One of many changes since moving home to Sydney Australia, is returning to the land of driving. Sydney, much like LA is the kind of city where you really do need a car. It's vast and not terribly well serviced, from a public transport POV. I'm also fortunate enough to be able to drive to the office every day which (outside of peak hour) is around 20 minutes. These days I spend 40 minutes+ in my car each week day.
Bored of breakfast radio, I got busy downloading podcasts for my drive. I particularly enjoy true crime. I guess that's because "Serial" is what started my podcasting passion. In the past few months I've listened to a bucket load of this sort of stuff. Then one day, I was out of compelling options and instead listened to some TED talks. After that my listening habits changed to a mix of TED and true crime.
As I blogged about recently, the transition home was tough at times. Truthfully my anxiety levels were higher than I've felt them for many (many) years. I'm not saying that true crime podcast listening was the cause of this. That said, over time I began to notice that listening to TED talks gave me a boost. True crime had quite the opposite impact. In fact the last series I started titled 'Black Hands' about a NZ family homicide was making me depressed.
So guess what? I don't listen to true crime any more. I nourish my mind and emotional well being with all sorts of uplifting material. From TED to Oprah and Elizabeth GIlbert to name a few. On my morning commute I usually listen to business and leadership podcasts. Driving home I mix it up with some more inspirational well being type listening.
I'm so much happier these days, I honestly think nourishing my brain more frequently is a big part of why. Not just with podcasts, I love the Thrive website/app and my latest book read is Mark Mansons "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck". That's got some stellar inspirational thinking too.
Another content stream I purposely limit if I'm not in a happy place is US politics, terrorism and war. This may limit my ability to speak with confidence on global current affairs. I'm willing to take the trade off. Especially when there are multiple stress inducing factors at play in life.
So this is my #embracethegoodstuff tip of the week. When you're feeling fear, anxiety or depression turn off the news, the true crime etc. Nourish yourself with healthy food, exercise, meditation and inspirational stories instead. Healing is good, and healing is worth it - so help yourself do more of that.
