What is up accidentally intentional family? I am thrilled to bring you my friend Courtney Dykstra house in the house today. Oh, that's so interesting that houses in your name and then I said house twice and oh, what a convention hall facing it's, it's a whole thing I have to do that quite often as well. Like I'm from the Courtney Dexter House House. So guys, let me tell you a little bit about Courtney, before we start, because Courtney is a speaker, a writer, and a live events host at Ramsey solutions. And she's a former business owner and news anchor, which is why we have her here today. Because she finished her career and then 11th largest news market in the nation. What the heck, that's amazing. You're talented girl. And she loves using her journalism background and her master's degree in psychology to create and tell stories that reconnect others to themselves and the world around them. That was great. That was a great bio. I feel like that was my bedtime story. And I'm ready to go. Oh, I'm here for you, girl. Little little bedtime story, whatever you need. Okay, I got you. So Courtney and I have been pals for about a year now. And the fun fact about Courtney, that I don't know if anybody knows this is that right? Before I gave what I consider to be a very big speech in my life, I actually found Courtney. And I said, Courtney, girl, and you didn't hype me up right now I need you to calm me down, and just speak some truth and to make because your girl, she's losing her mind. I'm freaking out. And you did. You called me down. And I gave, I think the best speech of my entire life. Thanks to you, my friend. No, you were really kind for saying that. But you gave the best speech in your life because you put in the work for it. And I will I want to, for all the people who are listening right now, like I remember when you came in and you you had an audition and the first time you gave that talk. And then a couple months later, when you came in for our influencer events, and you gave that same talk the map the amount of growth that you had was so evidence, and that really speaks to you putting in the work to do it. I mean, anyone can cultivate a skill of speaking, it's just a matter of if you're willing to put in the work to do it. And you were proof that you can and you did So bravo to you, I'm glad that I was able to be a small fraction of support for whatever you needed. Thank you coordinate. And if this is a little test of what's to come here, look at her. She's just a words of affirmation fire hydrant, Courtney, truth be told, here's why I brought you on today. Okay. Now, at the time of this recording, Ukraine and Russia is a thing happening right now. And I feel like I'm slowly losing my mind. I feel like I have a very unhealthy relationship with the news. Right now. I feel like everything seems to have spin and bias on it. And you know, I was having a conversation with someone the other day, we were talking about how if we were blindfolded, and we just heard somebody talking, based on what they were saying, and the narrative in which we were using, they were using, we'd be able to tell what news station they were speaking from, because it's so polarizing and stuff like that. And so I'm just confused. And because you are a former news anchor, that was my best voice. I would love to hear all of your thoughts on this, and why we got to this place. And of course, in turn, by the end of the conversation, how we can create a healthier relationship with the news and media today. Yeah, what a set up I love it. You know, we could go in a lot of different directions with this. I definitely want to touch on at the end the importance of creating healthy boundaries with news consumption, because when I got out of the news, I struggled with anxiety with panic attacks daily wasn't sleeping. I mean, I had a circadian rhythm disorder based upon my new schedule and other factors. And so for me, I had to create very specific guardrails for me to even consume news, I would say for a solid year and a half, almost two years. I did not look at news. I did not look at it. I did not read it. I did not watch it. That's for damn sure. And the reason for that is because it created this fight or flight response inside of me instinctively. I mean, the moment that I heard even like the opener for a newscast, my, my body responded and not a good way. And so in order for me to properly heal, I had to disassociate for quite some time. And, and a lot of people, you know, they lean on the argument of, well, we need to know what's going on. This is true. However, we have to be careful about what we need to claim that we need to know and for me, I had two years of just pouring into the people who were in front of my face, not the people who were across the world at that time, not the people who were across another state, not any people who are across this country, I focused on the people who were in front of me, because that's all that my body could handle. And let me tell you, sometimes, depending on where you are in your life, sometimes you need to go back to that, rather than to say, I need to be informed so I can serve the people. Why don't we ask the question, how can I serve here, because if we believe that we are meant to serve the people who are in our proximity, we're going to look at information differently, we're going to look to find things that help us best serve the people in front of us, versus feeling this