The rising suicide rate has been a huge topic of conversation lately, due, in part, to some high-profile deaths. When someone commits suicide, it can affect us profoundly, even if we didn’t know them personally. It makes us feel so helpless. Why do people kill themselves in the first place? How could we have stopped them? Obviously, the way we’re handling it now isn’t working, so what is the solution?

That’s what I’m going to discuss in today’s video. And be warned, I totally got on my soapbox for this one. And while it’s a dark subject, it’s one that NEEDS to be talked about. Plus, I promise to leave you on a good feeling note by the end of the video. Don’t I always?

Transcript

Hey guys,

I received a question last week about why there’s such a rash of celebrity suicides this year. I hadn’t heard of a “rash”, but then I often live in a different reality, so I quickly did a google search and found that yes, we’ve had a couple of celebrity deaths. And while celebrity deaths, especially suicides, are always well publicized, because they’re, well, celebrities, and while we can certainly see these deaths as tragic, the truth is that a certain percentage of all people commit suicide each year. Celebrities aren’t exempt from this and as far as I could tell, the number of celebrity suicides wasn’t out of whack with non-celebrity suicide statistics.

What was out of whack, though, was what I discovered while doing this bit of research – and that is that over the last 20 years, suicides in the US have gone up over 30%. In some states, like the state of Idaho where I currently live, suicide rates have risen as much as 58% since 1999. And you know what? I’m not entirely ok with that. Because it’s not necessary.

Which is why, in this video, I’d like to explore the energetic or underlying reasons for suicide rates have risen, as well as offer a solution.

And yeah, I know it’s been a while since I’ve gotten up on my soap box. In fact, I think it’s been years. But I’ve been inspired to dust off that soap box, and so I’m not going to pull any punches. Because this is an issue that is solvable, if we have the courage to finally face those underlying issues in a way humanity has never done before.

Why do people commit suicide?

So, the first thing we have to look at is why people kill themselves at all? What drives a person to commit suicide, to end it all? Well, I happen to have a bit of personal experience with this. In my coaching practice, I’ve helped thousands of individuals heal their deep wounds and trauma, and this includes quite a few clients who were contemplating suicide before we began working together. I’ve also worked with the family members of loved ones who’ve killed themselves, and helped them make sense of what happened, as well as heal their own pain. And then, there’s my own story. When I was 15 years old, I tried to commit suicide.

And what I can tell you from all of this experience is this:

Committing suicide is not an easy thing to do. It’s not just a decision someone makes one day because they’ve got a bit of an issue. Suicide tends to be so painful and destructive because we don’t understand it. We don’t understand why someone, who often didn’t even SEEM like they were having that bad of a time, would choose to end their own life. We feel like we need to blame someone or something. We WANT to blame someone. After all, if we can just find the culprit, we can KILL the culprit, and then we won’t have to deal with this anymore.

But suicide doesn’t just happen. People don’t actually kill themselves because their lover broke up with them, or because they lost a job. Those may be the triggers, but those aren’t the underlying causes.

So, why do people kill themselves? Is it because they have a mental disorder? Well, guess what, a mental disorder is defined as a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. So, if you’ve ever had any emotional distress, congratulations, you had a mental disorder. At least in that moment. If you’ve ever grieved the loss of a loved one, a relationship that didn’t last, or even an object you couldn’t find, you were mentally ill – by that definition.

Now, it might sound like I’m being a little bit facetious. And I am. But here’s the thing:

People who kill themselves are in an incredible amount of pain. It’s an all-consuming, totally overwhelming pain that overshadows everything in one’s life. Even the things that should be a source of joy or comfort, like a loving family, children, or clear and present opportunities. This kind of pain is not logical. It can’t be argued with. It can’t be overcome with a bit of willpower.

And it lies to you. It tells you that nothing will ever get better. That no one can help you. That your pain makes you a burden on others. That no one really cares about you. And no one ever will. And even if you know, intellectually, that these are lies, this pain can be very, very persuasive. Like a skilled torturer, it will wear you down, until you doubt your own mind, your own feelings, your very reality. Until the idea of ending it all feels like relief. It begins to feel like the best feeling option.

And what causes this phenomenon – this painful wearing down process, this withdrawal, this all-consuming, overwhelming darkness, is not a mental illness. It’s part of being human, of how human beings work.  And our complete lack of understanding about this, is actually part of the problem.

So, let me break it down for you.

