90 days

TV has always been MY thing……. 

Even though we don’t have cable I find ways to make TV shows my thing……. HULU, Netflix, different season of shows I own on DVD. I ALWAYS watch TV.

I’m in this Women’s study on Monday nights and it gave us a challenge to give up the thing that was “your idol” for 90 days. For me I was able to identify that it was TV.

Now you may be thinking like I have done many times…. TV isn’t an idol…. It’s just a way to relax. But the thing is……… it is for me. You can call it an Idol, a negative coping mechanism, whatever. For me I know my interaction with TV SCREAMS unhealthy.

If I’m having a bad day I go to TV instead of praying about it or giving it up to God.

If I’m bored I go watch TV not go do something productive.

In the mornings when I have extra time because I’ve woken up early I watch TV not go read my Bible.

After a long day when I get home with Jon I watch TV not clean the house together or go for a walk together or read together or play music together.

TV has been robing me of things I want in my life. But it’s not TV it’s because of my own doing.

And even worse I’m turning to TV to cope. Coping is defined in psychological terms as "constantly changing cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage specific external and/or internal demands that are appraised as taxing". Basically what this is saying is that I’m trying to cover up what I’m feel when I cope. The external and internal stuff is too “taxing” so instead I’ll change my thinking onto something else. This is not healthy……... Bottom line.

So I’ve chosen to stop watching TV for 90 days. I could have picked something easier or said “Ok so I wont watch TV on Thursdays” but I know that TV is my issue. I know that I want to change my relationship with TV. My hope is that after 90 days I wont call in sick at work and binge on TV for days but that my relationship with TV will have changed dramatically. I know that this will be hard…. I’m only on day 3 and I already want to jump on HULU to see what I have on my queue. When someone I know fasted from their coping of choice for 90 days they actually went through some pretty weird withdrawals. Halfway into the process they woke up feeling intense anxiety that they had been masking with coping in unhealthy ways for years and years.

So stay tuned for, I’m sure, lots of crazy posts about all the extra things I’m able to do with all my extra time.