sense of dread, because we never feel like we're measuring up to serve the people across the entire world. And I do want to echo especially for what's going on in the world right now. I think it is important to be educated, to have opportunities to critically think about different people's opinions and biases. But I also think it is really important that we create healthy boundaries right now, no matter what's going on in the world, with with the content that we consume. And as heartbreaking as as a lot of it can be the we will break ourselves by trying to absorb all of the content from other people. And you just have to be careful of that. You have to be careful of that. Yeah, that's so good. And such a great reminder, especially to kind of frame this conversation, because it's too much is at the end of the day. And you know, clearly our bodies and your body is a testament to that we're not created to be able to consume and hold all of that, that knowledge there. So I guess I would love to start by asking the question, what is strong journalism? In your mind? What does that look like? And what is a good representation of that? That's a great question. I love that you asked that question. I think more people should be asking that question, because then you can seek out what you hope to find in that. But I would say strong journalism is bringing the facts. And then knowing what your biases are, because we all have, we all have biases as to knowing what your biases are, and being able to write, regardless of those biases, to not allow the biases to interfere with the writing or to interfere with the story video story that you're creating. I think that's where a lot of a lot of times where we go awry is because we don't think we have biases, we don't want other people's biases. But we don't accept or acknowledge that we have biases of our selves and in our own body and in our thoughts and our beliefs. And so one of the biggest things when I was in Traverse City, when I was working in the news there, and I would create stories. The biggest thing that my news director challenged me with when I was creating the story arcs is, Courtney, you need to see both sides, where's the other side of this argument, whereas the other side of this opinion, and so when you're looking at information, as you as a consumer of news, you have to ask yourself, Are there two sides to this story? And are they communicating that within the text? Are they communicating that within this video that I'm seeing when you're able to actually see both sides and a single piece of content? That's where you find really uniqueness in in journalism that I think sometimes we can lose, it's easy for us to write commentary. Depending on what news outlet you are, it's very easy for us to go down to our our biases and our beliefs naturally. It's another for us to be able to say okay, regardless of that, regardless of that my beliefs, my biases, what are both sides to this to allow you as the viewer, you as the listener to make your own judgments based upon providing the facts from both sides of narrative? While Yeah, no, that is a lot. And I guess my follow up question to that would be, why does it seem so difficult? Or maybe this is the reason why it seems so difficult to get accurate information nowadays, because it seems to have a bias spin. Are those two correlated or are those separate issues? I would say? It's an interesting question, because I think even the humans that creates stories, humans create the stories. Yeah. So in order for us to find the truth or find the accurate or correct opinion. Oftentimes, we have to look through a lens of knowing that a real human being wrote that story and that human being has biases, because we are alive. And so when you look through that lens of anything that you ingest, you instantly walk in with with a critical mind and that's what you should be doing with news. You shouldn't if somebody is telling you, you need to take what I'm saying as fast and not challenging you to look to activate other possibilities of what could be if somebody's just saying you need to take this for what it is, that's not good journalism in the first place no journalist would ever say, Yeah, that sounds about right. Yeah. If somebody came up and said, This is what really happened, and you just go and write about it, that will be poor journalism, because you're not seeking out other primary sources to validate the story. So even as a creator of the content, or somebody who consumes the content, it's important for you to go in very critically, and to know that no matter what story is out there, there was a human who wrote it, and a human who reported on it, and giving people just reminding people of ourselves of people's humanity within that, you know, if you if you asked me, today, I want to change the way I consume news I typically watch, you can name it a very left or very right viewpoint of digesting news, what would I do if I want to change that there are some that are, that have been pretty good about just giving the facts. But even that, even I say, I'm gonna give you the names of the ones that I suggest. But again, it has to come through the filter of this is me, this has been what I've been taught about. unbiased, straight to the facts, news sources. And so you should never you should never just take someone's word for it, because they said it, no matter even who it is, you should go and and challenge it within