Powerlessness, which is what all pain and suffering come from, causes you to be drawn more and more inward, essentially, so you can take a look at it and release it. In depression, people don’t want to get out of bed. They don’t want to face the world. This is by design. Depression is meant to make you focus inward. When we fight against this process, it keeps us stuck in depression and will even make it worse.

How do we fight this process?

Well, there are a myriad of ways. Here are a couple:

For example, the very idea of being depressed is considered unacceptable. We’re not supposed to be depressed, ever. Remember, it’s been classified as a mental illness. So, if you’re depressed, something has gone wrong. You’re broken. And no one wants to be broken, so this perspective just makes it harder to heal.

There’s also a ton of shame associated with being depressed, suicidal and in so much pain that you can’t function anymore. You feel like you’re failing to be a good man, woman, father, mother, husband, wife, or even human being. Oh, and classifying normal human emotions as a mental illness certainly hasn’t helped to mitigate that shame.

Another way in which we fight the natural process that depression is a part of, is that we believe that one can just “snap out of it”, maybe by deciding to just feel better, or by engaging in activities, like going to school or a job that we hate, because if you act like you feel better, you’ll feel better, right? … No. That’s not how it works. But that doesn’t stop countless people from giving this advice to a loved one, or from holding themselves to this impossible standard. And what do you think happens when they fail to achieve this impossible standard? They feel even worse.

And then, we take medication. Now, I’m not down on all medication, and I even know that in SOME instances, anti-depressants have helped people be able to function again. The problem is that anti-depressants are so very often prescribed as a kind of magic pill, a cure all for your, you know, your mental disorder when, at the best of times, all they really do is numb you out. Yes, they help numb out the pain, but that’s not usually a good idea.

Numbing out the pain doesn’t cure the cause of the pain. So, if you cut your leg off, they might give you morphine to help with the pain. But if ALL they did was give you morphine, you’d bleed to death pretty quickly. Because morphine does not cure amputation. And anti-depressants do not cure depression. So, the underlying problem persists, only now, you can’t feel it anymore. Which means it’s free to keep getting worse and worse, while you march through life like a zombie. Oh yeah, because anti-depressants don’t just numb the pain, they numb the pleasure, too. And that’s the best-case scenario.

We get stuck in depression for the same reasons that we get stuck in any negative emotion.

  • We focus more on how those around us feel than how WE feel. And since we can’t actually control how anyone else feels, this means we’re always playing a losing game.
  • We have no freaking idea how to deal with our emotions. In fact, most of us have been taught to do the exact opposite of what works, and have been greatly discouraged from doing what would actually help.

And THAT is the big, underlying problem. The good news is, it’s totally solvable.

There’s been an increase in awareness around mental illness in the last few years. And while I applaud the efforts made to try and raise awareness, I can’t say that I really agree with how that’s been done.

First of all, classifying normal human emotions as a mental illness, creates a stigma around these feelings that makes it LESS LIKELY for a sufferer to get help. No one wants to be mentally ill. No one wants to be broken. And I’m in no way saying that real mental illness doesn’t exist, and that raising awareness of conditions such as schizophrenia, for example, is a mistake. But what I am saying is that it’s a HUGE mistake to classify any emotional distress as a type of psychiatric disorder.

This is because it creates divisiveness, instead of inclusion. People who are suffering from severe depression, or who are in so much pain that death seems like the only viable option, feel like they’re utterly alone. Remember, this pain lies. People who are mentally ill are often seen as separate. That’s not US. That’s THEM. And THEY are easy to dehumanize and ignore. THEY are certainly not a group that WE would ever belong to. Or we’d certainly never admit to it. By understanding that these reactions are inherently human, we no longer see an US and THEM. We’re all in the same boat. A community who understands that any member of that community could potentially fall into depression, regardless of how kind or smart or rich they are, is much more likely to embrace sufferers with compassion and kindness, as well as search for real solutions that actually freaking work. Because suddenly, it’s personal. And when things get personal, they get fixed.

The solution

So, what’s the solution then? How do we keep people from committing suicide? Well, we can certainly keep doing what we’re doing. Raising awareness, so people who have no or little awareness of their own emotions, are now tasked with trying to decipher if the guy at work is just normal sad or suicidal sad. We can keep telling sufferers to reach out for help, while simultaneously shaming them for doing so by slapping them with a dehumanizing label as soon as they come out of the suicide closet. Oh, and we can keep forcing therapists to lock their patients up in psychiatric facilities for 72 hours, against their will, for even mentioning that they may have entertained the idea of suicide, ensuring that depressed people who actually manage to get into therapy, are never truly honest with their therapists, for fear of being locked away. And yes, that happens a lot. And it means that many therapists’ hands are tied when it comes to truly treating the suicidal.

