We are mid way through May and Mental Health Awareness month. I am grateful that there is an entire month devoted to bringing awareness to our mental health and its implications in our lives, especially when things are out of balance. The focus on mental health, not just in May but the remaining months of the year should emphasize that none of us are alone in the challenges we’re facing. Everyone, every day, is going through something that we may or may not choose to share with the world. Sometimes we get very wrapped up in our own problems and we don’t take the time to look around to see what others are going through. Or sometimes we are barely hanging on to a thread with our own issues, so taking on someone else’s struggle seems far too much to grasp. That’s okay….we are only human and each of us are doing the best we can. It is not our responsibility to take on anyone else’s problems on top of our own. But we can be a support system for each other, and let others who are dealing with issues know we are there for them, and hopefully they will return the sentiment. Perhaps the shared struggles may help to form a bond that allows both parties to forge ahead through the tough times, rather than something that creates a divide as each person feels they carrying their burdens alone because no one else understands.
Every year my friends and I get together for our annual summer outing. It is an entire day, starting with breakfast, then onto the adventure that one of us planned, and then back to my friend’s house in the early afternoon for appetizers and drinks followed by dinner. It is a fun day, albeit long, and one that I look forward to every year. One day a few years back, I was really struggling with a relationship issue, so I wasn’t feeling my usual jovial self. However, I did not want to bring the mood of the day down, so I tucked the sadness down deep and put on a happy face and went about the day. It helped to take my mind off everything. Later that night after dinner, I found out that one of my friends was also dealing with a personal issue, but she too had tucked it away for the day but finally ended up talking about it at the end of the night, after a few drinks, which often acts as a truth serum allowing us to let down our defenses. Her discussion of her problems resulted in tears for herself and empathy from the rest of us as we listened to her story and felt her pain. As I drove home a while later, I started thinking about how each of us was in pain, and even while spending the day together we had no idea what the other was struggling with. In this same book, Scatter Seeds of Kindness, there is a poem called “The Storm Inside,” which is about how everyone is dealing with some kind of issue, and some people show it all over their face, while most of us tuck it away and go about the day as if nothing is amiss. Neither way is right or wrong in my opinion. We each just have different ways of dealing with discomfort and choosing what we will share with the world, or each other.
So, if we are all comrades in suffering, shouldn’t we be banding together and rooting for the same team, cheering each other on toward peace and happiness? Instead for the most part, as a society we remain so divided. This is not always the case, as I have seen many people come together during times of tragedy by starting GoFundMe pages, or various other fundraisers to help families impacted by misfortune. In recent years, areas close to my town were impacted by tornadoes and neighbors came out in droves to help each other, and it was wonderful to see good coming from bad. But in many instances, pain creates gaps and distances as many people sink into themselves like a turtle into its shell when danger is near. I feel like we still focus so much on our differences, rather than our similarities. There could be two people fighting the same illness, sitting in a doctor’s waiting room, seeking the same treatment. If there is a television on and it happens to be on a political channel, if these two people sitting in this same room are on opposite sides, those opposing views will become their focus, not the illness they share. I think that is just human nature. If ten people say nice things about a person, but one person says something negative or unkind, what will be stuck inside the person’s head? I am guessing it will be the off-putting comment, as the negative always seems to win out. I am not sure why we embrace the negative and let it consume the good and positive things all around us. Here is a good example of that…
Have you ever heard the Native American parable of the story of the two wolves? In this story an older Cherokee Indian is teaching his grandson about life and the struggles within. He explains that a fight is going on inside of him, and the fight is between two wolves. One of the wolves is evil; full of anger, resentment, greed, among many other ugly characteristics. The other wolf is good; full of peace, love, hope, joy, compassion, humility, and the list of positive attributes goes on and on. The elder Cherokee explains to the boy that this same fight is going on within every person. After giving it some thought, the boy asks which wolf will win. The Cherokee responded simply, “The one you feed.”
Like that wolf in the Indian parable, we continue to feed the negative and it continues to grow. We should not give it that power. What if we were all just a little more patient with each other, and extended that grace and kindness as I mentioned before? What if we tried to build bridges rather than watching them burn all around us?
As a wise man named John Lennon once said “Imagine …”
Every Day
Every day a new heart breaks.
Somebody sheds a tear.
Someone looks down the barrel of a gun
And contemplates why they’re here.
Every day someone fights to survive
As someone loses the fight to live.
Every day someone just takes and takes,
While others try so hard to give.
Millions of people hurt every day
As they try to hold onto their pride.
Millions of tears fall every day
As someone quietly dies inside.
Every day someone struggles with life.
No one, it seems, is immune.
Some people tuck the pain deep down inside
While others display in full bloom.
Every day millions of people pray
For the solace that they seek.
With so many people in such desperation,
Is our own pain all that unique?
If we are all comrades in pain
With the demons that live inside us,
Shouldn’t we all band together as one?
Instead we let difference divide us.
Millions of people hurt every day
In ways they cannot define.
Millions of tears fall every day.
Today those tears are mine.
I wonder if I am selfish,
Focusing on my own grief;
But I look around at the world at large,
And pray that we all find relief.
-K.A. Bloch-