yourself. And so the three that I would say, the Associated Press, the Associated Press is really great. We would always, most of our stories were expanded upon based upon the facts of the Associated Press. Associated Press is very good when it comes to breaking news. They're one of the first people to identify things that are going on across the country across the world. And again, they bring most oftentimes, from what I've experienced the facts, it's just how many people died. These are the people who were involved. Yeah. So on and so forth. Another one that I think is pretty good is Reuters, Reuters is good in that same lens of things. And then NPR, NPR is a solid one that a lot of people listen to. And some would challenge and say that it's super boring. But I think that's the interesting thing about it, you know, it is boring, but it's because we don't have a lot of the shock factors, within certain narratives that we're really accustomed to, and that I dare say some of us even want, and I think that's hard. I it's, it has to be said, but it's very hard for people to accept. Because we complain about it, we say we don't want the biases, we don't want other people's opinions, swaying our own decisions. But we desire those things, we pay attention to those things, or fear is a primitive response. And so our bodies will naturally deviate towards the thing that is the threats. Because we it's a fight or flight, it is a it's a means of survival. We've always been this way since the creation of human beings. And so when you actually go and try to get this information, your body's going to respond naturally to the doom and gloom, if it if we get a term that was used in the news was if it bleeds, it leads, meaning if it's tragic, if there's, if there's death, then it's going to be at the top of the newscast, it's going to be a lead story, because that's what people naturally go to in order to consume information. And, and it is not against the person. It's how we're wired. And I think it's important for us to identify here, if you're not evil, for naturally paying attention more to fearful news, it just reminds you of your humanity, and you were made to survive. And so your body was created by God in order to have a heightened understanding of fear. And so for us to be able to identify that and give ourselves Grace within that, but also challenge us to to reach outside of that challenge ourselves to to move outside of that because the threat is not as threatening these days. We don't have a bear that's chasing us. We don't have a lion that's growling at our faces. We have news that tells us what's important and what's not based upon, you know, our responses in our body. So I think that's where we have to challenge ourselves with that. Yeah, I would say if there's any threat, it's the lion is just the ping notifications happening all the time. Yeah. So Courtney, this is super insightful. And literally three questions in a row, you hit on with your answer. So thank you for doing my work for me. Listen, I can go on a tangent and I'm bad about that. I will admit it. Okay. I will admit my biases are just like talking and talking, I guess. hysterical, but I'm gonna go back to the sphere thing in a second. But what I found interesting is as you're talking about the bias that comes into it, I'm Hearing a parallel with scripture that comes alongside of it, because for both of us, Faith guides our steps. And in the same way, we bring our own worldview and perspectives, I think the Greek word for it is prolegomena. And we bring that into it. And so it's important for us to remember that and to surrender that whenever we're going into the Bible or spending time with God, because we want God to put us on that right path as to what he wants to reveal to us. And in the same way, I thought it was interesting, because I also see that parallel when it comes to just getting messages from sermons and pastors and their interpretations, instead of going back into scripture, yourself, and finding out the full context of it so that we have a deeper brevity and understanding of it all together. So I really appreciated that thought process that you gave there. So going back to fear, and this is this a real personal question I got for you. Yeah. Did you feel like when you were reporting that you were driving fear? That's a great question. No, I didn't. The reason for that is, I was so involved in it all the time. It was just what you did. It was just what you it's what you needed to know. She needed to know. And I love my friends in the news. I think what we what journalists do is so important, and it grieves me that there has been a change with the way that we see journalists, journalists risked their lives, literally risked their lives in order to bring clarity on a story or bring a story that can help impact and inform people. And so I think it's, it's, it's a double edged sword, yes, it can be very destructive. But also, we wouldn't be the society that we are in, in understanding of what's going on. If we didn't have the news. We didn't if we didn't have the news. And I think if we think about what we just need to get rid of the news, think about it, think about if we got rid of the news, just think like, for one moment, how much of your day is actually informed by information that people give you? You wouldn't know a lot of things you wouldn't know. I mean, even thinking about gas prices, you would have to go to