So, we can do all of that. Or, we can make it a priority that every child, every adult, every human being on this earth gets access to an emotional education. This is the education you need in order to understand what is happening to you when you’re feeling emotional distress, why it’s happening, and what to do about it, so you can actually feel better.

It’s the education we all didn’t receive as kids. The education our parents didn’t get, and therefore couldn’t pass down to us. It’s also the education that helps us make sense of our world, ourselves and others in it. It helps us understand how and why things happen, and it helps us to step out of powerlessness and into empowerment.

Understanding our emotions will allow us to no longer suppress them, and to release them constructively instead of destructively (like with violence or self-harm). This means that when we feel negative emotion, we never again have to let it get to the point where it becomes all consuming. We know exactly what to do. We no longer have to just try to “be strong”, or to “walk it off”, or to “snap out of it”, while we secretly and silently suffer.

Of course, if the people around us have the same education, they’ll be much more able to support us in our darker moments. And should we dip into that all-consuming darkness, we can actually move through that depression within days, sometimes hours, instead of weeks, months or years.

And the time for this kind of education has never been better than now. With the global energy rising faster and faster, any pain we have will only be highlighted. This is, again, by design. The rising energy is driving our pain up to the surface so that we can heal it. But it also means that those who have no idea how to heal this pain, will only get worse. Their pressure will only increase. Which means, suicide rates may well continue to climb.

If this is NOT the reality you want to hook up with, then my suggestion is to make Emotional Education a top priority for yourself, your family, your church or community, your business and workplace, and even your local government and schools. In my opinion, Emotional Education should be in every school, in every church, in every household, in every company, in every police precinct, in every prison, in every retirement home… you get the idea.

So, how do you find this emotional education? Well, you can google it. You can search for organizations in your neck of the woods who are already bringing emotional education of some kind to various groups of people, and you can support them. If you want to truly affect change, however, then start with yourself. Research emotions, what they mean, and how to work WITH them. Read personal development books, blogs and watch videos to get clarity. Work with a good therapist or coach, or find a group of like-minded people whom you can talk to. Really talk to. Apply what works for you until you feel better. Remember that an emotionally savvy individual who has learned to recognize and work with their own emotions, will have a much easier time recognizing when someone else needs help.

Of course, you can also ready my blog posts and watch my videos, as well as read my book Deliberate Receiving, Finally the Universe Makes Some Freaking Sense! Because, even though my work seems to center around manifestation and the Law of Attraction, what I really provide is one hell of an emotional education. Because unless you understand and are able to use your emotions, you’re not going to be able to TRULY function as a human being. Not at the level at which you were designed to. Not at the level at which you’re meant to. So, an emotional education is the answer to getting everything you’ve ever wanted. But it’s also the answer to the question: how do we heal all the pain in the world?

Bottom line

How do we keep people from killing themselves? You make it so that suicide is no longer the better feeling option, by truly healing the underlying pain.

I’d like to ask you to share this video with anyone you think might benefit. And since I believe that emotional education of some kind would benefit everyone, I’m going to ask you to share this video with everyone. Please help me to spread this message. I know that I got on my soap box during this video, but some issues deserve the no-BS, soapboxing treatment. In fact, I might do a bit more of this kind of thing. So, if you’d like me to give this kind of treatment to any other real-world issues, let me know in the comments. Or just let me know what you thought of this video.

Until next time, I’m Melody Fletcher, and I want to thank you for bringing your light to the world.

Bye!

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  • Hey Melody

    Thanks for this amazing post. It’s so refreshing to see a manifesting / LOA teacher openly addressing suicidal feelings and mental health. I agree so strongly that part of the problem is labelling people as “broken.” I know in the past when I’ve felt suicidal it’s really been that I wanted the pain to stop. If we could teach people of all ages different ways to deal with the pain, then they’d have other option, and how beautiful that would be.
    All the best, Tristan

  • Hi Meloday,
    Great post. One more comment, my husband is horribly allergic to black mold. One of the side effects is suicidal thoughts, they just come up – like an option, like you said.
    20 yrs ago we were renting a house and hadn’t even heard of black mold. Long story short, eventually he ended up in the ER and then in the Psych ward, just like you said.
    He was on anti-depressants for the next 20 years. No one said ‘let’s take you off and see if the depression is gone’. Also, one of the withdrawal from the pills is, guess what, depression, but he researched and went bit by bit and got off all of them. He’s no longer depressed, unless we run into an antique shop or watch a movie in a crappy theater and then he feels the creepy thoughts coming back.
    So, I wanted to say check your surroundings. Like there’s mold in the subway tunnels in New York. And, look at what happened after Katrina.
    Thanks again, love your posts. Mary

  • Thank you for such a great post about a painful subject. We need to keep talking about it until emotional health is a normal part of the conversation. Thanks for your valuable reminder.

