Information you consume shapes your reality

Being mindful about what kind of information we consume is just as important for our wellbeing as what food we eat. Words may shape our reality in more ways than we think.

That’s why I rarely watch horror movies and instead prefer films showing uplifting success stories. Popular songs, replayed many times, can work like magical spells that plant suggestions in our brains, so I am mindful when I select my playlist to avoid their lyrics don’t include undesirable scenarios.

Social media feeds today are quite random, and throw random content at you. This architecture might be programming your unconscious in ways we don’t yet understand. If possible, strive to have a feed where you know who is creating the content and for what purpose.

“”He is careful of what he reads, for that is what he will write. He is careful of what he learns, for that is what he will know.”

— Annie Dillard

The same goes for how you think to yourself. What is your inner monologe like, how do you act in the world? Heres a quote from a podcast with one of Spain’s most famous bullfighters, Martín Vázquez:

“The way you speak to yourself, the way you walk, the way you carry your shoulders matters. I wanted to know how a matador controls fear when they know that there’s this massive bull who is going to do everything possible to kill them, and to subdue this potential threat that the bull is seeing. How do you control fear? How do you keep from being paralyzed? Because when you choke, you’re very likely going to get gored and can very possibly die. And he smiles and he says, “Is it not obvious, Jim?” And I said, “No, I came all this way. It’s not that obvious.” And he said, “Have you ever seen a bullfighter in the ring show anything but supreme confidence? Have you ever seen them mope around with rounded shoulders, saying, ‘Oh, I’m having a bad day. I don’t feel like I’m on my game today,’ being negative or a little bit pessimistic and irritated at the bull because the bull is just not cooperating or whatever?” He said, “We start training as a young boy at a very early age on how to walk, how to turn, how to carry our shoulders, where to put our eyes. Every single detail is done meticulously.” And he said, “The bull can see that and knows that you have no fear, and that you dominate the bull by your presence. We control fear by our physical presence.”

Thanks for reading.