The Silent Epidemic


The Technological Holocaust is succeeding 
Because of the lack of HEART in humanity.

Healing the world begins and finishes
With the healing of our individual hearts

   Though most of us have heard that “it's OK to cry,” we don't seem to fully realize how incredibly important it is to allow a healthy grieving process after painful situations. We usually close our Hearts, in order to avoid feeling emotional pain. Yet, this closing of our Hearts, no matter how much or how little, is causing even more pain, because crying is what washes away the pain and allows us to feel deeper levels of love and compassion for ourselves and others.
   What I call, the "Silent Epidemic", grows and spreads each time we suppress our sadness. The Silent Epidemic is an emotional illness. I know this may sound a bit strange to some of you. But if you read the rest of this, and listen to the Wisdom in your own Heart, I’m sure you'll feel some of the Truth in what I m saying.
   Some say that sadness is "negative" or "depressing". Some go so far as to say that it's "un-spiritual" or "dark" to feel, release or express sadness! Some even think that “all we need to do is use our minds to choose joy instead," no matter how we are REALLY feeling! But my experiences show me that this avoidance of our Hearts - this suppression of our sadness, is THE very thing that actually CREATES the "negative" stuff in our world.
   I feel certain that humanity's health and wellbeing depends on each of us allowing the natural cleansing process of healthy grieving, because releasing our emotional pain is what opens our Hearts to deeper levels of Love, Joy and Peace.
   We habitually suppress our sadness, because feeling it can be uncomfortable and sometimes overwhelming, especially when it's not supported by the people around us. Even in the most supportive environments, it's difficult to completely embrace grief. Suppression is the easiest route to take, but certainly NOT the healthy one.
   Most of us were taught, from the day we were born, to stuff down our feelings of sadness; to "get over it", to pretend it's not there, and "put it behind us" as quickly as possible. Consequently, most of us are better at suppressing than we are at releasing our pain. We tend to even feel ashamed to go out in public after we've let ourselves deeply cry, because we don't want people to know we've been crying.
    We act as if crying is doing something wrong or shameful! We waste a lot of energy trying to avoid feeling anything but shallow imitations of joy. We stuff down our sadness with overdoses of caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, food, drugs, TV, sleeping, thinking, working...etc. We tend to keep ourselves so busy and so distracted that there's no time to feel anything! And we often try to stop others from feeling their feelings, because their sadness triggers ours. And on and on and on the unhealthy cycle goes. I feel 100% certain that deeper levels of grieving/crying is an absolute necessity for the health of our Hearts, our families, our communities, our countries. . .our world.

   The "Silent Epidemic", is the widest spread, most dangerous epidemic in humanity. No joke! You may think I'm catastrophizing here. But I feel certain that I'm not. I feel that humanity is at a serious crisis point with this issue. PLEASE think about this.

Suppressing sadness - the closing of our Hearts, is the root cause of ALL the problems we face, on both personal and global levels. When we've suppressed extremely large doses, it depresses us, makes us ill or becomes anger that yearns to strike out.

On the larger scales. . .Severe suppression of sadness, causes Hearts to become so blocked that they begin filling up with deep levels of greed, warped senses of spirituality, uncontrolled anger, and a thirst for power over others, all of which are THE root cause of the destructive wars we experience between family members, religions, cultures, and countries.

On the smaller scales. . .suppressing our feelings of sadness causes our Hearts to start blocking to the point where we also start losing our ability to feel deeper levels of compassion, peace, Love and joy. Greed begins attempting  to fill the voids with money and possessions. Our connection to the deeper, wiser parts of ourselves and to the Highest Power, becomes more and more blocked. Is any of this sounding familiar?

Sadness is not depressing!
It's the suppression of it that depresses us.

   Now, I'm not suggesting that we walk around trying to cry all the time. But I AM saying that we should work at allowing the depths of our Heart's natural cleansing process - that we should allow and support a healthy grieving process far more than we now do. And I'm praying for us to take a deeper look at the damaging effects of the "NO crying/grieving allowed" messages, we deliver to our loved ones.  I cringe every time I hear the popular Christmas song, "You better be good. You better not cry. I'm telling you why. . .Santa Clause is coming to town..."!!! I'm sure we would not even think of writing and playing songs like this for our children, if we knew how damaging it is. Sometimes, when I hear this song, I sing along and loudly change the words to, "You'd better cry...", because our individual Heart's need to utilize their natural cleansing process for our soul’s preservation.
   The "Silent Epidemic" needs to be cured, in order for us to start healing our world, ESPECIALLY through the tough times we now face. It's OK to cry. It is! It really is.

Crying is like giving the Heart a shower
To wash away accumulated dirt.


Lonely Place
by Wisdom

Deep inside most Hearts exists a lonely place,
Where sadness hides and silent yearnings
For Love long to be embraced.
This is the place we need to reach -
The depths, where Hearts have much to teach.
But, do we dare reach inside
For sadness that's learned to hide?
Do we dare fully embrace
The tears that long to wash our face?
Do we dare let go of pain
So Love can find its place again?
Perhaps we must.




We
feel
love only
as deeply
as we allow
ourselves to
feel sadness
* * *

We'll all be happier when its OK to cry.


Looking Back

After disaster strikes and people think the most
Difficult part is over, it’s often just beginning,
For those who were hit hardest.

   Shock often settles in, sometimes even for months or years at a time! When most people think it’s time for us to square our shoulders and move on, the time is often just beginning for deeper feelings of grief to start surfacing. And instead of allowing a healthy grieving process, we tend to suppress it and struggle to ‘move on’ before we are really ready to.
   Many of us seem to think that if we don’t look back at what happened, and if we force ourselves not to feel our sadness, the pain will go away. But avoiding the pain doesn’t make it go away. It just stuffs it into our future, weighs us down and blocks our Hearts until we finally allow ourselves to look back, face it and cry it out - let it go.
   The most excruciating part of the disasters I’ve experienced has been the way that people do not want to hear about it or deal with the emotions connected to it. A wounded little voice has often wanted to rise up out of the depths of my own broken Heart and cry, “IF WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO ME IS TOO DIFFICULT FOR YOU TO WANT TO DEAL WITH, HOW DO YOU THINK I FEEL?!!!”
   It hurts too much to have to deal with this stuff alone! So, let’s not push ourselves or others to avoid talking about it or looking back and feeling the sadness, no matter how much time has gone by. Lets not rush to glue back together what’s still oozing with unshed tears! Let’s let ourselves and others fully feel whatever needs to be felt. . .for as long as it takes to genuinely heal it. Let’s support a more healthy process of grieving, so we don’t have to continue carrying our pain into our future. Lets embrace each others tears until the pain is gone, so that we can bring more Love into a world that desperately needs it.

We can’t free the future until we heal the past.

 Our past experiences, both happy and sad, shape who we are, how we think, how we feel, how we behave and what choices we make, today. When we feel/heal our past we free our future.