Emotional wounds are not the same as physical wounds.

My body is scarred with physical wounds. I played squash for 15 years. Every muscle, ligament, and bone was torn or sprained at some point. The family doctor and the physiotherapist told me to give it up and focus on swimming and walking. I have cuts, bruises, and gashes all over my body from years of being a boxer, playing soccer, and playing pranks. All the physical wounds have healed.

Emotional wounds, on the other hand, are a whole different story.

Emotional wounds can result from watching a crime, bankruptcy, unwanted pregnancy, divorce, car accident, emotional, spiritual, mental, and physical abuse, death of a loved one, or any traumatic situation.  The symptoms are a change in personality, lack of joy, lack of interest in life, loneliness, anger, resentment, bitterness, depression, and anxiety.

You have to become intentional in healing these wounds by assessing them, cleaning them, stitching them, bandaging them and taking care of them, and being aware of trigger points.

I am super excited to present Lesa Henderson to my readers.

Lesa Henderson is a dynamic, candid, inspirational speaker, minister, author, and filmmaker.

Her transparency and straightforward approach coupled with prophetic insight place her in great demand for conferences and churches.

Her passion for Christ and desire to see wounded women restored and healed through the power and love of God comes across in her books, blogs, sermons, and teaching. It has also led her to minister healing for soul wounds & emotional trauma of women in prison, as well as to lead Women Warriors of God Conferences around the nation; where she and the Warrior’s team are seeing countless women set free both physically and emotionally.

Lesa and her husband, Ken are revivalists who pastor Salt Life Church on Merritt Island, FL, where they also lead Cornerstone Global Ministries & Media and are the founders of Cornerstone School of Supernatural Ministry.

Lesa, a pleasure to have you. There is so much I want to ask you. Let’s start by talking about Christmas. I am a big fan of focusing on His Presence rather than presents. How is Christmas relevant to us in the 21st Century? 

I’m a big fan of focusing on that as well.  We live in such a commercialized, material world that it’s easy to lose that focus and get caught up in the shopping, spending madness.  This year we are celebrating Hannukah as well as Christmas, each night we light a candle we focus on inviting Christ – the light of the world to be a light in our home and lives.   Whatever you celebrate, it’s relevant when you make the focus be on Christ.  Especially now in this economy and the times we are living in.  It’s actually more relevant than ever I believe as we approach His soon return.

The world is hurting. COVID 19 has exacerbated the situation. You talk about giving your hurts, pains, and brokenness to God. Walk me through this process? Should I just read my Bible, trust God and pray about it? 

Yes.  It is that simple.  And yet as simple as this is – we struggle doing it.  Or at least I do.  It’s much easier for me to worry, fret and lose sleep over the hurts and pains.   But God really does want us to bring them to Him.  And reading the Word is one of the key steps in the process for me.  It reminds me of the truth – His Word is truth.  It helps me to overcome the fear and lies I am believing.  It reminds me of His faithfulness.  In my prayer time, I’m very honest with God – He knows anyway, so for example I may say, “Father I’m feeling right now like you don’t hear me or care about ________,  but I know that’s not true.  Your word says ______, Help me to stand on that and trust you.  Help my unbelief and rest in your promise and faithfulness.”  I may have to do this repetitively until I find peace or the problem is solved.

As I get older, I am learning to embrace pain, suffering, and disappointment. It is hard but important. As I read your blog and book, listen to your sermons and teaching, your DNA is all about helping wounded women through the love of God. Where do the wounds come from and how does His love restore women?

Wounds come from many areas, childhood traumas, broken relationships, marriage, even church.  But what I’ve found through ministering to thousands of women is that almost all wounds begin in our childhood.  The enemy starts early with his attack on us and he knows if he can plant lies in our mind about who we are (our identity) or about what we believe about our heavenly father we will carry those lies with us into relationships and they will hinder our walk with God.  But the Love of God is so powerful.  When we have a full revelation of the Father’s love for us, of how much He really is a good, good father it changes us.  It heals us.  I do a teaching on how daddy wounds from our childhood affect our relationship with God and the ability to believe how deeply He loves us and accept that love.

Give my female audience practical tips on motherhood and being a wife?

First, know or learn your worth as a daughter of the king. This will translate to how you treat your children and husband and how you expect to be treated.  Keep your relationship with God first, your husband next, and then your children.  Give yourself grace. You’re not perfect and you’re not going to be. When you make mistakes with your children ( and you will) admit it to them and ask their forgiveness.  This will not make you look small in their eyes – the contrary is true.  Honor your husband.  Honor and respect are very important to men.  Don’t take yourself so seriously.  Time spent with your husband and kids is far more important than the things you buy them or how clean your house is. I could go on and on…not from a seat of expertise but from one of failures and wisdom gained.

My daughter will be turning 18 very soon. She comes to you for dating advice. Help me understand what you will tell her and why? And please include dating advice for women in their 20’s, 30’s and 40’s?

I would tell your daughter something I said earlier, “Know or discover your worth as a daughter of the King.  Don’t date anyone who doesn’t also see that and treat you accordingly.”  Don’t go looking for a date but let God bring Him to you.   And here’s something I recommend to all women dating – get inner healing (healing for soul wounds or childhood trauma).  This will help you make better decisions on who to date and will help prevent you from dating or marrying the same mistake in different skin over and over again.  Let the Holy Spirit lead you.

You were the producer, executive producer, and director of Hope Has A Name. What is it about? Why should we watch it? And please give my audience hope for 2022?

Hope Has A Name is an award-winning documentary about women around the world bringing extraordinary hope in unlikely places.  They are hidden heroes, not doing what they do not for a platform or platitudes but simply to bring hope to the hopeless through the love of God.  There are some pretty amazing women including Heidi Baker featured in the film.  And we are honored to have the endorsement of Lisa Bevere. Watch it and it will encourage you to stop making excuses and do something! It’s available on Amazon Prime and Tubi and many other outlets.

The Hope for 2022 is Jesus.  His name is the hope of the nations.  Jesus Is King.  He is still on the throne and heaven has not been taken over by Hell.  Our trust and confidence must remain in Him.  No matter what is yet to come, He will take us through. He is a sure foundation.

Help me understand the premise of your book Someone To Trust. Is there really such a thing as romance? Or it was created in the liberal halls of Hollywood with unrealistic expectations?

Someone To Trust is a Christian Contemporary romance based around finding love and forgiveness after betrayal.  The Heroine, Megan has been betrayed twice in her life, by the men she loved.  She has been presented the opportunity to love again, but she first has to get past her mistrust of men, find forgiveness for them and herself.  And,  most importantly accept the love and grace of her Heavenly father offers.  Someone To Trust is now available both in print and Kindle Unlimited.

I want to ask you about how do you balance being an author, filmmaker, wife, mother, speaking at conferences, and taking care of the women in your congregation?

Hah!  Good question,  when I figure that out, I’ll get back to you.  Just kidding, sort of.  It’s often a juggling event and I often end up dropping the ball.  I have to really pray and seek guidance as to what my focus needs to be on the most in the season.  It is also about stopping for the one.  The one in front of you, I try to practice that.  This enables me to help the women in my congregation who are needing my attention.   Two things that help me balance is keeping my relationship and personal time with God a priority!  If that is comprised, everything else is and I’m a mess.  The second is keeping my family a priority above all the other endeavors.  His grace is truly sufficient and I find His strength really is made perfect in my weakness.

The post Healing Emotional Wounds appeared first on Four Columns of a Balanced Life.

We all need healing.

Every human being you come across is hurting. We all have to face trauma, loneliness, abandonment, grief, loss, divorce, death, sadness, struggles, and the challenges of life. As a result, we all have stuff hidden in the closet. Those who deal with it come out ahead and experience healing. Those who keep it inside to fester and rot. The results are not very good.

