb.

There is a part of me (a very big part) that I must turn off entirely in order to live.

And that makes me feel shame. Shame on me for unplugging cords and watering ferns. When others have so little.

As I went to work, I noticed the same glaze over my clients’ eyes. No one knows what to do. Everyone is horrified. But no one has the words. Or if they do, they come out in scrambled mixtures of anger and disbelief and promises and clenched fists. Nothing concrete and nothing sensible.

I began thinking about all of us as human beings. How we operate.

According to Psych 101, Abraham Maslow came up with the Maslow hierarchy of needs.

He posits that human beings cannot move “up” to the next level unless the former level’s needs are taken care of. The first two levels are physiological needs and safety. Obviously, the needs of the parents in Uvalde are baseline right now. Eat, sleep, drink. If they even can. Some days are likely harder than others.

But this goes for us as well. (Rebecca, how can you even think about yourself at a time like this?) But this is my point.

Our internal “care meters” are tuckered out.

We can’t muster up the appropriate amount of care and concern that we need. That the parents of Uvalde need us to have.

Maybe you’ve noticed it too. And why is that?

I remember the rise of 24 hour news in the 80’s and early 90’s. We were all so excited to see what sort of content would enter our living rooms. Never before had we had access to detailed stories all over our country and all over the globe. Before around the clock coverage, we were only divvied out what could fit in a 30 minute segment. Shortly thereafter, the O.J. Simpson trial began and the world stood still as we gladly and willingly invited this case into our homes. The twists and turns that happened in that trial were that of a salacious novel. If you had to work and miss any coverage, you now had the 24 hour CNN on your side to give you the “greatest hits” of that particular day in the courtroom.

CNN became hungry for content because, you know, 24 hours a day is a long time. They began to bring in pundits and speculators who spat their opinions and soliloquies of self important information to round out the news that trickled in around the world. 24 hour news cycles caught on to other networks and it became commonplace that stay-at-home parents might just have the news on all day long in the background. Which equaled advertising dollars, inflated ratings, and the need for more and more content.

And that was 30+ years ago.

Cut to social media. The new 24 hour news cycle.

We are subjected to every horrific act that happens in Topeka, Kansas and in Syria. From Instanbul to Iowa, there is no shortage of information that seeps through to our pocket sized info-grabbers and into our psyches.

And now WE are the pundits, pontificators, and experts. I can truly sit here and type up this blog thinking that what I have to say could be of interest and help to someone in Nebraska, or Alabama, or Sydney, Australia. The irony is not missed on me.

But were we really made to absorb all that is happening in the world?

Absorb? Hell, even care?

I have felt the whiplash lately (let’s be honest, since 2012) of scrolling endlessly on a timeline of information that moves effortlessly from a kitten scratching out its owner’s eyes, to the news of a music icon’s untimely death, to a bunny rabbit adorably chewing a stalk of lettuce, to the news of whole cities being burned to the ground in Ukraine. My mind cannot reconcile it all. And don’t even begin to deal with my heart. The only thing I CAN do is numb. The sacred space/container of my soul can only take in tragedy in waves. And I compartmentalize and push down those waves with equal amounts of effort. The physics of it are real.

If we were to be able to talk to Laura Ingalls about her experiences on the prairies of Iowa in the small railroad towns along the way, she would have been blissfully unaware of the conflicts in other countries and even in other neighboring states. News traveled by horse and carriage, not ethernet. If someone in her town had a tragic fire, or a life altering illness, there was likely genuine care and stillness. They had the principles of Maslow’s hierarchy at play too (even if Abraham Maslow wasn’t born yet). Humans are humans. And their survival was on the line day after day (Remember that locust plague?? Mary going BLIND??).

But, my guess is if Laura were with us today she would talk about the ways that her small community came together for one another. If one business had a fire, the town would come together to rebuild and care for each other.

