Parenting has taken on a whole new meaning during Covid 19.

Parents, caregivers, and children across the country are facing challenges and have to constantly pivot during the lockdown.

Focus on creating quality time and make sure your children are connected with family, friends, and neighbors through social media, chats, phones, and email.

Go on walks with your children while maintaining a safe distance.

Listen to understand your children, focus on their positive behavior and be a role model.

I talk to Brett about mental health and parenting.

Brett Ullman travels North America speaking to teens, young adults, leaders, and parents on topics including sexuality, mental health, men, dating, and media. Brett’s seminars engage and challenge attendees to try and connect our ancient faith with the modern culture we live in. Participants are inspired to reflect on what we know, what we believe, and how our faith ought to serve as the lens through which we view and engage in tough conversations in our society today.

Husband to Dawn and father of Bennett and Zoe, Brett and his family make their home in Ajax, Ontario where Brett leads and directs Worlds Apart, a charity focused on empowering individuals to re-align their lives with Biblical core values often muddled by media but central to Christian living.

Brett was a teacher with the Toronto District School Board for 10 years before moving into speaking full-time back in 2005. Brett has a Master’s degree in Evangelism and Leadership from Wheaton Graduate School in Chicago and is also a graduate of the Arrow Leadership Program. He and his family are members of Sanctus Church in Ajax since 2004. I catch up with Brett to talk about mental health and parenting.

Brett, please tell my audience a little about you?

My name is Brett Ullman. My wife (Dawn) and I live in Ajax, Ontario with our 2 teenagers Zoe (16) and Ben (15). I was a teacher with the TDSB (Toronto District School Board) for 10 years before leaving teaching 13 years ago to speak full-time. My speaking had started the year I began teaching and had grown to the point where I was teaching full-time and speaking 45 dates a year across Canada and the US. I speak on current issues from parenting, mental health, dating, media, faith, sex, men, and pornography.

I have a 14-year daughter, what is the best advice you can give me?

There is a quote from the book “Trophy Child” from Ted Cunningham that says “They will not be with me forever so I will prepare them accordingly.” This would be my best advice … prepare your daughter for life, don’t protect her from life. We seem to see an epidemic of over-parenting (which is rooted in fear-based parenting) throughout our society. If 4 years from now she heads away for school she better be ready to deal with everything from good online digital citizenship, dealing with sex and pornography, dealing with money, all aspects of dating, etc.

As a side point, I would say go and tell her that you love her. I am blown away on an ongoing basis by how many young girls tell me their dad has never told them he loved her.

I would also remind her often that you are there for her, not against her. That we as parents want the best for our kids and we are in their corner in life is a huge deal. This also means that we are still for them even when they mess up. Our kids need to know that we love them “forever and always” no matter what happens. This is unconditional love.

In the last decade, we as a society have been talking about mental health. What can we as parents do if our kid is struggling?

If I am in a room of students and/or parents and ask who knows someone who struggles with mental health, there is usually not a hand that does not go up. It is affecting all of us as a modern culture today. As someone who had a breakdown back in 2012 from speaking close to 300 speaking dates a year to pay for my Master’s degree, I was taking down in Chicago I understand first-hand the … what word do I use … struggle that those of us with mental health struggles face within the church today. One of the issues is that we allow people with cancer, diabetes, and other illnesses to follow a path to healing using best practices (doctors, medications, etc) but tell someone struggling with mental health it must be a spiritual issue. I have an entire talk on this called the Walking Wounded. Let me give you the 2 min summary.

If you or your kids are struggling with mental health you need to attack it in 3 ways:

1. Body – go to your family doctor. Get blood work, and a physical done and see if there is anything physically wrong with you. You then need to take care of your body by eating better, sleeping more, and doing daily exercise. Some of the struggles we have are just from our living unsustainable lives. We need to take back control of what we can.
2. Mind – go see a counselor and get some strategies to help you in your journey.
3. Soul – Now this is the one that gets vast debate. I would say that our faith is (for the most part) not the answer in the journey but is the thing that sustains us in the journey no matter the outcome. Talk to pastors, prayer teams, small groups, and other people and allow them into your journey as well.

