mental illness

If someone dies who you “feel” you had a connection to you, you can very easily be thrown for a moment out of your daily routine. That is how I felt today when Mork* made the decision to return to Ork for what seems to be a reason of having too long needing to cope with the pressure of being here “on earth”.

A childhood series I loved growing up with and the actor portraying my alien hero, who saw pictures flowing in his mind but knew he wasn’t at the cinemas cause chewing gum wasn’t stuck under the bed when he awoke, has said “tschuss”.

I have bipolar, depression and dementia in my extended family. I know friends who have mental illnesses they keep in “check” with medication and therapy. Do they speak open about it? No. Does my family be open about it? No. It is all hush, hush until, like by my cousin (bipolar) until he thinks he is super man and takes a leap from a three-storey building landing on his heels and crushing both feet to a thousand splinters. He lived. The other substances in his body took care of that, although the manic depression was having him operate from another plane at the time.  I love him dearly. He is considered by all in my family circle to be a handful. I wonder why? He has fantasy. He has energy. He had potential yet honestly he is just captured in a body, which is operating at such a rate he cannot understand it and neither has anyone else tried to over the years. I live on the other side of the planet from him hence I cannot check up on him. Today I sent him a large cosmic hug. He could be anytime in the same space capsule like Mork, ready to take off at a moments notice with only him, being aware of the departure time.

This is why it is so important that we as brothers, sisters, cousins, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, neighbor’s, and work colleagues, wake up and learn to take care of those in our immediate sphere who are not doing so well. Just like with a stroke, there are tell tale signs of mental illnesses and taking a wee bit of time out of your routine to inform yourself could be the difference between a father that is still here for his family he leaves behind, or not.

I am not saying by any means you could definitely be the one who saves another life if informed but the chances do increase! There are so many symptoms you say, how could I even know two or three that could then be of benefit? Well if you knew that many by a stroke for instance, the person concerned would have a very good chance of survival as well as improvement from the side effects.

We underestimate our influence from being informed. This begins also by our speaking up. Last week a guest said to me I was “special”.  This is not understood for many as a compliment but she meant it in the nicest way, for she was referring to the fact I take the situation I am dealt and deal with it. I do not run away nor do I shun the fact it could be absolutely against my grain or societies to react. I speak out. For many it is abrupt, over powering, too much. For me it is actually toned down and not nearly as much as I would like. Everyone has fear breathing down their necks and lives their lives by it. I do not want to be in this position.

Do you want to be aware of each and every moment or do you wish rather to ran rather like a rat in the under ground feeding of another’s waste and surviving by using cunning as the means to existing? Those with a mental illness feel much more like the rats trying to retain normality as their coat but knowing the sewers are their hovels of salvation. There they can breath and feel normal without judgment or control. Both elements, normal society places on the category of mental illnesses and those suffering under its weight.

Know it is normal to feel disillusioned with the whole world more than once in your life and if anyone has told you to "buck up and just put your head down" he or she are only bluffing! They have had just as many doubts and tribulations as you. Maybe even more only perhaps they simply had a better safety net in place at the time. Or a strong hold on a substance that kept them here.

There are so many systems, fractions and belief systems in place to belittle you and make you feel small but the grandest source that created you is only love pure. Let me say this once more just to make sure you read it correctly. The grandest source that created you is only love pure. This source had no intention of saying if you should or should not be of this gender, live this life, reach these heights, follow this belief, create the world in this manner, do this job, marry this person, undertake this war, live this system of belief. You have been given immense possibilities to expand creativity, physically and mentally. We humans have created the cage, which holds us in. We have become the demons in person who rob one another of reaching our highest potential. It is sadly the reason so many of us feel lost. Crying out into the dark, who is there to hear us?

Just your once reaching out to one person, who takes an hour out of their routine to hear you, can be honestly the difference between living a tomorrow or not. Mental illness can be set off from a death in the family, an hormonal imbalance, a latent gene trait that surfaces due to a stress situation. Be that person who takes time for another now please to catch and help when this happens. Be also the person to call out if you feel it happening to you. Courage is in being there to help AND knowing when to ask for it.

When you come from your heart nest (the tender space that encases your heart energy/impulses of love and also your physical heart) and say what you want, why and do exactly what you wish, you will be understood, loved, healed and take the steps to living a healthy fulfilled life. Then you can begin to flow in unison with all around you. You need to trust yourself. You also need to hear others. It is a two way street. You need to understand you have worth and a right to live. We want you here, just as much as we ourselves want to be here.

Call out into the dark you feel yourself surrounded by and know there is an enlighten soul there to hear you. Please do not keep quite. Reach beyond your comfort zone and embrace the humanity waiting outside your encasing. If you hear a cry then listen and react towards it not from it too.  It could be the difference between life and death to soon.

Your Korus whispers

(*I refer here to Robin Williams’s suicide in my mentioning “Mork from Ork” 12.08.14)

Check yourself first

An expression of your view

could begin with "I believe"

yet this form of wording

often comes with terms and a set way of thinking.

Which makes so many of us ask

the same question in exasperation -

"Could we rather place religion to the side and state instead?

I would like for us to work together,

to finding a new way to see a new day,

without the use of some deity, doctrine or divinity!"

Why are we using our beliefs as a reason to kill?

Should taking young souls away too soon

from living life be a solution for whom?

I feel that we have forgotten

how far we even have developed

to understanding the strength of our own healing potential!

When guided by love and compassion instead of hate and destruction

There is a platform for us to work from, not kill each other on.

Ruthless cruelty to so many, on both sides of the fence

Makes absolutely no sense.

What are we trying to "feed" to still the ache in our bellies?

that has been festering slowly over centuries;

by disregarding generations of wisdom

which we have thrown carelessly to the wind?

