“How to Deal With All The News,” a handout put together by the hard-working North Fork Action Center team, includes useful info for when your head is spinning from the daily barrage of “Breaking News” and offers hints on how to fact-check everything. If you can’t find it on one of the two tables by the entry table contact me and I’ll send you one.

Don’t allow the algorithms to drag you down the rabbit hole of what they want you to see and hear.  Bypass the first things that pop up when you search so you aren’t getting your news from just one side. Change the channel, click on a different app, or turn the page! Watch, listen to or read local news media and subscribe. Be mindful that AI is becoming increasingly capable of
deception and double-check sources of information.

When feeling overwhelmed, anxious, or “crazed,” I remind myself to pause; do some deep breathing to ground myself in the moment; non-judgmentally check into what’s happening (externally AND internally); and, intentionally choose my next step.

Used in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) to manage high-stress situations, the easy-to-remember shorthand version is S.T.O.P. STOP and freeze-frame the moment. TAKE deliberate breaths to calm down. OBSERVE and non-judgmentally focus on the environment around and internal feelings and thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations. PROCEED/PULL back with intention to move forward or find another way. This brief reset can also be used during intense conversations.

A less scientific method is The Serenity Prayer, which was written in the late 1930s – early 1940s, by either Winnefred Crane Wygal or Reinhold Niebuhr. Regardless of which of these American theologians “spread the word” no one can argue that those were turbulent times and a version of that prayer has been used by the faithful, agnostics and atheists alike around the world.

Check out The North Fork Action Center’s website northforkaction.net for types of social actions you can take, events you can support or participate in, and truthful information about issues that matter. We cannot be swept aside by constant media stunts and distractions meant to discourage, frighten, intimidate, wear us out and bring us to exhaustion. We cannot control the media, but we can control our response to it. No one of us can change the world but every one of us can make a difference by taking one step, one action toward changing someone else’s world for the better. Pick an issue – there is more than enough work than any one of us can handle but together all those ONES add up.

In “Keeping Our Connections Strong,” Rev. Sean Parker Dennis wrote, “The message of hope that still blazes bright for me in these hard times is that I am not alone. I don’t have to face the world alone and I don’t have to fix the world alone. When I need hope, I find it in the faces of my people.” She finished with these words from the song, “Rise Up” by Andra Day, (you might enjoy listening to it in its entirety on YouTube):

“All we need, all we need is hope…
And for that we have each other…
And we’ll rise up, rise like waves
We’ll rise up in spite of the ache
We’ll rise up…and we’ll do it a thousand times again.”

The next meeting of SAC / 8th Principle Task Force will be held Wednesday, April 8, 2026, from 4-5pm, in the small gathering space, OR via Zoom link emailed prior to the meeting. Let us Come Together in Love and Generosity toward ALL our neighbors,

Patte McManus (631)997-9405 pattemcgoo@yahoo.com