How are sexuality, media, and dating related?

I put them all under an umbrella I call a Christian Sexual Ethic or a Biblical worldview of healthy sexuality. If you have a correct ethic or worldview on this, it will affect all aspects of how we view sexuality in our lives. This affects what we do in relationships, what we do online, and the type of media we put into our lives.

Give me some practical examples as to how we can connect an ancient faith to our fast-paced modern culture?

I think it starts with a Biblical Worldview. Your Worldview shapes your values, and then your values shape your actions, what you actually do in life. I have been talking about spiritual disciplines for 15 years in my talks. These are the primary spiritual formation building blocks of our faith. Reading, praying, fasting, giving, volunteering, etc. are the foundations of our faith. I just finished a chapter on this for my new book so here is a shortlist of a few books to get you started in this area:

1. Dallas Willard: The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives
2. Richard J. Foster: Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth
3. Nathan Foster: The Making of an Ordinary Saint
4. Patrick M. Morley: A Man’s Guide to the Spiritual Disciplines: 12 Habits to Strengthen Your Walk with Christ
5. Ken Shigematsu: God in My Everything: How an Ancient Rhythm Helps Busy People Enjoy God
6. Gary Thomas: Sacred Pathways
7. Ruth R. Barton: Sacred Rhythms: Arranging our lives for Spiritual Transformation

Give me some practical tips on parenting and how to communicate with our kids on taboo topics?

The author Henry Cloud says we need to “Enter the danger.” We need not shy away from the tough stuff but lean into the conversations.

One thing that is really important here is that if you want to be able to speak to your kids on tough topics, you have to have relational influence in their lives. This is not something that you get because you are a parent, it is something you have to earn. When your kids are born, you have positional influence as you are the parent, and they are the kid. As they get older this fades away, and you must have relational influence. You build this day by day as your kids are growing up by being involved in their lives, family dinners, family vacations, family meetings, talks on the couch, game night, movie night, laughing and crying with your kids, encouraging them, etc.

Back to the tough topics use people around you. If you do not know what to say about a particular topic spend some time searching online, talk to your pastors and leaders, talk to parents of kids who are older than yours, read books on this topic, spend time on YouTube and searching Ted talks for great content. My website (www.brettullman.com) is filled with resources like this. My blog has conversations on all of these tough topics and the best links to other resources are all posted.

Talk to my female audience and help them in the dating world and how they need to navigate it?

I might start with a younger audience and say you don’t need to rush into dating in Grade 5-11. It will add a lot of heartaches, and the real question you are going to have to answer is what do you do sexually in these relationships as there is not much else that will be different from a good friend and dating other than that.

The other side of that coin is said to people who are out of High School and challenging them actually to date. We have a problem I see today where people are just not dating.

An important question to ask is not whether they like you, but whether they are worth you’re like.

Let me explain this better. It is great they like you, but does it matter? Are they the right person for you? Do you also like them? Do you have anything in common etc.? You don’t need to date someone just because they like you. You have a choice whether to like them back (in a dating way) or just stay friends.

What are some questions we need to ask ourselves before getting married?

The most viewed blog on my site with over 12,600 views is 80+ questions you need to ask when you are dating. Lots of questions to ask before you ever get engaged and married. Just a few good ones would be:

–    What behavior is appropriate for those who are going to practice sexual abstinence before marriage

–    Are you a non-practicing Christian? What does the Christian faith mean to you?

–    Do you want any? 1? 2? 5?

–    What kind of home do you want your children to grow up in? Values? Rules?

–    What will you do? Where will you live? What comes with the job you have chosen? Travel?

You can use my blog as a start and then add any other questions you have. The point is to ask these before you get serious. If you want to have kids and they do not this is a massive red flag that your relationship might not be right. If they’re going to move to another place in the country and you want to live near your family and friends, it might be another red flag. 