a gas station and determine, oh, my god, the gas prices are going up, why you would have no idea you would have no idea. So I think in order for us to understand how to have a healthy relationship with the news, you have to you also have to give the news, its credit for what it does for you and your survival in this modern day and age. But in that, in that within that same lens, having to say, Okay, we also know what gets ratings. And it's and you have to be careful of that, too. Yeah, it's a both and it's a relationship that either way is not is not the full story. So that basically clears up any potential misunderstanding that people come into a news career to instill fear into people, no, oh, my gosh, I just want to, I just want to crush that right now. Because it's just it makes me so angry, that we don't know what we don't know. And, and I know these people, I know these journalists, and they pour their hearts and their souls into empowering and advocating for people. And that is why they get up at two in the morning to come in the majority. I mean, there's always going to be a bad egg and everything and no matter what it is. But yes, I will stand behind journalists and what they do, because I'm proud of what they do. I am one I will always be a journalist. And the things that empowered me to understand it, it really created this sense of desire to advocate truly for people and to know that you could move the needle in somebody's voice being heard, I remember this guy and this this guy in in Tampa Bay, he was getting scammed by this company and, and he kept trying to reach out and trying to reach out and this company was just taking advantage of him. And then our our investigative journalist went in talk to this company. And then the whole thing that the guy that was being taken advantage of was able to get compensation for what he rightfully deserved. And for me, it's like this is what we do like this is this is why we advocate for the individual. We advocate for people whose voices aren't able to be heard by hundreds or 1000s or millions of people. And, and that's what I really hoped that people would try to understand. as much as they can, without being in the news every single day getting to know these people, the majority of them are really passionate about doing good work that changes the community for the better. And that empowers and advocates for people whose voices typically are not able to be heard. Well, thank you for saying that, because I will be super transparent. I've never looked at journalists and news reporters that way. And that's very convicting. So thank you. I needed that. Yeah, sure. I'm sure a lot of other people listening did too. Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, it's it's important. It's, it's just as much as that's the first time being able to see it through the shoes of another person. We all have something that is similar in our lives, where we just don't have the understanding to to evoke empathy inside of ourselves. We haven't walked in their shoes. We haven't walked in your shoes. I'm sure it was stunts. I don't know. I don't know how that stuff works, you know. And in order for us to have a lot more compassion and empathy, it's challenging ourselves to say what what is it like in your shoes helped me understand. So that way I can form an accurate decision, opinion bias based on the information that is needed? Yeah, totally. Do you think we will ever know the full truth about any story or anything ever again, ever again? Makes it seem like we have known it before. True? True, I guess. I guess that was a biased question. My bad. Isn't that funny? No, no, I think it's, I think that's an interesting question. I think it's, that's, it's really hard to say, because, man, I mean, I could go into a whole list of even just like, what we genuinely Okay, here's an example. So it's been proven that long term memory, the things that we think are so crystal clear in our minds, it tends to change over the years and the decades what we really think happens, like we could imagine it like it is right there in front of my face. And there's a there's a whole there's a whole episode on Netflix have explained that talks about this. And but what we find is that through time, what we think is really true, actually didn't happen. And we believe it. Like we it's not like we're trying to be malicious and spread rumors and lies. Yeah. But it changes. And it's not just from a 10 year 20 year, timespan of a memory. It can be something that happened two days ago. And so the when knowing that other humans are involved in a story, I dare say, I don't know. I don't know. Like, what is the actual truth? You know, it's like, even if two people agree that something really happens, what if it actually didn't happen that way? Because their memories made it seem as though that was what was really happening. And they validated each other in it to create more confirmation of Yeah, so it's like, I mean, I could go into the whole like, Oh, is it real? The philosophical, but I mean, I think I hear your your question in the sense of integrity, right? Yeah. Integrity of of information, will we ever gain that back? And I mean, you can even look at scripture on integrity, we are fallible people. And until the world has been redeemed, I don't I don't necessarily think that that could happen. I don't. And our history has just proven that time and time and time and time and time