  • Hi Melody
    I totally agree that we should all have an emotional education but that’s not the only thing we need. We need to make sure that every child has a positive loving influence in their life from birth. We as a community need to be able to recognise child abuse in all its forms and be able to intervene when we see it. Child abuse is long lasting and takes a lifetime to overcome if at all. I know that a feeling of being completely unloved and uncared for led to many years of deep pain and my three suicide attempts. No one came to my aid – no grandparent, friend, aunt, teacher – no one. I could recognise me in an instant if I saw it now – but no one saw the pain I was in or if they did, they didn’t do anything about it. I just needed one person who cared about me and say something positive about me but there was no one until my 20s who would hold out their hand to help me. As an adult I attracted situations that mirrored that back to me and things only got worse. I am still dealing with it all layer by layer and it’s hard work but I am getting there slowly. It’s actually a revelation to me that I am truly worthy of being loved on a deep level.
    Feeling unloved and unworthy and suicidal is a dark dark place I don’t wish on anyone. I’m actually thinking of writing a book on LOA for survivors of childhood abuse because it’s much harder work and we need a lot more support than most.
    Thanks Melody, love your work

    • Hey A,
      I hear you. From my point of view, Emotional Education is the start of all of that. A teacher who is emotionally astute will recognize a student who is acting out from a place of pain, instead of thinking they’re just being disobedient. They will see the withdrawal of another student, and be much more likely to reach out. A lot of people don’t reach out because they don’t know what to do. They don’t know how to help. And that can be paralyzing.

      It will also lead to the healing of many fears and break the cycle so we don’t have to pass them on anymore. That means children are more empowered and no longer attract abuse. There’s a huge ripple effect when people become aware and empowered.

      Thanks so much for sharing your perspective!
      Hugs!

  • I’m going to make a bit of a bold statement here and claim that a suicide is actually a desperate attempt at feeling better. If you think of the reasons why someone ends up with so much pain, suicide attempt is an action you take to end the pain, you’re done with the pain and you’re done always thinking about others and their feelings and this is your life to do with as you please and you’re done with the pain and you’re going to end it. No’one wants to end their life, they want to stop the pain. And since you’re residing in the extreme low, in fact you’re not even on the vibrational ladder anymore but lying in the black pit underneath, the perspectives available to you are going to be extreme and desperate. I believe that there is a moment after every suicide attempt where the person about to cross over is offered a choice to leave or stay, one last time. If they decide to go, which is of course horrible and painful for the friends and family, it was still their life and their choice.

    For me, the best way to deal with the darkness was to embrace it and fall in love with it. It’s my darkness, and as long as I own it no’one can use it against me. Eventually it stops feeling like pain and starts to feel like power. A bit like no’one can threaten you with Hell if you’ve already been there and made the devil your bff.

    • Hey Heather,
      Thanks so much for sharing your perspective. And I totally agree – when you’re in a place of complete despair, suicide can seem like the best feeling choice one has access to at that moment.
      Hugs!

  • Hi Melody!

    Thanks for yet another awesome video. It’s great to hear from you again! And man, I LOVED this one. Loved the real-ness of it and loved the snark! I agree 110 percent with everything you said. As always, you have a way of putting my own thoughts into words in a more succinct way than I can, haha. More and more I’m learning the importance of emotional education. In fact, I recently wrote a fantasy short story where the magic system is based on a person’s ability to feel emotion. It’s essentially me disguising emotional education in a fun and non-threatening way, and has been very well-received by all who have read it thus far!

    But in any case, since the timing on this was so synchronistic, please excuse me as I get a little raw in this comment section over here! I’ll be moving in with my mom and brother next month after not really seeing much of them the past three years. Both of them and my dad are all on anti-depressants and a myriad of other prescription drugs. I just talked to my mom yesterday and apparently things with my brother are really bad (again). He’s highly suicidal and currently in a detox unit due to almost ODing on heroin. I’ve long since learned the lesson that I can’t help people who don’t want to help themselves (thank you, dysfunctional family!), however, I’m obviously very concerned about my family at this point, my brother especially, and given that I’ll be living with them again here pretty soon, I’m wondering if there’s something I could do to help? Any advice would be appreciated! (I’m DEFINITELY going to try to get them to watch this video! Of course, I also realize that they won’t even bother watching it – or truly listening to what you have to say – unless they’re a vibrational match for it).

