Life. Be in it.

Dear adults that include this writer...

Suicide.
What an ugly word.
Child Suicide.
We have a problem.
We can choose to be vulnerable and express how powerless it makes us feel.
We can be courageous and choose to look for solutions.

Why is our defense to blame?
We blame ourselves, we blame others, we blame a system.
Blame is so reliable.

This may sound extreme but nationally claiming that young people who do mean things are causing other kids to kill themselves is not an answer.

According to Dorothy Espelage, a researcher out of the University of Illinois who studies bullying, if I heard her correctly she stated that no bully prevention program (or any prevention program for that matter) is effective without a strong foundation of social and emotional skills.

So with that information it seems that a logical solution is to teach or embed social and emotional skills like self and social awareness, self management, relationship skills, and decision-making in schools.  The people in the schools that have the best understanding of social and emotional learning or SEL (mental health providers including counselors, psychologists, and social workers) are not trained to teach nor were they hired for that purpose, and the teachers are overwhelmed with a job that is already unrealistic and to suggest that they teach SEL only seems to add to the problem of feeling underappreciated and overwhelmed.

Do you recall a bumper sticker that read 'Focus on your own damn family?'  Well how about if we start a solution beginning with:  Focus on your own damn self.

Self care.
We cannot give someone something that we don't have ourselves.

Let's collectively get out of the trance that we all contribute to where it's as if we are speaking and living a life that is scripted by a society that we help to create by not allowing ourself or choosing not to be present in our experience.  When we are present we search inside ourself for solutions...we stop blaming.  Brene Brown has almost two million hits on her TED talk on shame.  She says that courage is the antidote for shame...and that vulnerability is courage.

Can we choose to be vulnerable with one another and work toward solutions as a community of caring people that teach children to choose life?  Let's sell life by creating one that is our own...one that triumphs in courage and in truth.  A life that allows for stillness and seeks peace in a deeper space of knowing...a deeper space that may always remain a mystery for the living - yet continues to be a source of inspiration when we choose to dwell in it.  I used to wear a t-shirt when I was a kid that I got from the local community center - it said 'Life. Be in it.'  I didn't understand what it meant at the time.  Now I do.