and time and time again. And that's okay. It's so real to us. Because it's the only real we know, we only know for me 31 years of life, but this world has existed for 1000s of years. And it's so big to us right now, because it's what we know. But I think the more I've spread out, even understand, like what has happened, and going back to Scripture, or even going back a couple decades ago, just gives me more of a less prideful way of looking at my current situation. It's almost as if, when we, when we ask ourselves is ever going to be a certain way again, we've it in our minds, validated that there was a better way, and we know the right way, like we know the way so it's never gonna be that way again. And I think, um, I think it's just interesting to kind of look within ourselves to see oh, I didn't know that that existed in me or or I really think that there's a right way, I guess, because I'm saying that this is the wrong way. And so therefore, there is a right way and I know the right way, and I'm going to tell you when the right way is here, because it's not here right now. So I don't know. I don't know if that answers your question. But I just think it's a I think it's just an interesting concept to think about. I think that was so interesting, and that everything you said was so good. Because it really brings into this this whole concept right now. And this just I don't know why I get it. like to buy it. But I feel like this whole your truth, my truth movement. Oh playing into this, because we're changing the word opinion, to stand for truth. Yeah. And it's like that it's taking our opinions to like, this is the standard, nobody can push past it, nobody can come around it. And so this whole everything you're saying just this whole concept, we really have to be careful with how we are thinking about things and how we are holding what we are hearing and consuming. So I think that was so profound what you said, Yeah, girl, I mean, what you said, right there is the proof. Jordan Peterson talks about this a lot. The power of critical thinking is just like, like non existent right now. And a lot of people who critically think but it's super important, it is so important for us to allow other opinions into the narrative, we cannot just take our own, it is dangerous. And in order for us to eat, like we've never been created to just take our own beliefs, our own opinions, even the beliefs and the opinions that we have today have been based upon us listening to somebody else or something else. And we have accepted it as our own. And so in order for us to say, it stops here, what you're really communicating is, I don't want the truth. I don't want to be swayed. I just want to sit in my own biases. I want to sit here, I don't, I don't want anything else. I want this right here. That is what I want. And therefore it's my truth. So therefore, it's what's true, because that's what I believe is dangerous. We can't live in our own ideologies, we can't live in our own opinions alone. That's not how that's not how things move forward in life. That's not how we evolve as people. And certainly that's not the way that we're gonna be able to serve others, if we're just stuck in our own ideologies, and our own methodologies and our own beliefs and our own values. And we don't invite other peoples into our own narrative, we squash the opportunities to be able to empathize with people, we squash the opportunities to be able to show compassion to be moved to be compassionate towards other people, because we are right in our own minds. But I mean, we always think that scripture validates that and what is it Psalms, you think, every way a man's heart is right. And so the Lord weighs the motives of the heart, every man is right in his own mind, but the Lord weighs the motives of the heart. And we just have to be, we have to be careful of that we have to be careful to not just sit in our own biases, because we don't want other people's biases, because we, in even in a saying that we think that we don't have them. In order for us to think we don't want your biases. No, what you're really saying is I have my biases, I like them just fine. I don't want yours. So we have to just, we have to accept that we have to accept that we are those we are those people. And a lot of biases can be very good. They can they can keep us away from danger. You know, like, like, again, like a bear comes up to you. And it's growling and it has showing a teeth and then all of a sudden you start running away. What is it showing you it's showing you that your biases when a bear charges out me and shows its teeth, it's going to eat me or kill me. So I need to run? That's I'm pretty biased. It's a protection bias. Right? Bias. Yeah, you need those kinds of biases. If not like touching the stove, when the stove is red, because I haven't electric or electric one, when the stove is printed, it will burn me. You know, that is a pretty good bias to have. Because we're at that point, in fact happen. Where we fall into issues within that is when we have biases of of religion, or biases of gender or biases, of you name it, I mean, socio economic status, race, my goodness. And so we have to, we have to invite other narratives we need, we need them, we absolutely need them, because it challenges us to be critical thinkers. And it allows us to show the empathy and compassion that we so desperately desire to have. We all want to be empathetic and compassionate