A World In Crisis - World Mental Health Day

If you live on planet earth and are blessed enough to have access to the internet and television, you've undoubtedly heard about the recent events in Florida, Texas, Puerto Rico, California, Washington and Nevada, as well other countries around the world. I'd like to start by saying that my thoughts and prayers are with all who were affected, as well as all who lost their lives. As hard as these times are, it forces us to think of our fellow Americans and not so much of ourselves and our own personal crisis'. To me, any crisis' boil down to two things; spirituality and mental health. 

In my reflections of everything going on in the world today, I was thinking of what we all can do for victims of the natural disasters, tragedies like the shooting, hurricanes, fires and the drug crisis, which always seems to be pushed aside. Aside from practical ways like donating money, I can only come up with one answer that pertains perfectly to all of these instances and that is to increase mental health awareness and look at things on a spiritual level. Think about it, when you're going through any type of tragic event, often times you need some form of therapy to deal with it, when you're in an addiction or the loved one of an addict you also need some type of therapy to deal with it. Often times tragedy is the beginning of an addiction. You also need to look at why it may be happening from a spiritual level and turn to the God of your own understanding.

Media polarizes everything and it often baffles me that addiction isn't usually what they try to spin...they just don't cover it often at all. On one hand, that lessens the amount of people demonizing the addict (enough people do already though) yet on the other hand it creates an out of sight, out of mind mentality around the subject of addiction altogether. The same can even be said for people who weren't directly affected by the shootings and natural disasters. I'm not sure I'd have the sympathy I do for people that are hit by natural disasters if I hadn't almost lost my life and my family's life in Hurricane Sandy. That sounds bad, but it is definitely true that you have to go through something yourself to truly understand or relate. It doesn't make anyone a bad person for not being affected as much by certain things.

So how do we stop these tragedies from happening? First, we define what we can and cannot change. Often times, we think that we or the government can or should have too much control and, when we don't, it can get frustrating. So what CAN we do? We can start by taking personal responsibility, having self control and control over our own mental health. It is not guns that kill people, in my opinion. It is the person behind that gun or guns...or bombs, knives, fists or what have you. We need to gain control over our emotions, learn to process what's going on in our lives that affects us deeply and move past it in a much healthier way. Healthy coping mechanisms are KEY to ALL of this. In my opinion, it will be what finally unifies us.