Four Columns has spoken to Hannah Siller, Sara Felushko, Brenda, Valerie Fitzpatrick, Tara Lalonde, and various other professionals who talk about dealing with issues that afflict our lives.

We focus so much on our physical, spiritual, and financial health. However, we ignore our mental health. Thrive, empower yourself, and get help.

I talk to Mary Beth, who is a Licensed Professional Counselor, who talks about the ‘not good enough’ stuff in our lives that we stuff and never deal with it.

Mary Beth, a privilege to have a Licensed Professional Counselor at Four Columns. I want to know something important about you.

Thank you for this opportunity! As a Licensed Professional Counselor, I have also done my own work in therapy. It’s incredibly important for ALL therapists to have gone to therapy and worked on their own struggles because we ALL have them. For me, I struggled for years with depression, anxiety, and a lot of trauma I never dealt with from childhood. I thought that I would never be able to heal. 

Fortunately, I was in a life-threatening car wreck that gave me a “real” reason, in the eyes of society and mine at the time, to go to therapy. I used the word “fortunately” because if not for my wreck, I probably wouldn’t have begun my own healing journey in therapy. 

It forced me to look at all of my “stuff” that caused such pain throughout my entire life. I then learned that it was actually possible to heal, have a peaceful life and love myself. After that, I decided to go to graduate school while I was physically unable to work. My healing showed me what I wanted to do with the rest of my life and that is to help others on their healing journeys. 

I have heard about hiding stuff in the closet. I like your phrase about not good enough stuff. Tell me a little more? 

As I begin my own healing journey, I realized that a lot of my emotional struggles were a result of never feeling good enough. As a psychotherapist, I began noticing the root of almost every client’s emotional pain came from that same “not good enough” feeling. 

One day I was in a session with a client and the words, “you’re not good enough stuff” just fell out of my mouth. My client knew exactly what I was referring to. Now, I use that phrase with every client I work with and they immediately know what I am referring to. 

To get a visual of what I mean with Not Good Enough Stuff, imagine a character opposite of Santa Claus. That character dumped a bag of all your fears, negative thoughts, sadness, shame, and repressed feelings down a chimney that then becomes forever attached to you. That bag is your Not Good Enough Stuff. We all have Not Good Enough Stuff and we can all learn how to heal it. That’s why my blog is called Not Good Enough Stuff. 

Many of us carry hurts, scars, bruises, anger, resentment, and bitterness for years and never deal with it. Help me understand what that does to you when you do not deal with it vs dealing with it? 

Yes, we sure do! When we don’t deal with any of that in a healthy way, our pile of Not Good Enough Stuff gets bigger and bigger. That spills over into every single aspect of our lives, resulting in depression, anxiety, difficulties in relationships, self-esteem and so much more.

It leaves us feeling like we are so screwed up or broken, but nobody is EVER broken. We simply get lost from our true soul identities and decided our emotional pain was our identity, but that is NEVER the case. Looking at that hurt allows us to return to who we truly are, removed from our bad experiences. 

Why do we humans struggle so much with ‘am I good enough’. Is it the media? Is it social media? Why are we so insecure? 

Ah! I love this question. One of the topics I often write about is this very question. Also, I love doing motivational speaking on this topic.

Not Good Enough Stuff comes from just about every aspect of our lives. For many people, it begins with our parents or caregivers. 

Our parents and caregivers have their own Not Good Enough Stuff. If they don’t work to heal that, they unknowingly and often subconsciously put all of that on their children. That’s why we have so much generational trauma because nobody before us did any healing. So, we are actually carrying trauma and Not Good Enough Stuff from every generation that precedes us. Whew! That can be scary and sad to think about. 

Jerry, you’re also correct in thinking that social media now plays a part in our Not Good Enough Stuff. We get lost in comparing ourselves to the perfect “sliver” of lives we see others posting. Also, society, culture, and religion often play a big part in adding to our pile of Not Good Enough Stuff. 

Society, culture, and religion seem to have strayed from their roots of love and acceptance for many people. That results in us believing we are not good enough for society, culture, and religion. We are presented with an unattainable image of who we are “supposed” to be in life. That causes Not Good Enough Stuff. I have a blog post about this topic.

There is a constant battle between good and evil for our soul. I am fascinated by your take on it. Walk me through it? 

I think every little, tiny, baby soul brought into this world is beautiful and good. So, then how do we end up with so many “evil” people? Those precious baby souls get piles of Not Good Enough Stuff dumped on them that eventually grow so large that they see no way of healing to get out of it. Those unhealed piles lead them to thrust their Not Good Enough Stuff on the world in hopes of making themselves feel good., even if that is done by hurting others.

Let’s take a look at Hitler. Everybody in the world will agree that he was evil. I’m not arguing with that. However, if you look at Hitler’s childhood you will see how his severe trauma created a pile of Not Good Enough Stuff so large that he was desperate to feel the power and get the attention that severely lacked for him. Very few people are ever taught how to get healthy attention. We can include Hitler in that group. 

Hitler found a way to get a tremendous amount of attention in one of history’s most notoriously negative and evil ways. His enormous pile of Not Good Enough Stuff was thrust upon Jewish people in order to make him feel powerful. 

Please understand that I am not dismissing the insane amount of pain he inflicted upon so many. I am just giving you an extreme example of how I believe Not Good Enough Stuff can create more evil than we could ever imagine. I’m not forgiving Hitler by any means. However, I do have sadness for the little baby soul of Hitler that existed before it turned into one of the biggest evil souls the world has ever seen. 

I love peace and joy. Talk to me about how we can achieve it? 

Yes, peace and joy. Those two words, in addition to self-love, are lacking for so many people. I know that I lacked all of that for the majority of my life. Attaining those seemed impossible until I began my own healing work. As cheesy and cliché as it may seem, self-love is the only way to achieve true peace and joy. 

For me, the way I achieved peace and joy and the way my clients learn to do so, is accepting the parts of yourself you don’t like and probably beat yourself up over. An example of this is how I used to be so ashamed of my temper and anger outbursts. 

Now, when it was extreme I didn’t consciously have shame because I thought people deserved what I dumped on them. After sludging through my healing journey, I realized that nobody, including myself, deserved the wrath of my anger. 

I began exploring that there might be a positive side to my temper and anger outbursts. Passion! I realized that my temper had benefited me in some ways because it showed me what I was passionate about in life. 

For example, when somebody treated me or somebody else poorly, I lashed out in very grand and unhealthy ways. Eventually, I was able to see that my anger was simply my passion. Everybody deserves to be treated well, but that didn’t happen in my childhood as it should have. So, I thought I had to fight for myself and others to get it. 

Stepping back from that anger, I realized that my passion protected me when I didn’t know-how. So, I have gratitude for that misguided passion. Now, I can love and accept that “temper’ that can flare up instead of being ashamed of it. Also, I can let go of the hatred I had for it because it was important in my growth and healing journey. 

I am a big believer in practicing patience, kindness, gentleness, compassion, unconditional love, empathy, and forgiveness. Do we have anything in common? 

We sure do! I could write a book on each one of those you mentioned, but I’ll try to be much briefer than a book. Also, I am available for motivational speaking on this topic.

I think the reason so many people struggle with each of those is that it was probably absent from their lives when they needed it. We all deserve to receive all of those you mentioned, but it is so hard to do when you are sitting in the midst of your Not Good Enough Stuff. 

I want to make sure I mention the most important part of those qualities AND the hardest, which is having those important qualities towards ourselves. When I work with my clients we start this kind of work by exploring and healing the inner child.

I am currently working on blog posts about how to do that. So, if anybody is interested in learning how to heal his/her inner child, they can subscribe to my blog to get those posts emailed to them when they are published. 

I’d be lying if I said that I’m always able to offer those qualities to others. There are certainly times where my temper flares and those beautiful qualities I worked so hard to have, go flying out the window. 