people. We don't necessarily always want to do the things in order for us to get it. Oh, yes to everything you said to branch off of that. I would first like to talk about signs that you are consuming and becoming enthralled by too much news. What would you say some of those are? Oh my goodness, a lack of sleep? What are the like, let's even talk about just like the physical things. You're anxious. You are angry. Oh, man. If you're just constantly angry, and you can't help but talk about in conversation to what's going on, and you name it. Oh my goodness, like 2020 just couldn't is a perfect example. You just really couldn't have conversations with people without them inserting their political beliefs. And when you it's one thing to have political beliefs, that's fine. We all should have beliefs. If not, then I'm concerned. But um To be lukewarm, and that I think is unwise as well. That's just my opinion. But if we don't know how to have conversations, when, without that, that is a huge sign of discomfort within yourself of being able to move through life without the audience of the news being in the narrative seat. So I would say, yeah, a big piece of if you can't help it, talk about it at all, you know, I would say that that's, that's a big red flag, and anxiety, depression, too. I mean, I am not a psychologist. But for me, from strictly experience, I was very depressed when I got out of the news. And it could be a lot of things from not being able to sleep to, you know, the news that I absorbed it, it just, it devastated me. And it felt like it was so it was so near, like, everything was so urgent, and so near. And I was paranoid and paranoia is another big one that I I suffered with that when we would cover shootings or car wrecks, or what have you, I literally was like, this is gonna happen to me like it was because it was just all that my world revolved around, it was what I knew. And so it's important, I think, if you if you're starting to feel that way of just like, always looking and just little little shaky, to look at that. But anxiety is one of the biggest ones. I mean, like being constantly in fear and dread, oh, a worse, you can really start to dictate. Okay, what am I consuming in order for me to think that that or believe that? So, yeah, I would say that those are some of the bigger ones. Well, yeah, those are great. And so I guess on the opposite hand, how can we have that healthy relationship, which I'm sure will unfold into creating those healthy boundaries as well? Yeah, um, you know, here are five things that I did. When I got to the news, in order for me to release myself from the addiction that it was for me. I mentioned that I didn't watch the news at all, for roughly a year and a half, two years. And can somebody do that if you're able to do that in your life, and you're just like, I'm just not going to engage in this, honestly. I mean, do you I think if, if it's, if it's not keeping you from your everyday life and movements, then maybe that's something to consider. But one of the things that I did, as I started, going back into the exploration of seeing what in the world is going on out there was already deciding one, what I was not going to engage with what topics I was not even going to see. And you have like, you have to do this, you have to know the things that trigger you. And so, for me, I have, like two things that, that I won't share them here I have two topics that I literally, like, even in my body right now, like I cannot even look at, because it gets me in this state of just frustration. And, and so if you don't create those boundaries ahead of time, then you will instantly you're gonna see that headline, and you're gonna be like, Ah, see, the worse, you're gonna click on it, and then you're just gonna engage with it, and then you're gonna be pissed. And then you might even post about it. Oh, my goodness. So in order for you to not get to this place of frantic frustration, or sadness, it's important for you to say these conversations, no matter what's happening in the feed, I control what I consume. So even though the news is telling me or whoever's telling me I need to consume this, I've already predetermined what I will consume, and it is not this. So I'm gonna keep scrolling. So number one is that another thing that is, is, I think really healthy for people. We struggle with this because you can already do this on your phone, but is creating a timer. If you are somebody who is a news junkie, and you like it, and you're like, it doesn't really affect me, but I'm on it way too much. Then create a timer. You set a timer for whatever, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, you name it, whatever, whatever is best for you. And then when the timer goes off, you stop you don't you don't if you don't if your mid article, shut it down. It's gonna be there tomorrow. Trust me, it's always there. The news never dies. It's a 24 hour news cycle. You ain't gonna miss it. And even if you did, you can always go back to it because we aren't living in 1950 where the news cycle came on at six o'clock at night and that's it. And it's not that way you can consume it anytime anytime. So it's it's the moment that I think we we get ourselves into a corner is when we think that it's urgent, because it will go away when it's never gonna go away. Like we just might not miss the trend or we might miss the trend of what everyone's talking about. My goodness. I