Making our species a disgruntled primate of questionable value,

loaded with fear of loosing out left, right and centre.

Each human has a right to voice what they value.

Just as each person should accept it could be different than yours.

This makes not one right and the other wrong.

Justice is not the playing card here but rather

acknowledging each ones well being and placing our energy into

setting this into motion for all.

Energy goes were we center it on.

Place your thoughts, prayers, views and words into the open

with empathy, tenderness and a awareness to further humanity

in bonding together for each and everyone's wellbeing.

Note it will take a fostering of respect for one another

that embraces rather your emotional intelligence,

not your guttural instinct to survive, which we should have

left long ago behind us.

Take a start my concentrating upon your own doorstep.

On the ground upon which you now stand

over from your neighbor, family member or foe.

For when we place our own household in order

we effect the world order most certainly in ways

you can not begin to know.

Your Korus 

A handful

It takes but a handful from one fungus to make a meal to feed the multitudes. It takes but a mouthful from another toadstool to kill several humans tenfold.

It takes but a few simple carelessly placed remarks or actions to bring about a whole lot of damage to a single race. It takes but a second for one person to begin to repair what another has done, in slowly building up the self-esteem of many by consciously visualizing the healing of one.

When I see around me and experience on my person the state of our human capacity to be self-centred, greedy and egoistic I can feel for a moment a little overwhelmed at the darker side of the human nature. I myself have seen it at its worst and best as I am sure most of you would have too. Yet that still doesn’t mean you can brush over with ease, pinpointed remarks against yourself, family or friends, be it in the work environment, colleague circle or wider world stage.

What for me often the hardest is when I have done absolutely my best to work upon creating an environment for fostering peace and am tested within it, punch after punch. Let me give you a simplified example from a night past when I was working in our restaurant that does have repercussions going wider than you would think.

I had to reflect upon two guests who were making me think why do we try to give you a feeling of "slow food" and you want to eat within two hours and leave? I prepare the restaurant just for you. I am ready to chat, serve and be there just for you. It begins so well but then your edgy. I see you looking at me saying unconsciously "and when is it coming?" I am then under pressure because you can hardly wait for the bill. Other tables are still on their main course but you want to leave. What happened? Who forgets the clock and looks only on what they have to experience within this moment now? Sadly, hardly anyone anymore I thought. I still had to deal with their effect upon me, which rippled out unconsciously into our surroundings and onto the other guests. Not so easy to do. I could feel the edginess slipping into each person in the room.

I had to bless these two people for making me aware of their lack of knowing what time is and how to live in the now. Only then could I reach them and find a way to communicate. The thread was my homeland. The balsam was their six-week holiday there. The medicine taken was my listening to their tales of New Zealand and what was then the cure? Me relating to them how small the world is, to be here in Germany sharing memories of a land held to us all three so dear in our hearts.

Or perhaps you could look at it like a curry - a complex dish that is influenced by tradition, region, religion and Grandmas preference! Wet or dry, chilly based with meat or served vegetarian, from lands afar, the ingredients are not always only coriander, cumin, turmeric, ginger and cloves. The earliest known recipe for “meat in spicy sauce with bread” appeared on tablets found near Babylon in Mesopotamia, dated around 1700 B.C probably as an offering to the god Marduk.

A fitting fact when here too stood the tower of Babel, in a city where all of humanity was once one in being and language. Until the occupants wanted no more to be of one soul - an emotional or intellectual energy or intensity embodied within each human being, all rational and spiritual beings, or the universe from the original source of love. The ability of the cities occupants as one people to feel kindness and sympathy for others, to appreciate beauty and art became lifeless as they sort to be higher than their neighbour. Greater even than the source from which they came, this drove them to violence and disregard the lives of their brothers and sisters. Spawning them to having less than themselves and letting a bleak, blackness of destruction to fill their minds and hearts causing separation and entanglement. It is said in various versions of the falling of Babylon that the confusion and frustration at not being anymore able to be understood drove a wedge forever in the soul of mankind.

Perhaps if I was to take the ingredients of curry and the core of once what soul stood for in its purest form and blended them together to create a nourishing, morsel of empathy to place into my mouth for me to swallow and digest, I might have food for thought; a soul-curry I would call it. Then I could sit and reflect upon the time it took to make this dish and float upon the dreams the spices awaken in me to exploring lands far away. Reminding me now to live my way, laugh, love and embrace every and each moment now as a way to learn to return to loving myself unconditionally hence releasing abundant love vibes to help uplift all of humanities energy levels seen and unseen.

These are only a handful of words. They come collectively together upon the page I write but if but one person reflects upon them and is motivated by them to take care with their words, they have achieved their purpose. To allow your speech to be uplifting and nourishing for one other soul means maybe we can come together from these so called conflicts of manmade disputes (war, religious disagreements, neighbourhood quarrels, sexist bulling and many other forms of verbal violence all gone so wrong) to finding a unison. Not terming them being right or wrong; for all religions preach love your neighbour, friend or foe but instead take this thought to heart to have to find a way to support and care for each other, not tear each other apart.

I ask only may the highest energy of love which created the human being, find a way to let compassion and healing flow into the hearts of all mankind to help them really try to find a way to walk hand in hand together and not to wipe one another out.

Let us start with three words perhaps – “I love myself” then project these onto another – “I love you” and then let them flow like water through the desert nourishing all they come into contact with, giving life to something new and beautiful. Nothing began from a completed stand. Everything has taken form from a thought which when placed into motion becomes an action which contains a mighty force depending upon your reaction.

Be that uplifting word, be light and love to all, be the hope so many crave to savour but are not being feed. Be the food to nourish the world by starting in your own back yard, to plant your thoughts and words with care, so they grow into a reality we can all live from and prosper within.

Your Korus Whispers