After I process what happened, I can then look back and see that the true soul of the person who hurt me is lacking patience, kindness, gentleness, compassion, unconditional love, empathy, and forgiveness for themselves. They have their Not Good Enough Stuff they haven’t healed AND they deserve to heal, even if they hurt me.

To come and see you, we have to accept we are broken and need healing. It is a process. Some of these are deep. Tell me more? 

I don’t ever use the word “broken” because most people’s pain stems from childhood. However, my clients usually begin their first session telling me they are broken. Once we began looking at their pain and see that it began in childhood, I ask them if they would tell a little child that he or she was broken. Of course, they answer with a big, fat “no.” 

So, then I explain that their pain is from their inner child who needed love but was never broken. Keep in mind that most people struggle with acknowledging that their pain came from childhood. I hear clients all the time say they had a “good childhood.” 

Emotional trauma looks much different to a child than it does to an adult. For adults, trauma is a violent experience, loss, and other “major” life-changing events. For a child who doesn’t yet have adult brain development, something that seems as simple as being called, “lazy” or “clumsy” several times can have the same impact as a “major” life-changing event that an adult experiences. 

I find women are more relational. They get together, they talk about their issues. Men do not and become an island.  I personally find women do a lot better after the age of 45 than men?

I think you are correct for the most part. However, when women get together to “vent” to their friends, there is often so much that they hide even from their best friends because of shame and fear of not being understood. 

That is the same reason that men become an island. Society and most cultures teach men that they are supposed to be “strong.” So, any semblance of portraying weakness is so incredibly scary.

I love working with men as a psychotherapist. I help guide them through the exploration of vulnerability to see it as a strength. I have had a men’s therapy group that was so incredibly healing for the group members. To have a group of men share their fears, pain and struggles are one of the most beautiful things I have ever witnessed.

So, for the men out there, I challenge you to see that therapy and vulnerability are huge signs of strength because those are so hard to do. It goes against what you were taught. If therapy and vulnerability were so easy, every man and woman would do it. 

I cannot love my wife, daughter, son, my parents, or my friends if I do not learn to love myself and accept myself. Comment?

That is so true! The hard part about doing that is that most of us were never taught how to love ourselves. The reason for that is that we have all the generations preceding us who know nothing about self-love. 

If you’ve never seen something or had anybody model what that something would look like, it is a huge and long struggle to learn it. So, I say to anyone wanting to learn self-love, know that the road is long and hard. However, for me and my clients, it is the most rewarding thing you will ever achieve in life because then you will be able to fully love those who get the privilege of being in your life!

The post Healing Approach appeared first on Four Columns of a Balanced Life.

Addiction is the irresistible need for and use of a habit-forming substance. It has a negative impact on the health of the individual and also on their economic and social lives. Addiction is accepted as a mental illness in the diagnostic nomenclature. Addiction is now considered a clinical syndrome.

Denise talks about addiction, abandonment, and co-dependency.

Denise, I super appreciate your blog. You are real, vulnerable, and downright honest. I am sure you sleep well. I want to talk about addiction. What is addiction? Why does it exist? What are the different kinds of addiction?

An addiction is a disease that you inherit, where mind and body crave something you have consumed more than life itself!  It exists due to the disease you inherit, and you may not know you have the disease until you are hooked, and without help, your life could be doomed.  Different types of addictions are drugs, alcohol, pills, food, shopping online, your cell phone, TV, the internet, or whatever you feel you can’t live without and feel life is complete when not tuned into the urge that consumes you.

Walk me through your own life as the daughter of an addict?

This is the hard part, as you don’t realize the damage that is being done growing up as the daughter of an alcoholic.  My dad was in the military for 21 years and served in the Korean War and Vietnam War twice.  I realized later in life that the alcoholism took hold as he was dealing with losing his fellow soldiers, and used alcohol as a way to medicate himself.

Recently I came to the conclusion he had PTSD, but it was not something that was diagnosed during his time in service.    He was very strict with my sisters and I growing up, which in the military you expect that, but he used a belt and had a hard time showing love and affection.  You had to behave or else!  Once he retired he would drink a whole 6 pack of beer a night, and become argumentative, so it was not a comfortable setting.  Then he was gone a lot, so the father-figure was not there to comfort and nurture us.

I was shy and unsure of myself, once I graduated.  I did get good grades and was the teacher’s pet throughout my school years.

How did this impact your life? When did you realize it was having a negative impact on you?

It impacted my life in a way that I was drawn to men who were like my dad, as it seemed normal.  My first husband, when I was 19, turned out to be so controlling, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t want to marry him, to begin with, but felt I could help and change him.  He also became abusive!   After 9 months of marriage and being left at a laundromat until it closed up, and the security guard had to drive me home, was the last straw to say enough is enough!   He was ready to fight the security guard!  He was not going to make it easy, as he followed me on a highway and pulled a gun, put sugar in my gas tank at work, made numerous phone calls, and threatened to kill me if I ended up with someone else.  I lived in Denver at the time and decided it was time to move elsewhere, hoping he could not find me.  I moved to California and started over, and developed a relationship at work with the nicest guy who fell in love with me, and I had decided to not be with someone like my ex-husband.  I married him for the wrong reasons, and so after several years, I was ready to move on as the relationship seemed so boring.  I used to turmoil in my life.  We had a son but divorced, and I then married my third husband too soon and found out we were different and the relationship became very toxic.  We had a son and divorced but after several years we moved back in together.  Don’t ask me why?  I think I felt our son needed his dad in his life.

In your blog, you talk about abandonment. What is it? Why did you feel abandoned?

I realized in my later years that something was broken inside me, so I decided to see a psychologist get a professional opinion.  Why were relationships not working, and why did I not feel fulfilled?  He said I had feelings of abandonment, and that when I talked about things I always had a smile, even when it was a hurtful subject.  He said that was my way of not showing my pain inside.  It was determined I was co-dependent and that I tried to fix everything to make my life feel normal and that I was in control.  I was obsessed with cleaning the house, as that was something I could be in control of!  I went to a  co-dependent dependent group and realized I wasn’t alone and finally understood why I reacted to circumstances the way I did.

What is codependency? Why does a codependent want control?

Co-dependency is an emotional behavior where you do not know how to have healthy relationships and the relationship can become one-sided, or abusive.  In my case, when there wasn’t turmoil I felt uncomfortable and would sabotage and destroy the relationship.  You become attracted to abusive, controlling people and would try to fix the relationship and stay in it, as you did not think you deserved being treated in a kindly manner.

You control because you feel that is the only way you can fix things to feel normal, as inside your life is not in control at all.  That is why I cleaned all the time.  Call it OCD, and you drive everyone crazy, but you felt great when everything was spotless! You become a perfectionist!

Your father was never around when you were young. How important is it to have your parents around? Did you ever talk to him about it?

Growing up I saw other fathers and daughters in close relationships and I wished for the same type of relationship with my dad. I missed not having him at school events, and sitting down and having a heart to heart talk.  I also think I tried to find in men what my dad did not give yo me. My dad passed away when he was 64, and I was 40.  We had gotten closer, but so much time had passed and I missed not having my younger years with him.

I was told in counseling that since my dad was never there for me emotionally and I was not getting hugs that little girls should get from their dads, and the times he was away from home, that through life I didn’t want to commit to a relationship with the fear of them leaving me.

You thrived on chaos. Normal is different things to different people. Explain?

Normal to me was fighting and yelling constantly, very few moments of peace and quiet where you weren’t being yelled at or criticized for not being perfect.  There were so many expectations and the pressure of attaining all that was expected of you takes a toll on you emotionally.

Explain the 12 steps codependent program? How did it help?

I couldn’t remember exactly, so had to look them up. The 12 steps are:

We admitted we were powerless over others – that our lives had become unmanageable.

Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Made a decision to turn our will and lives over to the care of God as we understood God.

Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being, the exact nature of our wrongs.

Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.

I made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.

Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.

Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God’s will for us and the power to carry that out.

Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other co-dependents and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Here is the Serenity Prayer we would say after each group session: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, And the wisdom to know the difference.

It made me aware of how my behavior could be in relationships, so you would make a conscious effort, of the proper way to react to certain situations.  It takes time, but it works!

Why do you recommend getting help for an addiction?

If you don’t get the help you will keep sabotaging and destroying relationships, and will never be able to find true happiness or a healthy way to live with someone else and get through life feeling or knowing what “normal” is.

The first step is admitting you have a problem, as this is not something you want to share or talk about.  Once you admit that and set up the appointment, it is a big weight off your shoulders, and you realize that with the help you can find a way to true happiness and love, and you can be a better person and parent.

The post Denise Gardiner: Addiction and Getting Help appeared first on Four Columns of a Balanced Life.

What is psychotherapy?

Talk therapy, also called psychotherapy, is used to help people deal with challenges in life, emotional difficulties, and mental illness. Psychotherapy helps a person to make their life better through introspection and healing.

If we start being honest about our pain, our anger, and our shortcomings instead of pretending they don’t exist, then maybe we’ll leave the world a better place than we found it. – Russell Wilson

Some of the most comforting words in the universe are ‘me too.’ That moment when you find out that your struggle is also someone else’s struggle, that you’re not alone, and that others have been down the same road. – Unknown

Anything human is mentionable, and anything mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary. – Fred Rogers

The strongest people are those who win battles we know nothing about. – Unknown

Introduction

I got the most horrifying text of my life. A very close friend of mine, since college, passed away on Tuesday, early morning.

It is not possible. We just spoke on Monday morning. We were going to have lunch on Thursday. I was teasing him about being the king of Facebook. Also, since his dad was 90, I told him that he would probably outlive all of us and therefore attend my funeral.

After that, on a cold day in March, here I was at the funeral home facing his cold, lifeless body. In addition, a thousand memories since we were teenagers kept flashing across my mind.

The same year in April, a young gentleman drove a van across a street where I had lived for more than a decade, killing 10 people and injuring 16.

Similarly, in July as I was heading to the Danforth for a meeting, another male shot and killed 2 people and injured 13 at a nearby restaurant.

Three incidents in less than six months hit home. Why? Could any of the above situations be avoided?

Life happens

My close friend had issues from a young age. It tormented him. Over the years, I begged him, pleaded with him to get help. In 2015, he lost his job and disappeared. I finally got hold of him six months later and he was putting up a front. In 2017, I took him out for lunch for his birthday. Little did I realize that would be the last time I would be seeing him. We spoke throughout the summer, about his marriage, his parenting and how he felt about living in the basement of his parents’ home.

Above all, unemployed, separated from his wife, alone, lonely, feeling rejected, drugs and booze became his best friends. What stopped him from getting help? Did he not realize the hurt he was causing those close to him and especially his kids?  How come he did not know his limits and boundaries? Why did he not seek psychotherapy?

What is masculinity?

As I think about my friend and the other two men, involved in the killings, I am forced to ask myself, why do men not get help? Is it a sign of weakness? Is it considered macho to just suck up and deal with your issues through drugs, porn and substance abuse? Is this masculinity?

Or is masculinity dealing with our issues head-on, accepting responsibility for where you are in life, being grateful, forgiving and getting help?

I wish the three men would have got help. They could have avoided so much pain for themselves and those around them.

Advantages of getting help

When you go to see a psychotherapist, you get feedback on what you are going through from an objective perspective. Here is a trained third-party individual who listens, gives you feedback on what you are going through.

The second advantage is that you get to deal with your negative past. The therapist might ask you to write down your hurts, resentments, bitterness issues, challenges or just he/she will listen.

The third advantage is that it allows you to get in touch with reality. When you are doing drugs, booze, porn, and sleeping around, these are helping you to escape reality.

The fourth advantage is that you end up in better mental and physical health.

The fifth advantage is that it allows you to get to the root cause of your problems. The therapist gives you healthy coping mechanisms.

The final advantage is that you learn to take it easy on yourself and finally no one is judging you at the clinic. They are all encouraged that you have the courage and guts to deal with your issues.

I challenge you that if you are facing issues no matter what go ahead and get professional help.

The post Get Help: See A Psychotherapist appeared first on Four Columns of a Balanced Life.

Bipolar depression is serious and should not be ignored.

I was born in India, and at a very young age, my parents moved to Dubai. I did my undergrad and master’s in two different countries in Europe. I presently live in Canada, which is the fifth country I have lived in. At an early stage in life, I stopped seeing color. I am in a mixed marriage. I will never forget, at a dinner party at my friend’s place, someone asked me how it feels to be married to a white woman. It threw me off.

I will never forget the day I got home from work, and my wife told me that my best friend’s wife had called her, saying she was leaving her husband. She also told her that she was bipolar. I had known him for such a long time. Was he ashamed of her bipolar depression?

In the first interview, I talked to Jamie Weil about her mission, vision, youth mental health, balance, and creating sacred spaces in our lives. In this interview, we talk about bipolar depression, spirituality and being in a mixed marriage.

Jamie Weil lives in Cottonwood, California. She writes everywhere. She has identified as a writer since third grade, when her teacher sent her poem “Red” to the Record Searchlight, and they published it. She has written for the children’s educational market, the adult non-fiction market, and has worked as a journalist, second-grade teacher, and mom. Her YA novel, First Break, was released on World Mental Health Day, 10/10/18. Her second YA novel “Intuition” was published almost exactly a year later on 10/2/19. She is currently in post-production on the pilot episode of “A Crazy Thought,” a groundbreaking docuseries on youth mental health and suicide which she is creating with a team of amazing award-winning female filmmakers.

Jaime, I have been in sales all my life. I am an extrovert. I will never forget, one evening I came home, and one of my best friend’s wife had called my wife saying she was leaving her husband and that she was bipolar. I had never heard that word and did not know much about depression. Talk to me about this disorder?

Wow. That’s a hard call to get! 

I think I’m more “vert” fluid. An ambivert maybe. Or, an introvert masquerading as an extrovert. I love people, but I hate surface talk. HATE it. As a psychic empath, I also pick up everybody in the room and have to consciously not do that which is tiring. I charge up in my red writing chair where I can be alone with my heart, my mind, my guidance team. If I’m in groups too much or miss this daily alone time, I get off balance. It’s like a Tesla station and if I don’t plug in, I’m stuck in the middle of the highway needing a tow.

I admire people in sales because they have such a natural proclivity for identifying needs and figuring out how to meet that need. I’m much better at that psychically at a distance than in person. I’m less distracted. I’m definitely a one-on-one person but have good friends who just love group activities. Sometimes group play is very fun, but mostly I just avoid it.

To circle back to bipolar, like any label given to any brain illness, it varies greatly from person to person. It’s a biological disease that does not, in my mind, seem to still be greatly understood to this day. It can range from a very mild case to a deadly case. Diagnosing bipolar in children and teens is complicated for a variety of reasons, and still takes an average of two years (in our case 10!) to call it by this name. In children/teens, it looks very different than it does in adults, one of the reasons it’s hard to diagnose. Mental illnesses correlate to early trauma and high ACES scores (Adverse Childhood Experiences Score) but also can onset in cases outside high ACES. It doesn’t discriminate in any way meaning anybody from any place can have it. The list of criteria to be called bipolar illness (some think the word disorder is stigmatizing so I avoid that word choice) is found in the psychiatric diagnoses bible, the Diagnostic Statistics Manual (DSM). We are currently on the 5th version and the thing is outdated pretty much after it comes out because we are learning so much more about the brain than we have before. Additionally, it takes so long for a revision, 14 years between DSM4 and DSM5. So many changes. 