How important is communication in the family?

It is paramount. I am a huge fan of family dinners, family meetings, family vacations, etc. The problem we see today is peer attachment without parental attachment. This is seen in Leonard Sax’s’ book The Collapse of Parenting. Our kids are looking for unconditional love and acceptance from their peers which is just something they are not able to give. Our kids need a strong, secure attachment (bond) with us as parents, only then can they head out into the world and bond with their peers.

We as parents need to make sure that we work at good communication. No technology at the dinner table. Phones are on airplane mode and not on silent. People need to look at each other in the eye when they are talking. This problem of partial attention is getting worse in life.

We also need to have open communication on the expectations of our kids around the house. Clear, agreed on boundaries and expectations for everything from chores to curfew.

How do you balance faith family finance and food in this busy world?

I think the first thought here is just to be conscious that you want to live a balanced, sustainable life. I am presently reading “The Ripple Effect” by Greg Wells. The bi-line is:

Sleep better

Eat better

Move better

Think better

So love this. Many years ago, I heard the analogy of the jar with the different size rocks. If you put in the sand and small stones first the large rocks will not fit in. But, if you put in the large rocks, then small stones, then the sand they will all fit. It is the same in our lives. Plan your life to fit in the large rocks first (exercise, sleep, diet, faith etc.), then put in the smaller stones (shopping, cleaning, volunteering) When all of these things are done you are left to put in the sand of your life (TV, social media, video games, etc).

The post Reflections on mental health and parenting 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.

The post Chris Mitchell talks about anxiety appeared first on Four Columns of a Balanced Life.

This post is deeply personal and painful. It’s about loss, memory, guilt, and ultimately—healing. It’s about a friend I lost too soon, a time in my life when the world was full of possibilities, and how a single phone call decades later helped release me from years of unanswered questions and silent torment.

Suicide is not just an ending—it leaves ripples that never quite settle. As Phil Donahue once said, “Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.” But for those left behind, the problem becomes permanent too.

This is not a lecture. It’s a journey. A story of friendship, regret, rediscovery, and letting go. It’s for anyone who’s ever wondered “what if,” or carried the weight of a loss they couldn’t explain. It’s for those who feel alone in their struggles—and a reminder that healing often begins when we face the demons we’ve spent years trying to avoid.

You’ll seldom experience regret for anything that you’ve done. It is what you haven’t done that will torment you. The message, therefore, is clear. Do it! Develop an appreciation for the present moment. Seize every second of your life and savor it. Value your present moments. Using them up in any self-defeating ways means you’ve lost them forever – Wayne Dyer

There is often in people to whom ‘the worst’ has happened almost transcendent freedom, for they have faced ‘the worst’ and survived it -Carol Pearson

Skeletons in the closet

We all have skeletons in the closet. Those things we hide from everyone. We do not want anyone to know about it. It is in the attic. The best locks protect it.

Disappointments

Disappointments have a major effect on us. The tall, dark, handsome husband walked out on you. The model, who was so lithe and lissome left you for another man. The high school quarterback who was so romantic, now after two decades of marriage is a fat slob. The career is going nowhere. The business deal fell through. Married but cannot have kids. The list goes on.

Have you ever had a demon? A chimera so huge that even an army could not slay.

I was living the dream life. I was barely a teenager and in my first-year university in Switzerland. I had finished my stage (co-op placement, internship) at Hotel De la Paix in Geneva and with all the tips, I was loaded.

I always wanted to backpack Europe.

I had three free weeks before the second year and I flew first class to London.

I registered at the youth hostel and hit the London Tube. On my very first day after the second stop, I get a tap on the shoulder. I look back and it is S. Sidha. ‘Hey Jerry, do you remember me, from BCS’.

You see in boarding school I remembered juniors by three criteria:

Those that had cute sister’s at Auckland, Convent of Jesus and Mary, St Bede’s or somewhere else

Those that were foreigners like me at school

The Christians as there were only 5 of us

Sidha with his crispy English accent came under the second category.

