A lot of people are saying the same thing lately:
“I need to stop watching the news. It’s making me anxious.”
The instinct makes sense. Headlines are relentless. Crises overlap. Every alert seems to demand urgency, outrage, or fear.
But there’s a deeper layer most conversations never touch.
The news isn’t creating anxiety. It’s revealing what you’re identifying with.
Information Is Neutral — Identification Is Not
Information by itself doesn’t produce fear.
It becomes frightening only when it passes through identity — when the mind silently says:
This threatens who I am.
This endangers what I believe keeps me safe.
This confirms something terrible about the world and my place in it.
At that moment, the news stops being information and becomes personal.
Not because it’s attacking you — but because something you’re attached to feels under threat.
Why Certain Headlines Hook You
Notice what happens when a story really grabs you.
Your body tightens.
Your thoughts speed up.
You feel compelled to react, argue, share, or defend a position.
That reaction isn’t caused by the headline itself.
It’s caused by the identity the headline touches.
Political identity.
Moral identity.
National identity.
Personal narratives about safety, control, or being right.
The stronger the identification, the stronger the emotional charge.
Fear Is a Side Effect of Identity
Fear doesn’t arise from awareness.
Fear arises when the mind believes it is what’s being threatened.
When identity feels endangered, the nervous system responds as if survival is at stake — even when the danger is abstract, distant, or symbolic.
This is why doomscrolling feels both exhausting and addictive.
Identity is constantly scanning for confirmation that it matters, that it’s justified, that it’s safe.
If you want the deeper mechanics of this, The Self You’re Trying to Hold Together breaks down how identity forms around narrative maintenance — and why it reacts so strongly when you stop performing your assigned role.
Why Turning Off the News Only Helps Temporarily
Many people try to solve the problem by disengaging completely.
Turn it off.
Unfollow everything.
Avoid the headlines.
Sometimes that brings relief — for a while.
But anxiety often returns, because the root wasn’t the information.
It was the attachment.
Avoidance treats the symptom.
Awareness addresses the source.
Awareness Changes the Relationship
Awareness doesn’t argue with the news.
It notices the reaction.
It sees:
The tightening in the body
The urgency to take a side
The story about what must happen next
And instead of feeding it, awareness creates space.
In that space, something shifts.
You can stay informed without being consumed.
You can care without collapsing.
You can respond without panic.
The News Is a Slice, Not the Whole
The news is optimized for urgency.
Fear holds attention longer than nuance. Conflict spreads faster than clarity. Outrage travels further than resolution.
That doesn’t make it fake.
It makes it incomplete.
When identity takes the feed literally, it feels like the entire world is falling apart.
Awareness recognizes something else:
This is a fragment — not the total picture.
What Changes When Identification Loosens
When you stop fusing your sense of self with every headline:
You don’t become indifferent.
You become steadier.
You’re less reactive.
More discerning.
Less easily pulled into fear-based narratives.
The nervous system relaxes because it no longer believes every story is about you.
The Real Invitation Behind the Headlines
The news isn’t asking you to think better.
It’s inviting you to notice who you think you are while consuming it.
A defender?
A victim?
A savior?
A witness?
Each identity produces a different emotional experience — even with the same information.
Closing Note
This reflection is part of a broader exploration into identity, awareness, and how suffering often arises not from what we encounter, but from what we unconsciously attach ourselves to.
This same dynamic shows up far beyond the news cycle. It sits at the heart of why relationships can feel confusing and heavy even when no one is doing anything “wrong.” When conversations about power, blame, or identity break down, they often point to a deeper relational pattern — one rooted in unconscious identification rather than clear seeing.
We explore this pattern more deeply in our broader reflections on why relationships so often feel hard, and how awareness changes the way we relate without needing to assign fault.
These themes are explored more deeply in Proof That You’re God — a book about identity, awareness, and the quiet freedom that comes from seeing clearly.
Reflection
What changes when you watch your reaction to the news instead of assuming your reaction is justified?
