Detox your external influences
This entry was posted on April 22, 2013, in Space Clearing. Bookmark the permalink. 4 Comments (Edit)
I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty easily influenced by commercials and advertisements. All of a sudden I find myself thinking, yeah I need some coco pops or hmm… I could do with a new mascara ‘I’m worth it’. Rarely does a commercial remind you that you need toilet paper and you think yeah actually I really need that!
We are bombarded with this type of information from so many avenues. Once I started realising that, I started taking steps to avoid it. I figured, if I’m worth it, I’m worth a break from it all. A break from my attention being pulled in so many directions that really it was a little overwhelming. Sometimes I feel like we can get bogged down in the advertising clutter. It can impact our mood and leave us feeling like we want something… Perhaps that’s the plan, confuse us into wanting things we don’t need?
So here are some of the changes I made to give myself the well deserved break from advertising…
TV – I started recording all my favourite shows and would only watch TV if there was something recorded. I also started fast forwarding through the adverts.
Email – I unsubscribe from any email list that encouraged me to spend my money or time in a way I didn’t want to (that left me with about 5 blogs and no newsletters). This action alone eased my inbox dramatically.
Groceries – I started food shopping with a list (reverse engineered from a week’s meal plan) and flatly refused to walk down the chocolate section or shop when I was hungry.
Purchases – I started making a list of items I wanted to purchase and promised myself I’d wait a full month before buying it. If I still wanted it as desperately in a month, I could have it. But of course I rarely/never did!
Shopping – I didn’t really shop much anyway so that didn’t matter, I stopped reading magazines when I was a teenager, so I was already avoiding those influences. My external influences detox was incredibly revitalising!
I loved my little detox so much! It’s wonderful to know that when all the influences are stripped back, we’re really very happy with what we’ve got.
Have you ever done something similar?