Love is the answer...

Over the last couple of years, our political landscape has been very angry and divided.  I have watched this, and have been angry myself.  This doesn’t do a whole lot for a person who already reacts to life in negative ways.  While anger can fuel your energy, it robs you of peace of mind.  It keeps you disconnected from other people.  It impacts your physical and mental health.  I think that people know that.  But sometimes it‘s easier to use anger than work on communication and acceptance.  Part of that anger is the tendency to blame.  If you look back at the last few years politically, that is what we have seen.  In a political sense, that is what our collective mood has been.   We are divided and we blame the other side.  As I have recognized the impact that this anger has on me, I have committed to changing that tendency in myself.  I can’t afford to live in anger because it impacts me so heavily and is a trigger for my depression.  It‘s important for me to maintain my balance in life because I get caught up in negative emotion.  Can you relate?  I was reminded of that struggle to maintain balance in a conversation with a friend about another blog article.  Michael gave me feedback on an article about community that reflected his true nature.  He is a loving person and reminded me that love needs to be at the heart of the way a community treats the mentally ill.  It was a valuable point.  One that I have grown to expect in my conversations with my friend Michael.  And he is right.  Love is the answer.  Sometimes we don’t remember that.

When we live in anger and judgment, we are harming ourselves more than we are our opponents.  And when we are punitive to the mentally ill, we are harming members of our community.  When we are incapable of sympathizing or empathizing with the experiences of other people, we don’t even realize that it is more destructive to our spirit than it is the spirit of the person that we are punishing.  Anger is toxic.  It doesn’t lead to solutions.  It leads to more problems.  Now, of course we have to react with anger sometimes.  If we are defending ourselves, it may be necessary.  But we overuse our anger.  We create divisions where they don’t really exist.  And we create a society that is suffering from a kind of collective mental illness.  

How can we deal with this?  We can explore how our attitudes and beliefs separate us from other people.  We can commit to looking at every issue as an opportunity for debate and not a chance to punish other people.  We can be willing to consider other points of view and be conscious of how we respond to other human beings.  We can eliminate nasty words from our discussions and be respectful.  We can practice acceptance. And we can be open to hearing other people out.  Even when we disagree.

Can you see that making these changes might improve our collective mood?  Or that we can work towards solutions instead of nastiness?  I certainly can.  And I think it is key to helping all of us move forward.  All the anger keeps us stuck.  I certainly appreciate the openness of my audience.  I think many of you have learned from what I have shared about my experiences.  And as I have told you, I learn from you and your stories.  True progress comes with communication.  I really would like to thank my friend Michael.  And tell him how much I value the friendship that we have.  Michael, don’t ever lose that loving core.  It is truly inspiring.