The reason, perhaps, you had never heard of bipolar illness is that we are not educated about mental illnesses in early elementary and middle schools. In my Master’s in Teaching with CLAD Certificate (K-8, Crosscultural, Language, and Academic Development) I was at a great school for teacher training, the original in Los Angeles, and did not receive one class on mental illness in the classroom, specifically what it is and how to handle it. My training came in my own home, my own independent study/residency, and on the job. This is the case for many teachers so without curriculum and teachers who don’t understand what is happening, half of the classroom is deeply suffering and half is completely oblivious. Some teachers I know who are aware for personal reasons say their middle school classrooms are 75% early-onset mental illness though the statistics will say that’s too high. I tend to believe the teachers and my own experience with parents. This is why I would like to put First Break in middle schools across the world. I had a plan called Mission ACT to integrate the novel which includes both Common Core and state standard questions in the back matter, some visual media first-person stories, and curriculum to help teachers easily integrate into their language arts curriculum. If we teach them early enough, we won’t have the same issues ten years from now.

The most important thing to know about bipolar illness is that it has a very high correlation with high-risk behavior and suicide so is extremely important to identify in the early stages and put a plan in place. In young people, its earliest phases it looks like anger, odd behavior that doesn’t sit right, huge energy shifts, suicide ideation, extreme behaviors and reactions, extreme intelligence and creativity, magnetic personality, often the adoption of drug usage (to quell the symptoms, including hallucinations which come into play at times), and one super key point: sleep is a major challenge! One reason for this is night terrors which are such an intense form of a nightmare the person learns to hate sleeping. Also, it’s just very, very difficult to sleep. In my novel, Paige starts to stay up repeatedly until finally, she is so tired and paranoid, she takes her dormmate’s Ambien which lands her in the ER. This is a very common path. Keep in mind, the above list is my own key list from watching many young people go through psychotic breaks and not the official DSM5 list which you get on a Google search.

I am a big fan of becoming aware of cognitive dissonance. My goals, values, and ethos are aligned with everything I do. I am now learning to get my heart, mind, and body aligned. Walk me through what is spirituality for you?

That’s awesome, Jerry! I recently had an older friend, nearly 70, proudly say he’d learned to “compartmentalize.” He said it like it was a good thing. It made me very sad. I feel the path to personal fulfillment, to self-actualization in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, starts with integrating all parts of ourselves and sharing that with the world. For me, I am here on this planet to become conscious of consciousness. It’s why I spent four years studying to become a practitioner. It’s why I love to study Joseph Campbell’s work and see the stories running through all the stories, the repeating stories in the religions that give so many the faith that makes them whole, that gives them purpose. I love Carl Jung’s ideas on how synchronicity works as a guide to show us our True North, how sleeping dreams can guide us in our waking hours, and the idea that we are all connected.

I grew up in a non-religious home but in a very religious town. All my friends were worried I was going to hell (I think they still are!) so they invited me to church. Church meant donuts and I liked donuts so I went. If I missed a Sunday, the teacher would call my mom and remind her I was going to hell, especially since I missed a Sunday. Threats aside, there were parts of the church I liked. I loved the singing. I still love the singing. I love the energy of the Divine that lives in all the churches, the temples, the synagogues, the mosques, the centers. I’ve visited them all. I’ve gone on silent retreats in Buddhist temples (I have a chapter on dusting the Buddha in Chasing Sacred Spaces!), I’ve sat through 26 years of Seders with my husband’s family, I’ve celebrated at the Bahai Center, I’ve walked the home of Paramahansa Yogananda in Pacific Palisades, CA at the Self Realization Temple. When I found the Centers for Spiritual Living on complete intuitive guidance, I began taking classes and realized that perhaps the reason for my unexplained love for Ralph Waldo Emerson (other than his great-great-grandson was my first kiss) was that Transcendentalism was my first love. I had studied all the great writers during that era in my English Lit time at UCLA and loved the integration of that day with the art. During my four years of practitioner training, I became a Reiki practitioner, a Past Life/Future Life Regression therapist, a junkie for workshops that specialized in intuition, dreams, land healing, and so forth. 

Spirituality, then, for me is not a place, but I can find it in a place. It’s not just nature, but in the forest and especially the ocean I find God. It’s not a list of rules and consequences meant to shame me in abiding by them if I want the carrot promised, but rather love in all things to all beings no matter what. It’s not forcing my position on others, but rather listening with the ear behind the ear to the stories that shape their beliefs and finding the beautiful threads that weave the tapestry of our humanity. In Canada last year, I had registered for the gathering of the World’s Religions, but in the end, couldn’t go. I thought that event would be fascinating to see the beauty of the human family sharing their most precious traditions with each other.

Above everything else, love–like for real I-see-you-no-matter-what love–is my spirituality, religion, whatever label you like.

How did marriage and motherhood change you?

I have been a mother for most of my adult life. I married my college boyfriend during our last year of college over winter break. He was a black man from New York, and I, having grown up in a small, white rural California ranch town, was fascinated by his worldview. We were deeply in love, but neither of us was prepared for marriage. A year later I had my oldest son at 23, a separation, and restraining orders due to domestic violence. It was a tough time, but it strengthened me, and created a bond between my son and I that single parents have.

After an exhausting few years of dating, I began a relationship with my current husband who is Jewish. We had been friends since my freshman year. My son really liked him and convinced me to marry him. I wasn’t sure how the whole thing would work because I barely knew what I was doing on my own raising a child, specifically a biracial child, whom the world saw as black. I didn’t want to mess it up and my self-confidence was at an all-time low due to my first marriage. Still, we decided after several years of dating to marry, added our younger son to our family a year later, and were featured one Christmas Day in Torrance, California on the front page of The Daily Breeze for our multicultural family that celebrated Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa.

Having been a mom now for 33 years, and having been married for the past 23, I can’t tell you how marriage and motherhood changed me because I can’t remember what I was like before. I will tell you this: my work, my writing, my community service is all influenced by my children. (My oldest son likes to call himself my Muse.) Understanding how to help my children thrive as adults in the world who give back while living their bliss has been my focus and mission for the past three decades. Three years ago, when my youngest son left for university, I started to launch into projects full bore I had been seeding but holding back on until they were both launched. These projects were inspired by them.

My marriage has pushed and pulled me in so many ways. Remember Stretch Armstrong? Just like that. 

Last week we celebrated our 38/26/23 anniversary. (Friends, dating, married.) When you have that many years together, and you come from very different backgrounds as we do and are catapulted into a container of a readymade family, it’s not easy. I’m always suspicious of people who say it’s easy. Over time, I have had to really look at my own shadow, my own family of origin issues, my threads and patterns that I bring to the table. There is no better person than your spouse to mirror these shadows back to you through triggers, through waxing and waning periods, through tragedies and celebrations. I have grown in ways I know I could not have never grown outside the container of family and marriage. 

One of the great joys is being able to share in the lives of our children which was missing in the single-parent model, or at least it was for me. That was such a lonely hole to see my child take his first step and have nobody to share that accomplishment. Partnership amplifies those moments in such a magical way. Another great joy I have from marriage is one my husband and I have cultivated that comes from instituting date nights when our youngest was born and our oldest was having early onset symptoms with bipolar illness. It was a stressful time and we decided it would be cheaper to take every Saturday night and go out than it would get divorced. Even now with the kids gone, we still do this, as well as take quarterly retreats together where the main objective is to have fun. We don’t discuss any hot potato topics. We just have fun, and we’re just really good at it. 

Bottom line: marriage and family are like the Ph.D. program in the Earth School. No place else do you learn as deeply.

Walk me through your experience in a mixed marriage and raising a son who is black?

What’s so fascinating here is that just when I think I understand something, I understand how little I understand the thing I thought I understood. The BLM Movement has taught me this.

Racism in America has been on my radar since I was young growing up in a town that was primarily white. That town has a sign that says No Room for Racism, but there’s a bullet hole through it so there you go. The town, like many small towns across the country, is split between those who are curious and embracing ideas and people different than their own and those who are terrified by that.