mean, example being the Oscars. Oh my head avance that whole situation, right? Yes. And so for anybody else who maybe didn't watch it or wasn't on social media, they felt what the next day left out, because my buddy and the mothers were talking about this news worthy conversation. And so setting those parameters, knowing it's always going to be there, it's always going to be there for you, whenever you wake up, or whenever you go to sleep, it will be there right there waiting for you. And then it it for somebody who is interested in having a day off from it, I would, I would already determined that I something that I love to do. And now it's like, it's so funny. I don't even practice this, because I'm just not in the news as much. I'm just not consuming it. I've created such healthier habits with it. But in the beginning, I would if it was Sunday, or a certain day of the week, it's no news day, you don't open your phone to see news. If you do it in a new source that you follow. Post something, then you you have this in your mind, Oh, nope, today's not a news day, we're not going there, we're not going. And that's important to create that muscle that habit in order for you to be able to say, Oh, I don't even think about it, I don't have like a no news day, because oftentimes, I'm not really just sitting looking at it anymore. And that's ideally where you were, I would hope people would want to be is having a better healthy understanding of even how much you consume. And then, you know, you mentioned this, though, turning off the notifications on your phone. Like, when I was in the news, I had every news outlet pinging me, like when anything happened, I was like Bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, and like, always in my head was like, This is so urgent, it's urgent, if you deem it urgent, if it's something is not happening, right in your proximity, I think some would maybe challenge to say if it is, in fact, urgent, I won't be the determiner of that. But I taking off those notifications immediately. Like, literally, you don't need them, they're just take them off, take off the news notifications, you don't need to be pinged by any of your local news outlets, or national outlets, I promise you, it's gonna be there, somebody's gonna tell you about it, even if not. And then the last thing I would say in this is if you have, once you set all these boundaries, then stick to them, stick to them. And this is the biggest part of those boundaries, disengage with conversations that violate those boundaries. Again, I go back to 2020. And everything that was happening within the political campaign and all that I didn't talk about it, if a conversation started, I would either say I'm not gonna, I'm not going there, I'm just not going there. I just can't, I cannot, I cannot do it. Or if they didn't, I would end I would end the conversation. It was just, it was just that plain and simple. And so it, it's gonna be tough for people to do that. Because a lot of times we think about the family or the friends or, you know, whatever, that we're really close to, I mean, some people, you know, I've had to separate even just our friendships due to the fact of just the the lack of understanding of how poisonous opinions about news can really be and how destructive and damaging it can be. And so, stick to those boundaries, whatever boundaries that you make you, you are in your full rights, to stand by them to stand true to them, in order for you to have the peace, the peace that surpasses all understanding within you. You need to you need to show up the best that you can for yourself and the people around you. And whatever that takes in order for you to do it, I would challenge you to say, you might need to do it. And so for me, like certain topics, I know I'm not a good, I'm not in a good place. If I if I go down a rabbit trail, and then I'm really moody for my husband, or then I'm really annoying for my co workers. It's just not worth it. I want to show up for them. I want to show up for them the right way. I love that. So let's just say somebody's been listening to this conversation. And they're like, oh, you know what? I have created this echo chamber. I've definitely been like biased in my thinking and everything. What would you say to this person when it comes to a first step that they can take to get out of that? And begin to think critically about these topics? Oh, that is such a good question. So I love all your questions. I think they're really they're really great. Yes, yes, it's yes, a first realistic step. I would say even like round zero is one understanding what biases are. So if you're like, Okay, I need to start from ground zero, like how can I long goal, the long term goal is to be able to look at things critically, but you need to take a couple steps back in order for you to to look at things critically, you need to see what the sides of the opinion are. And you need to understand where they're coming from in order for you to create a full picture of whether you disbelieve or believe something. So I would say go to Ground Zero and learn Learn about biases, learn that there are some that are very good, learn that there are some that are very bad. And then once you do understanding, then what biases do I have? What are the ones that just exist inside of me, I'll give an example of even just an implicit bias, meaning one that you don't even know like in your subconscious, and I would