‘Of course dude, I remember.’

After a small chat, he told me that my best friend Ajoy Hakim had committed suicide.

Wow! Wow! Wow! Hold on a second.

I met Ajoy in grade 11. Why did we become such good friends? Maybe we were outsiders. He was the teacher’s son. It could be we were both “Christians”. Perhaps we loved books, art, and the theatre.  Maybe I looked at him through different lenses. There were many times, I would question my own presence at BCS.

I remember us going up the mountains. We would light up a Dunhill. We talked about Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. We were idealists. We would be graduating soon. We were on the cusp of greatness. Freedom at last.

After doing our grade 12 exams, we backpacked India for a month. Nothing prepares you for the Taj Mahal. You study about it. It is deep in your psyche. You transcend into another world. I was only 17 then.

We went to Lucknow. His aunt was the principal of a boarding school. Did I mention a girl’s boarding school?  It was my first exposure to real Mughlai cuisine.

After our short sojourn, it was time to say goodbye. We knew it would be a while before we would see each other. Both of us knew that we would be fighting the establishment that believes in becoming doctors, lawyers, and engineers. Little did I know, that it would be the last time I would see Ajoy.

Early in life, we follow it mapped out by ego, a path of ambition, competition, striving, and achievement. At mid-life, we question the direction we are heading. We yearn to find our true calling. And you have to be willing to meet the demon.

The very thought of going back to visit school brought a shudder up my spine. Did I really want to deal with seeing all the places? Was it worth the trip?

We were the first batch of grade 12. However, we were orphans. No trace of us existed.

I was the president of the Old Cottonian Association in Canada. I did not want to return to school.

As we entered the Facebook world it all changed. I spoke to Arun Sawhney and got the ball rolling. He told me he never went back to school for ten years. He was escaping. Nevertheless, in life, you have to face your demons. You have to be that David and cut the head of Goliath. Look at the positive and focus on that.

Asheesh Santram’s email was the deal maker. He talked about renewing our bonds.

I called him.  He was Ajoy’s cousin. He gave me the breakdown of what had happened. I felt like he was the psychotherapist. One by one, he was breaking down the tendons and letting the blood flow. The blood brings rich nutrients that result in healing. I am not sure why I waited that long to make the call. He provided me with Anup Hakim’s cell number.

Anup was Ajoy’s older brother. He was teaching at school. I called him. This was the catharsis. Anup did not recognize me at first. However, he got it. He called me the boy who was always with Ajoy. We talked about how he had directed both the plays for Lefroy House.

We laughed about many issues. I finally asked him about his parents. He explained to me the whole story. He was not sure whether to take his parents’ accident a positive or negative. Would he have abandoned them when they became old and fragile?

I finally asked him about Ajoy. I told him this issue had bogged me for a quarter of a century. I was trying to track him down all along. It was refreshing to talk to Anup. He was the surgeon who had taken the thorn from my flesh.

I finally let it go. I was free from the bondage of guilt. I had felt like Hercules carrying this weight. It felt light.

Only ten of us graduated from grade 12. After seven years, three had died. In my grade 11 picture, I am standing between the other three.

I have stopped asking why. I deal with what now.

In life, we go through experiences to keep us humble. Hubris is a cousin of success.

The oven bakes you to add flavor. To become a butterfly the larvae have to break through the cocoon. We have to go through storms. It helps us appreciate things better.

I was looking at BCS through myopic eyes. One cannot let one incident mar your view. I cannot paint the whole canvas with one stroke. I was looking at the glass half empty.

I forgot to mention that I met one of my closest friends Ash Virk. Anup Bhalaik was one of the nicest persons I have ever come across.

Life is an art as much as a science. It is a marathon, not a sprint. Sometimes in our youth, the cabal judges us by that sprint.

BCS was an experience that embedded our names and lives into history. We are concatenated. I look forward to the renewing of bonds and reawaken the good that came from school.

The post How to Deal With a Friends Suicide appeared first on Four Columns of a Balanced Life.