According to the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, an average of 130 citizens within the American family die by suicide every day. Wednesday, December 14th, 2022, we all learned in disbelief that Stephen "tWitch" Boss, a bright light in our culture, was among that average.
While our thoughts and prayers go out to the friends and families who must mourn and begin the journey to heal from such tragedy, how will we that remain bring this illusive criminal of suicide to justice?
I am not an expert in this arena, so I will not attempt to speak on this from a scientific point of view. But what I do know is that we must secure and anchor ourselves in LOVE to stand a fighting chance in these unprecedented times! This includes God’s Love…our family’s Love…our friend’s Love and…Love of self!
Love…of…self! This is the nail I want to hit on the head; for we do not spend enough time Loving ourselves. I may be alone here, but when I was faced with the decision to go on with life or to end it all, Self-Love was the crucial factor that I had to weigh in the balance. Its presence, though limited at that moment, was the dividing factor between me, eternity and time.
Over the years, I have learned that Love of Self is not automatic. Self-Love has to be learned, perceived and comprehended. Self-Love requires intense studying of our personal inventory such as our gifts, callings, talents, strengths, fearlessness, as well as our fears, weaknesses, ignorance, threats and areas of opportunity. No one else can do this work for us! There are no shortcuts! We have sole ownership in discovering that we are predestined treasures given to this generation to address a particular problem that will go unresolved without us.
And if no one has ever said it outloud, there is nothing that we have encountered that will pardon us from fulfilling the mission we were SENT into the world to accomplish. We cannot take the cargo designed for this world into the next.
Hear me with your hearts and not with just your heads! We are living in a painful era in our history and we each have a mandate to administer the remedies stored within us to reduce the inflammation of our society's woes. This is not the time for us to go missing.
So, what do we do from here?
Let us be proactive in rooting and grounding ourselves in the effective power of Love to hold us steady when things get ugly!
Let us lean hard upon Love’s authentic wherewithal to bear our most intense realities and to arrest the private thoughts that would have us do harm to ourselves or others.
Let us become solely dependent upon Love's intelligence and wise counsel to produce right now and long term solutions to meet every one of our wants, problems and needs.
Let us turn on Love's light internally to investigate why we, in our imperfections, are perfectly formed and selected to shine bright in our assigned spheres of influence.
Above all, when we have to come face to face with the decision to live on or end it all, let us not make this decision alone. STOP and call a trusted confidant for immediate help.
If there is not confidant nearby, let us contact the trusted resource 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988 or visiting their website: https://988lifeline.org.
Leaders, wrap this around your heads and your children's heads…our ecosystem CANNOT work without you! You are SENT into this world on purpose and for a purpose! You are NECESSARY! Your presence is not OPTIONAL!!
You’ve heard me say if before and I will say it again…always choose Love, for it is beautiful for every situation!
Here’s to the journey! Let’s move forward!
~Teresa
A Call to Action…
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