Your Presence Is Not Optional
According to the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, an average of 130 citizens within the American family die by suicide every day. Wednesday, we all learned in disbelief that Stephen "tWitch" Boss, a bright light in our culture, was among that average.
While our thoughts and prayers go out to the friends and families who must mourn and begin the journey to heal from such tragedy, how will we that remain bring this illusive criminal of suicide to justice?
I am not an expert in this arena, so I will not attempt to speak on this from a scientific point of view. But what I do know is that we must secure and anchor ourselves in LOVE to stand a fighting chance in these unprecedented times! This includes: God’s Love…our family’s Love…our friend’s Love and above all…Love of Self!
Love of Self…this is the nail I want to hit on the head. We do not spend enough time here, do we? Well, I happen to know personally that the presence (or absence) of Self-Love is one of the crucial factors considered when deciding to go on with life or to end it all.
Over the years, I have learned that Love of Self is not automatic. Love of Self has to be learned, perceived and comprehended. It will require a studying of our personal inventory which includes our gifts, callings, talents, strengths, fearlessness, as well as our fears, weaknesses, threats and areas of opportunity.
No one else can do this work for us. We have sole ownership in discovering that we are predestined treasures given to this generation to address a particular problem that will go unresolved without us. And if no one ever told us, there is nothing that we have encountered that will pardon us from fulfilling the purpose we were sent into the world to accomplish.
Did you catch that?! We are SENT into this world!
Leaders, hear me with your hearts and not with just your heads! We are living in a painful era in our history and we each have a mandate to use the gifts invested in us to reduce the inflammation of our society's woes. This is not the time for us to go missing. So, what do we do? Here are a few things that come that come to mind:
Let us be proactive in rooting and grounding ourselves in the effective power of Love to hold us steady when things get ugly!
Let us lean hard upon Love’s authentic wherewithal to bear our most intense realities and arrest our private thoughts to do yourself or others harm.
Let us become solely dependent upon Love's intelligence and wise counsel to produce beautiful solutions to meet every one of our situations.
Let us turn on Love's light internally to discover why we are perfectly formed and selected to shine most bright in our assigned spheres of influence—imperfections and all!
Above all, when we come face to face with the decision to live on or end it all, we will not make this decision alone. Let us call someone we trust or immediately call, text or visit 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline to inform us of great possibilities (https://988lifeline.org).
So, wrap this around your heads and your children's heads…our ecosystem CANNOT work without you! You are necessary! Your presence is not optional!
Here’s to the journey! Let’s move forward!
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