I was always curious and was raised to be embracing, not fearful. When I went to UCLA, a very diverse campus, I was so excited to discover so many different people and cultures. My world was cracked open in such an amazing way. I took classes on Asian American literature, African American music, and race/ethnicity. I explored every kind of cuisine I could get my hands on and tried to get myself invited to Armenian weddings, Bahai celebrations, anything I hadn’t seen before. 

But as my ex-partner and I would walk through the streets of a very diverse Venice Beach, California in the 80s, people would skate by, address me and call me “N-word lover.” I would see him treated by the police in a different way than I was used to being treated by them. There were such levels of prejudice directed at both of us from both black and white people it was hard to even understand it.

When my son was born, and I would carry him, I would often get the double-take. Even though he looked just like me because his skin was darker they were confused and I’d get a variety of reactions. I had no guidance, no family where I was in Southern California, and so I researched organizations to join like MASC which stood for Multiracial Americans of Southern California where maybe he could make friends that were biracial, too. I didn’t even get the fact the world just saw him as black and nobody really explained that to me. My son did not like those gatherings and honestly, when you have all the tasks of raising a child alone and paying for that child’s needs alone, there is very little time for any add-ons. We tried black churches (which I loved and he hated), tried to make friends with other mixed families (epic fail), and finally, I think we just stopped focusing on it.

As he got older, and I married my current husband, we moved into a gated community that was primarily Asian and his classmates were mostly white beach city kids. Until recently, as I educate myself more about Black Lives Matter, and listen to Black families opening up in ways I have never heard before, I felt like our approach was okay. However, recently I texted him and told him I felt like such a failure as a parent because I hadn’t had the police talk which apparently many black families have from early on with their children. I felt like I should have known that, but I didn’t.

My youngest son, white as they come with his blue eyes and blond hair, thought of himself as black for his first ten years because his brother was black. He could not sit through a movie of racial discrimination without becoming deeply upset as a child, and to this day educates me in ways that I can better understand how I can help as a white person is in this racial epidemic where we all play a part. But I am still learning. My daughter-in-law (white) recently sent me a podcast on Black Mental Health history in America that gave me such a better understanding of the comment that I used to hear from my ex which went something like “Mental illness is a white people thing. It’s hard enough to be black in America. We don’t have time to add that in.” I always thought that was short-sighted, but the more I learn, the more I understand the insight and complexity of that statement.

Here’s the thing about parents and children. We all just want to keep our kids alive, safe, and have them thrive, find their joy, be productive citizens, and make the world a better place. At least, that’s what I want. There is no playbook that comes wrapped up in the burrito when the baby is handed to you. You just do the best you can, try and stay open and true to who they are as a Soul, pray and cross your fingers simultaneously that you don’t mess this up. Rinse, lather, repeat.

The post First Break: Bipolar Depression appeared first on Four Columns of a Balanced Life.

As a society, we have to focus on youth mental health for our own future.

“I need help, I have a mental illness‘. That was the shriek from someone on Facebook, whom I have known for nearly three decades. Her husband had left her along with the kids.  For so many years, everything from the outside looked great. As a society, we focus so much on financial and physical health that we forget about mental and spiritual health. I talk to Jamie Weil about these issues, and in the first interview, we talk about her mission, vision, youth mental health, balance, and creating sacred spaces in our lives.

Jamie Weil lives in Cottonwood, California. She writes everywhere. She has identified as a writer since third grade, when her teacher sent her poem “Red” to the Record Searchlight, and they published it. She has written for the children’s educational market, the adult non-fiction market, and has worked as a journalist, second-grade teacher, and mom. Her YA novel, First Break, was released on World Mental Health Day, 10/10/18. Her second YA novel, “Intuition,” was published almost exactly a year later on 10/2/19. She is currently in post-production on the pilot episode of “A Crazy Thought,” a groundbreaking docuseries on youth mental health and suicide which she is creating with a team of amazing award-winning female filmmakers.

Jamie, I consider it an honor to have you on my blog. I want to know a little about you and your mission?

It’s an honor to be invited to your space, and especially via Twitter! Twitter has mystified me for so long as I’m standing in front of a wall saying random things in an attempted witty way and a bunch of other people who are doing the same. When I found the #writingcommunity, I felt a new level of connection, finally made a few friends, and I am happy to call you one of those. I love people, their stories, and feel connected to one humanity. Sure, sometimes that one humanity can feel like we’re in the room with that one uncle who drinks too much at Thanksgiving and spurts out off-color remarks, but the contrast makes each of us clearer about our own shadows. It’s a great teacher! I hold a vision for a world where we can deeply embrace each other’s unique differences and in so doing, widen our own understandings of ourselves and others.

I love your focus on empowering women. This touches my heart as it is a space to which I also feel such a strong pull. I understand the vital role allies as you play in what can be a very binary and lopsided world. Empowered women empower women and yet we are not evolutionarily at a place where enough women feel empowered for so many valid reasons. We need those evolved men like you who not only get it but do something about it. Giving women a voice is one very important space as we see so clearly in the Jeffrey Epstein documentary.

Both writing on paper and in film are key places for women to become empowered which is what draws me there. I can say things on paper or in visual media as a filmmaker that I can’t say as easily in other spaces as I was one of those young girls raised to keep quiet and mind my manners. At a very young age, I discovered that as long as I wrote and got good grades, I could say what I wanted. It was a freeing space for me. Stories became a way to find a voice.

When I answered a calling to tell multicultural stories about youth mental health, I attempted to assemble a crew of female film creators, no easy task for a variety of reasons. I felt it was important that women’s voices be heard in the capturing of the story because 95% of the cases I came across over the past 2 decades of children suffering from mental illness symptoms had women at the helm trying to figure out the solutions and suffering along with the children. When I taught elementary school in Los Angeles, 95% of the teacher K-8 were women and a few men teaching middle school. With the role of the Divine Feminine rising in this world, and an understanding for a need for that, it is visionary men like you that will escort that shift in and it will be a blessing for everybody. Along the way, it is very important to recognize it was evolved men who helped me make that happen.

Thank you for finding me and for inviting me to talk about my favorite subjects. I am so grateful.

Talk to me about how to live a happy life, mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually?

I have so many ideas about this! I consciously and consistently rank my own four bodies (mental, physical, spiritual, emotional) on a scale from 1-10. As a licensed spiritual practitioner (on sabbatical because I really suck at anything that looks or feels religious while simultaneously loving pieces of all religions) I dove into thoughts in practitioner training about the best ways to serve the Divine who goes by many names. I’m a 20 year-long daily meditator and sit with the idea of how to bring the sunny to the world on a daily. How can I serve today? is a daily mantra. I start with myself, by ranking those four bodies and remaining conscious about what I need to work on in myself to bring others more joy. That’s really my endgame and it’s a selfish goal because giving people joy gives me joy and I like to live in the sunny. When we have a habit of pointing to external circumstances for the reasons we aren’t fulfilled, we miss the magic of the journey and the world around us. Nobody wins. Recently, Yale put their Principles of Well Being by Dr. Laurie Santos class online and I took it. There is so much science behind this idea that each day we find ourselves connecting to ourselves and other inconsistent practices.

And yet, there is value in every state we find ourselves. It’s not realistic to think every day will be unicorns and butterflies. People we love die. Pets die. We get sick. The world shuts down. Horrible abuse happens. Contrast is all around us and some days are just unbearably hard. Remembering everything changes and reaching out for help from others is key.

Happy, then, begins at home, inside each of us, and we start with those four bodies. Each is a pillar that holds us up, and if one is off, we struggle. The weakest one for me is the physical and so I am consistently setting goals in that area while being very careful not to shame myself along the way. I think that’s key, the no shaming part. We need to give ourselves grace. We are in this Earth School to learn to walk and when we’re done, well, we’re done for this time. Not being done is part of the thing. The journey is the best part and we need to be our best cheerleader. I love the late Louise Hay’s mirror work for this where you look in the mirror and, with heartfelt feeling, say “I love you. I really, really love you.”