If someone had an untimely death in the family, it would be expected that their family, church, community would have the margin to sit in the mess with them. To mourn and grieve. To cook, to sweep a porch, or play an instrument, or sing songs around a campfire.

I think this is the only way we can begin to live in some semblance of sanity.

We have to go back to making our worlds smaller. We, as a culture and society, have lost the art of being neighborly and curious. The simplicity of sitting on porches and asking good questions. Knowing one another’s stories. Asking for that cup of sugar, but really using it as an excuse to curb our deep loneliness. We are too busy telling ourselves that they don’t want to be bothered, and we don’t want to be too much.

If you find yourself posting the Ukrainian flag as your profile pic, taking a stance about gun control, the border crisis, or spouting off the latest polls and research about the “fill-in-the-blank” thing we are supposed to care about right now, maybe you pick one. Because the deal is we can’t all care about every single thing happening in the world. Compassion fatigue is a real thing and our hearts don’t operate that way. This is why we’re tired, depressed, anxious, and irritable (Among other things). And I am as much speaking to myself as anyone else.

And I also cannot judge or get mad at others when they simply repost that stupid cat video. It may just be all the margin that a person can muster right now. It doesn’t accurately reflect the complexity of emotion, weight, and hardship happening on the inside.

So what does this look like on a day to day basis? I certainly don’t pretend to have all the answers.

But, here are a few things I have attempted to do in order to align myself with what is congruent in my own heart and mind.

1. Turn off the social media. (This might mean podcasts too!)

While that may seem counterintuitive or insensitive, the reality is that you simply are not a super human that can handle all that the socials and news and media are throwing at you. And that’s a good thing! That means that your heart and soul are working at a normal pace! Not the pace that culture says you’re supposed to. Taking an intentional break from the constant noise is vital to our mental health. All you need to do is type in key words like depression, anxiety, and social media to see the scientific data on what it’s doing to us.

2. Make your world smaller.

The next rung of hierarchical needs, after physical and safety needs, according to Maslow, is a sense of belonging and intimacy. If your idea of emotional intimacy involves any sort of screen, you are severely undernourishing your basic needs as a human. What would it look like for you to invite a neighbor over? What would it take for you to join a local basketball league or a pottery class? A bible study? Or ask that friend that you think of often to see your BBQ skills. Good things happen when we make our world smaller. Because this is who is in your purview. You can actually do something when a friend is sick. You cannot help a people group 1500 or 15,000 miles away from you. Sure you can send money, but that sick friend might actually need a hug or a belly laugh. And you do too. You just might find that when you implement less social media, less news, and make your world more manageable, you have the margin to make that casserole (don’t sleep on how good that Cream of Chicken is!)

3. Pick a cause that you feel passionate about and stick with it!

Now, more than ever, we are hit with the needs of the most vulnerable and hurting. Suffering is everywhere and rather than consume information about those people, we need to be out there hitting the pavement. And, there’s a ton of science that says that when we begin to focus outward, our mood shifts and we begin to feel a sense of accomplishment and community. If you do feel strongly about the needs of the families in Uvalde, look at your neighborhood school and see what needs they may have. Are there poorer families who could use a grocery card or school supplies? Of course there are! If you care deeply about the suffering in Ukraine, maybe you find the local Ukraine refugees and befriend them. We are changed from the inside out when we spend time with those from other cultures. Elections and angry calls to our senators are wonderful and we live in a country free enough that those in power DO work for the people, not themselves! (even though it often feels hopeless). But what would it look like for you to focus that intentionality on one issue and do it really well!

I’m afraid the world we live in is not going to change very much.

We’ve opened Pandora’s box of constant “connectivity” and stimuli and many of our jobs are connected to these diabolical devices! But what if we each changed our habits by a few percentage points? What if you simply turned off social media on the weekends? Or even took a sabbath? Or made a goal to reach out of our comfort zones once per quarter?

Social Media Overwhelm: When Your 'Care Meter' Has Stopped Caring