Growing up in the country with three older brothers left me with no other option than to be competitive.
In fact, few words motivated me more than hearing from a group of boys, “I just don’t know if you could keep up”. Hearing those words reminds me of learning about the “fight or flight” process in nursing school. When faced with a challenge, the body either takes flight and high tails it out of the situation, or, it decides to fight back and step up to the challenge. Being told these things by a group of boys always put me in “fight” mode, pushing me to step up to the challenge at hand.
When dealing with the strong force of cultural influence taking place over the last 50-100 years, we have two options. We can either fight back against the norm of society, or go into “flight” mode, allowing ourselves to be swept away by the unhealthy patterns of our culture.
So how exactly to do we go into “fight” mode, in efforts to protect our minds from the long-term damage taking place?
Acknowledge the Shift
You don’t have to identify as a “Christian” or even a “conservative” to acknowledge the negative impact all of the cultural shifts mentioned in my last post have had on our mental, emotional, and social health. Realizing the impact is the first step to desiring change. I encourage checking out these studies on the effects that pornography, video gaming obsessions, and media addictions have on the mind. I find it interesting that “obsession” and “addiction” pop up multiple times throughout these studies. Sound familiar?
Might I make the link to increased O.C.D. tendencies of obsessions, compulsions, and other addictive thoughts/behaviors in our culture compared to past generations to an increase in cultural influence through technology and media? Not to mention the increase in anxiety, depression, and suicide. How can we ignore these connections? How could we chalk it up as coincidence? We must, as a culture, acknowledge the impact these shifts are having on our mental stability, especially for younger, impressionable, developing minds.
Know Your Boundaries
The next step, is to do something within your power, to foster change. Examples? Add safe guards like Covenant Eyes, or Vid Angel to your electronics. Only allow your children to have internet access when you are sitting next to them. Pre-screen movies for your kids, or better yet, read the reviews before seeing it yourself. Throw out any movies/games/music exposing the mind to rough language, nudity, sex, or violence. Limit your time spent on electronics drastically. Don’t allow your children to have access to social media until they are emotionally, mentally, and socially developed. Limit your own social media usage as an adult and filter your own accounts with safe guards or blocking certain accounts.
There are so many creative, and easy ways to safeguard the mind from images and words that can do long-term damage. Especially to a mind that battles with O.C.D. or other obsessive tendencies.
Just Say No
Though it might initially feel awkward or embarrassing, follow the peer pressure rule you teach your kids and request your own friend circle to turn a channel, turn the music off, put the phone down, change the subject, etc. Why do we so often assume that only children need to be protective around their influential friends? Adult peer pressure is a real thing. And it can eat away at mental, emotional, physical, and social health if we allow negative influences from our culture to infiltrate our minds.
Start a New Trend
Be the one in your home, in your church, in your community of friends, who says “Enough!”. Enough divorce. Enough violence. Enough out of context sex. Enough addiction. Enough obsession. Enough desensitization. Enough graphics. Enough vulgarity. Enough crudeness. ENOUGH! Be the one to start a new cultural shift that protects the mind, heart, and processing abilities. I for one don’t find it coincidence that the mental state of our world has drastically declined as the influence of media and electronics have sky rocketed, as well as the amount of individuals on medication for anxiety and depression has increased drastically.
OCD is not the only part of our culture taking a major hit. Marriages are dissolving. Friendships are ending. Trust is being broken. Children are being neglected. Families are falling a part. Socializing abilities have declined to more introverted, isolating tendencies which can foster addictive and obsessive environments. Education is digressing. Work ethic is suffering.
If we don’t acknowledge the impact that our addictive, obsessive, and highly accessible cultural shifts are having on our mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, and social health, then we can no longer be shocked when the suicide rates, numbers of murders/violent acts, divorce rates, etc, continue to sky rocket.
The change starts with me. And it starts with you! Own up to our part in the cultural shift and say, “ENOUGH!”. Protect your mind. Protect your heart. Let’s start a new cultural shift together that heals what has been tainted, scarred, and broken. We must start this message and shift in our individual hearts, then in our individual homes, then out in our communities. After all, isn’t this how the negative shift began in the first place? Let’s be the world changers that put us back on the path to a positive shift of healing and protection around our minds.
Obsessive. Compulsive. Disordered. 