It’s all about balance. On my website in the right corner is a picture of a rock I have had for decades that says “balance.” My oldest son, now 32, came home from high school when he was 14, ran out back, and stuck that rock between his feet. He took a picture to remind himself of the importance of balance in his life and I see that value present in both my sons’ lives to this day. This was especially poignant as he was in the middle of a break with bipolar disorder, seeking a space of energetic (and chemical) balance where he felt he could stay alive. The balance was literally a matter of life and death. A balance between work and play. A balance between self and other. A balance in your four bodies. A balance between giving and receiving. Balance.

I appreciate that you are an advocate for youth mental health. Please talk to me about it?

Another favorite subject of mine is youth mental health!

When my oldest son was in 4^th grade, he began to show symptoms that confused me. I could tell he was unhappy, but it was beyond that. Simultaneously, I was teaching second grade in Southern California. Teaching was a second career and I had several students that were struggling with symptoms I had never seen or learned about in my Master’s program or anywhere else. This began a long journey of educating myself on what was happening and how I could help. We eventually received a diagnosis of bipolar illness, but it was very long, unnecessarily painful, and massively upsetting for everyone. I vowed I would do what I could to make the journey easier on other parents and kids, many of whom were coming to me in secret too afraid (ashamed) to tell anyone what was happening. I saw a very similar pattern that abused women feel when they don’t feel they can get help.

I used my writing to reach out. First, I began blogging in the early 2000s. Simultaneously, I started a young adult novel called First Break which was finally published by All Things That Matter Press on World Mental Health Day in 2018. That was an amazing day for me because my son and his wife, both university professors now, were able to do some great research and help me put resources in place that would speak multiculturally to transitional youth 14-26 and their parents and teachers. Having that first-person POV novel of a 17-year-old stepping onto a college campus and having the first break was a way to understand through story an experience that confused us and caused years of pain. My hope is that novel will be used in middle school classrooms to educate the next generation and prevent the many years of pain that do not have to happen.

In 2017, after two decades of print articles, books, and community service, I felt a calling to use visual media to make a change. I was frustrated by all the distraught parents and children I saw needlessly suffering, many in silence. They were missing their entire childhoods. I set out to make a documentary, but there was only one problem: I wasn’t a filmmaker and had never been to film school. Reinventing myself was something I’d done before, though, so I set out to answer this calling. To date, we have a pilot, a plan, two shorts, a ton of great footage in the can, and no money to finish that docuseries. It turns out it takes much more money to create a visual media production than it does to write a book. Though we did win a crowdfunding effort (it was awful, by the way!) to fund the pilot, I discovered fundraising is just not my jam.

I love the title of your book Chasing Sacred Spaces. I am learning to become intentional in creating space. Walk me through your book and what is it all about?

Thank you so much for that because that is a title that came to me in a dream, but someone had questioned it which made me question it. I’ve been waiting for the Universe to weigh in and you just did that for me!

This is such an interesting project for me, indeed a sacred space itself, and unlike any project, I’ve ever done. First, I wrote this as a download from the Divine. I did what I do when I blog. I meditate and pray, “Use me to tell the stories that the readers who find their way to me need to read to make their lives better and happier.” When I did this in my blogging world, I would consistently have people tell me what I said was exactly what they needed so I felt like it was working. That went on for several decades. However, with First Break and later Intuition, both YA novels, I wrote more from my head as I had learned to do at UCLA in coursework. With Chasing Sacred Spaces, I sat down and wrote this in a weekend. It’s my first book in the mind/body/spirit genre and it’s the first book I’m going to self-publish. That will come out in October 2020.

The part of what you say, being intentional about creating sacred space, is so present in this book, but as one of my life threads is clearly being in the room with mental illness and suicide, this finds its way in a bit. (I was surprised because I honestly was attempting to take a break from this theme.) What became clear is that we each want peace and happiness, and we look for that in so many places the world has told us to look. Then the world shuts down and now what? We’re back to spot where we started above, looking inside ourselves, in our own worlds, and really honestly seeing ourselves. In the spiritual circles I find myself, I feel that lots of spiritual bypassing goes on in an effort to avoid the pain, but in dodging that we make it worse. The book is an assortment of stories that flowed through as a response to the “what will really help my readers in their own lives” prompt. I’m currently in the rewriting process which is always harder than the initial writing.

The post Jamie Weil: Advocate For Youth Mental Health appeared first on Four Columns of a Balanced Life.

Two years after graduating from high school, one of my closest friends committed suicide. I had never dealt with it. I got caught up in university, climbing the corporate ladder, and on the performance treadmill. On my 10th wedding anniversary, as I was having a romantic dinner on the beach in the Mayan Riviera, I asked Debbie how we were doing as a married couple. Her answer about me not being a good sleeper changed my life forever. This week, as I deal with COVID, Debbie is battling cancer, I get a text from a friend that someone we have known all our lives committed suicide. As I get older, I am more aware of mental health. If you read my blog, I have written on forgiveness, patience, self-care, depression, drug, and alcohol abuse.

On Twitter, I found out that Chris Mitchell, a Canadian travel writer and content creator based in Toronto, was starting a podcast on anxiety. I got in touch with him and asked him a few questions about anxiety.  Chris has been writing about and documenting his travels around 80 countries for a decade. Chris is also the cofounder of the Toronto Bloggers Collective, a community dedicated to supporting content creators.  I have been in groups all my life. The Toronto Bloggers Collective is one of the best groups I have been a part of. Chris is friendly, outgoing, sensitive, loving, and passionate. He loves his wife and is real and vulnerable. Abigail Van Buren said that “The best index to a person’s character is how he treats people who can’t do him any good, and how he treats people who can’t fight back.”

Many bloggers have liked my style of writing. However, when it came to collaboration it was always about my DA and PA scores. Chris was the first blogger who offered me to write a piece on Bellwoods Brewery. Read this interview a couple of times. Also if you know of anyone struggling with anxiety have them listen to the podcast.

Chris, an honor to have you on Four Columns. We are going to talk about travel, food, marriage, and anxiety. I know you started a podcast on anxiety, what is it, and how does it affect us?

Firstly, let me just thank you for having me on, Jerry. The pleasure is all mine. 

You’re absolutely right, I did just start a podcast on anxiety. It’s called “I’m Anxious About…,” and I’m proud to say it has garnered a fair bit of interest thus far. In short, it’s a podcast where my co-host Allison and I look at a different thing we’re anxious about each week and break it down with plenty of humor and honesty. 

It’s meant to be a place that folks can come for a laugh, but most importantly, it’s a place where we can share our own journey and let folks know they’re not alone. 

So far, the response has been deeply humbling, and I’m grateful I took the gamble in starting this, despite that voice in my head that offered no shortage of doubt and criticism. But that is, in essence, what this podcast is all about, right? Challenging that voice. 

Anyway, if folks are curious, they can find us wherever they find their podcasts. 

Sometimes as men, we put on this macho front. However, we are hurting inside. How did you realize you were suffering from anxiety. What made you realize this is something we have to talk about?

Well, Jerry, that’s a good question. My journey with anxiety started about a decade ago when I lost my best friend unexpectedly. His name was Kiel, and, in truth, he was more like a brother to me than a friend. I felt a lot of pain that more or less concentrated in confusion. 

I still do feel great pain, but now I’ve harnessed that to ensure I can do my best to live for both of us. I try to remember that he’d want me to think of him and smile, so I focus on the good memories. 

When I found out about his passing, it was 2011 and I was living in Seoul, South Korea with Bri. 

I would find that occasionally as we were walking along I’d almost get swept up in a river of my own thoughts. People would be talking to me, but the conversation I had in my head was drowning them out. I’d often have to head off to the bathroom to regroup. 