say, like, even going through your day, a 24 hour day, and just noticing what you do, the movements that you do, the decisions that you make the actions that you do, here's an example. Say somebody comes on a bus, and you're sitting in your seat, and there's a seat open next to you. And then this guy really dressed nice, looks like he has a lot of money, he comes on the bus and you just look at him, and he goes and sits somewhere in the back behind you wherever. And then another person comes on, and this person is not dressed very well. They might be having some experiencing homelessness, they don't smell the best. And then without you even thinking about it, you just put your your person in your seat, what are you doing in that moment you are communicating that I have a bias that allows me to determine who's okay to sit next to me? And you wouldn't if somebody said, Hey, do you have issues with people who don't make as much money? Or maybe you look like they're experiencing homelessness? What would you say? No, no? No, of course, are you kidding me. But our actions are what determine that. And so I would take it down to that level of really exploring and listening to you like how you move through life naturally, to then be able to articulate what your biases are. So therefore, you can then invite other biases, opinions into the narrative, and you can weigh the things that you want to believe the things you don't want to believe. And then even the things you don't want to believe, challenging yourself to ask, why don't I want to believe them? Is it just because of my biases? Or is it because of another reason or because it's actually not true? That's where you have to get to in that in that lens. When you start to look through and sift through information, you should be already starting to incorporate say, Okay, I have a bias on this. Oh, my gosh, okay. Oh, well, that person probably experienced bias with this. Okay, that information, knowing my bias is this. Is this the reason why I'm not accepting this information? Is it because of my own bias? Or is it because it's actually true? We have to, I think it's important for us to get to that level of self self understanding, in order for us to have a really clear picture of the decisions that we make the beliefs that we accept the opinions that we throw to the curb, or accept as our own. I think that was absolute gold there and your goals. So I'll stop with you. And I want to go back to this part now, because you said at the beginning, I'm not sure how much we actually really need to know, at the end of the day. So now I'm going to flip this on you and ask you, what would you say that we need to know when it comes to the news? Oh, wow. This can be something that a lot of people, I'll just say, this is one person's opinion, this is not fact. I can't help the journalist inside of me. I'm just like, I just want to preface this before I say this is one woman's opinion, okay, I'll say where I'm at with my life. And what I think it's important to know, if you are so involved with things that are happening far, far, far, far, far away from you. But you don't know what's happening in your own community. You're missing it. So yeah, as good as it is to care about the people who are outside of our reach, and to invest. And whether it's helping with a relief that's happening in Ukraine. Whatever that looks like, those are good and holy things. Oh, my gosh, I can't stress the I, I just I love seeing humanity and at its finest in that. However, if you couldn't care less about the person you sit next to every single day at work, then we've got we've got a heart issue, we've got a heart issue that we need to know. So when it comes to the news and what you ingest, I would say even going back to your local news, if you're looking at information, you're like, how can I serve my community? Local news stations, a lot of times they're doing cool stuff like they're out in the community, like listening to the people. I think it's so important for us to maybe start to look at the things of what information is out there that could help me better serve the people who I'm in proximity with every single day. And then what can I do with that information to then reinforce and help the people who are in my proximity every single day? Yeah. That's so good. Courtney, this has been a fascinating and very insightful conversation and very convicting as well. And so I guess I just kind of want to end it by asking you Was there anything that we didn't talk about, that you want to talk about? No, I think you I mean, you killed it. And it was it was, it was a really great conversation. So I just I'm so appreciative of you, and I love your heart to invite me into this space to be able to have these hard conversations because it's hard. It's hard. They're they're really hard. But they're fruitful. And they're worth it. And yeah, I'm just really proud of you for that. So thank you so much for allowing me to come on here and chat with you. Oh, my gosh, The pleasure was all mine. And, and that's the thing, right is if if we're able to break down walls, and in turn build relational wealth, because we're able to see people for who they really are, then it's all worth it at the end of the day, because we can be the people that show up for other people. So I just really appreciate all the wisdom you brought and girl. I love you. Thanks for being part of the accidentally intentional podcast