Anyone else feeling both like you have to hyperfocus on everything happening and also like you want to ignore it all so you don't get overwhelmed?
You're in good company!
This isn't sustainable, we need to find a way of managing this, and I realized that video games have the perfect strategy for us to use!
If you aren't familiar with different types of video games you may not have heard of this, but JRPG's (Japanese Role Playing Games) often have a "turn based" fighting style.
Stay with me, I promise this is relevant.
Instead of everything falling on ONE person, like fighting the enemy boss alone, a turn based game (sometimes) allows you to control a whole TEAM of characters fighting an enemy.
Each one has a specialty, a strength, probably a weakness, etc.
By using the strengths of each character in your team, you spread the damage from an enemy across a whole team and make it easier to succeed.
So how do we apply this to the news? Pick a few friends (or do this between you and a partner, or even a few 1:1 pairings depending on the topic) and then decide:
- Everyone decides on a topic or concern that they care about, but want to focus on LESS. (Ex: a trans person concerned about accessing care, someone who is here on a work visa worried about immigration, etc.)
-Everyone shares their topics, and takes responsibility for someone ELSE's topic (ex: the person worried about immigration is going to focus on access to gender affirming care, and their trans friend will focus on immigration)
-If needed you could define key concerns, "red flags" or updates you would want to know about right away.
-Throughout the week, you focus solely on the topics you agreed to focus on, filtering out the noise and paying attention to what seems most important.
-Have a routine check-in, like a weekly text thread, where you share any "must knows" or action items that would be relevant for those most impacted.
We see a lot of calls for community right now but remember, community is a practice. This is one way to do it!
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