It took me a long time to realize that these initial struggles which I thought were isolated and fluky incidents were actually the beginning of my anxiety. Or, rather, it took me a long time to accept that. 

I began to question why my initial reaction to feeling like I may be struggling was to hide it – even from my partner. Now, I understand it’s because I had a false notion that having anxiety or depression or what have you made you weak. 

Thankfully, over time, I’ve squashed that falsehood, and now I firmly believe that true strength comes from admitting you’re not perfect, putting your ego aside, and using your openness to engage in conversations that aid others. 

Walk me through how you are dealing with it? Are you taking medication, going to the gym, meditation, or seeing a coach?

I’ve got a lot of things that I try to keep in mind to make sure I’m giving myself a good chance to be my best self. 

Firstly, I start every morning by writing in my 5 Minute Journal where I set intentions for the day. I end my day by writing in the same journal. It helps me to project what I want my day to look like, and be grateful at the end of the day. 

I also meditate and do a stretching sequence before hopping in the shower. This ensures that by the time I’m out of the shower, I’m generally in the right headspace to tackle the day. 

I’ve found that exercise is paramount for me. I exercise every day whether that’s yoga, biking, walking, going to the gym, or anything in between. A big problem I had in the past was not knowing what to do with excess energy, which could lead to me partying a bit more or staying out a bit later, so I know now that I’ve got to make sure I’m giving myself a chance to burn energy. 

There’s just no question – If I’m not exercising, I’m more anxious. 

Sleeping well, or at least trying to get a good amount of sleep also makes an enormous difference for me, so that’s something I prioritize. I talk about it on the podcast, but I just don’t get caught up on whether or not I’ve fallen asleep. I focus on rest, relaxation, and giving myself a second to process. 

Things like eating well, not drinking too much, reading every night and so forth also make a big difference. In particular, I try to ensure I’m reading at least a few books at any one time, with some mixture of fiction and nonfiction. Usually, I read about 70-80 books a year. What’s the expression, “books are the quietest and most constant of friends?” 

Finally, I’m not currently taking any medication or going to therapy. I did do some therapy last year, but, for the most part, I’ve built a lot of systems around myself that enable me to be okay, and I’m also fortunate to have people around me looking out for me. In particular, even if I’m not always at my best, but I’m blessed to have a supportive partner who also knows when I’m not at my best and helps me get back up on my feet when I need it. 

I should note here that everyone has their own journey. For some, therapy and medication are absolutely necessary, so I’m not in any way discouraging that. I also don’t think there’s any shame or weakness in that whatsoever. Everyone needs to do what is right of them.

Funny enough, the podcast is sort of serving as therapy for me, as I rehash what I’ve learned over the past decade that has helped me and may help others. It also keeps me mindful of my own mindset and I find I’m more apt at understanding and disentangling my own emotional state. 

What is your goal with the new podcast? Who is your audience? What are you trying to achieve?

Mainly, I want people to know that they’re not alone, and try also to highlight that laughter can be therapeutic. I’m intentionally diving into the sometimes absurd inner workings of my mind to let others know that it’s okay to have unique, if dizzying, thought patterns here and there. 

We haven’t been live long enough for me to have a true grasp on our audience, but, from the feedback I’ve gotten and those who have reached out to me, it appears to be folks who have suffered from anxiety or, at the very least, know someone who has, or are interested in what anxiety is all about. 

I’d like to think almost anybody could tune in, largely because we chat in a pretty humorous tone in the podcast. It could almost be confused with a comedy set if you entered at the wrong time. That being said, the goal of the podcast isn’t to make light of anxiety. It’s to show that you can have anxiety, but still, enjoy your life, and even laugh at yourself here and there. 

Congrats on winning many awards. What is unique and different about you as a travel blogger that you bring to the table? 

Well thanks, firstly. I feel fortunate to have won many awards in the past, and continue to be considered for awards in the present and future. Each one means something to me, trust me. That is something which will never get old to me, so let’s keep them coming, shall we?! 

Joking aside, I am honoured, as there are so many talented travel writers and bloggers out there. 

As far as what’s different about me, it’s a great question. I honestly don’t know. I mean, I’ve read voraciously since I was young, and I took English Lit. in university, so I think I’ve got the writing structure down pat, but I know it’s more than that. It honestly may come down to my intense curiosity. I’m profoundly interested in the places I visit, and perhaps that comes across to readers. 

I’d also like to think that I’m writing to elevate my readers and not alienate them. Nobody wants to know where I’ve been and how much fun I had, they want to see themselves in my adventures, and know that my writing is empowering them to chase their own adventures. In the end, I write for my readers, and not for myself. 

I also adore writing in the strongest sense. Without writing, I don’t think I’d understand myself or this world. I travel physically with planes, but mentally with words. 

Talk to me about a favorite city of yours/ What is it about that city that we should visit and the food scene?

That would have to be Istanbul, my friend. Istanbul, to me, feels like the centre of the world. I lived there for 3 years, and while I was there, I felt like I had my fingers on the pulse of the planet. I was tapped into millennia of history just by walking around the streets and areas of the present day. 

The food scene is on another level as well, especially when it comes to Turkish breakfast. I’ve actually covered exactly how you should tackle Istanbul (including Turkish breakfast) in this article on my site, appropriately called, “Istanbul Travel Tips – Travel Advice for Istanbul From a Former Resident.” 

I also did an episode on the Amateur Traveler podcast! 

That should help folks out fairly well if they’re looking to visit. I’ve been to 80 countries and thousands of towns, villages, and cities at this point and I’ll be blunt – you have not seen the world until you’ve been to Istanbul. 

It is, to me, the greatest city on the planet.

I see you are a romantic guy. Help me understand how marriage has changed you as a person? What surprised you the most? Do you recommend it?

I do try to be romantic or, at the very least, sentimental. I would say that marriage itself hasn’t necessarily changed my life dramatically, but nothing has had a greater impact on my life than my relationship with Bri. 

We’ve been together 10 years and married 2. So, what I’m saying is I don’t think you have to be married to appreciate your partner or be impacted by them, but I did appreciate the ceremonious commitment. 

Our wedding day was just perfect and brought together people from all over the world. 

I’ve just been lucky enough to have found my soulmate, and I think that’s what it’s all about. I would do anything for Bri, and perhaps marriage is one way we can let our partner know just that. 

I want to know something very challenging you have experienced? What did you do to overcome it?

I had a difficult time readjusting to life in Toronto in 2017 after living in Istanbul for three years. Most notably, I came back to Toronto and decided that I wouldn’t be pursuing teaching opportunities, which was made more ironic by the fact that I had just completed my Masters. 

That being said, I had the sense that I had to go in on my own and see what I could do. It’s a stressful thing to bet all your chips on something, but it’s also invigorating. Though, in retrospect, it was often a fine line between stress and excitement.

I began by growing out of the travelingmitch brand, especially on Twitter where I found a big audience for one reason or another. I began to go to conferences left, right, and center, and I became hungry to both learn and grow. 

Not long after that, I co-founded the Toronto Bloggers Collective because I decided that I couldn’t quite find the community I was looking for in Toronto, so it was time to create it. As you well know, that decision has had a huge positive impact on my life, and I hope it’s positively impacted folks like yourself and other members. 

Then, I started Ultimate Ontario to showcase what was going on in the province alongside Kev from the Toronto Bloggers Collective. As you can see, it was all about keeping moving for me. 

I also founded two podcasts and had my hands in a number of other projects. 

I put myself in a sink or swim scenario and thankfully I learned that I can indeed swim, which is a lesson I’m carrying with me even now. 

When this pandemic hit, it’s not a shock that I started the new podcast on anxiety because my reaction to struggle now is thinking about what I can create to solve problems for others. It gives me a sense of purpose. 

Finally, I want you to give three tips to a new blogger?

I’ll keep it simple. 

Be curious. Be patient. Be bold.

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