    Thanks again and I’d, of course, LOVE if you could do more videos like this in the future!

    • Hey Hannah,
      Ok, first of all, share that short story! Did you put it online?? Share, share, share!

      Second, give up on the idea that you can fix your family. I know you already have, but you might find more of that as you spend more time with them. Do now sacrifice yourself for them, that’ll only make you resentful AF and won’t help them anyway. Do what you want to do. Don’t be manipulated.

      Then, and only when you’re in a good place, listen to them. Really listen. Hear them. Don’t try to make them feel better. Don’t try to argue them out of their irrational fears. If they tell you how they see the world, don’t try to change that. Listen. Let them feel heard and understood. And love them just as they are. Accept them just as they are, pain and all. If it begins to affect you, go away by yourself and rebalance. Don’t pity them. Just strive to understand them (you’ll learn a lot this way, too). And love them.

      In that energy, you may well suddenly be inspired to say something that opens them up a little. But not because you need them to open up. It’ll just happen if they’re ready. So let it, but don’t try to orchestrate it. And then don’t expect a momentary openness to translate into instant healing. If your brother is on heroin, he’s in a lot of pain. That can take time to heal. So be patient and just be present.

      You’ll be amazed at what can happen when you become present with someone, and you accept them without judgment. You may well get to know your family in a whole new way.

      Huge hugs!!

      • Thanks a ton, Melody! That was great advice and quite frankly, exactly what I needed to hear! I feel like part of the reason why I manifested moving back in with my family at this time is so I can really learn how to stabilize my vibration and “hold space” for people. It’s another learning experience, for sure. Always a learning experience!

        Re: the story, that’s actually a part of the synchronicity! The same day I talked to my mom about my brother and saw this post from you was also the day I submitted that story to a competition! So i’ll be waiting to see how it does before deciding on the next step for getting it public. I’m definitely taking this vid of yours as a positive sign, however!

        Thanks again!

  • Thank you for this brilliant post. I have been in that place and I used to fight it so hard. Now I have learnt that the best way to get through is by surrendering. I really think that it would help so much if more people understood this so that they can help you through rather than urging you to be positive or saying or throwing memes at you. To be honest (stepping onto soapbox) I think the whole ‘just be happy’ and ‘here is a meme for you’ movement is a huge part of the problem – not only can you not get there from here, but it makes you feel like a failure in addition to being depressed. And so is the ‘you should’ brigade.

    ‘You should do this, you should do that’. I am sure they mean well, but what they never, ever say is ‘you should and here is my hand, take it and I will help you’. They never say ‘you should and I will go with you’, or ‘ you should and I have just the thing for it’. It is always ‘you should’ and that is it. And there you sit, in your dark place and your panic and your struggle and wonder how the actual hell you are supposed to do the thing if you can’t even contemplate how to get through the week. (stepping off soapbox)

    Thank you Melody, for shining this light. And to anyone in the darkness, it actually does work, but it is scary and it feels like you will never get out again. That is the lie.

    • Hey Edelweiss,
      Thank you for sharing. I totally agree – it’s not helpful to just throw memes at it. Of course, people throw memes at themselves, trying to feel better. Because they don’t know better. But they are also on their journey. And I look forward to seeing those who are ready, and who resonate with this way of healing, go through that process.
      And I’m so glad you’re not listening to the lies anymore. I know it hasn’t been easy, but you’re coming out of the darkness. And it’s so beautiful to see.

      Smooshy hugs!

  • Hi Melody-

    Interesting post. I’ve been very depressed and felt suicidal, and have observed others go through it. I’ve noticed that a lot of us exist in a cultural space where it isn’t okay to be sad or low. You’re supposed to be positive and upbeat. Maybe for some people that’s really effective. I’ve noticed for myself that since finding out about LOA like 15 years ago, I was absolutely doing what Abraham Hicks calls “happy face stickering”, where you put a “happy face sticker” over your gas gauge so you don’t have to see that you’re low on gas. I think it wasn’t until I felt at my lowest and suicidal and actually acknowledged, okay, this is how I feel! that I started to be able to genuinely improve a bit.

    I guess we really live in a culture where many of us are terrified of negative emotion. I still have this myself, even though I hoover up materials like yours and am REALLY trying to learn to be okay with strong emotions and see them as useful instead of somehow dangerous.

    This post and your thoughts about “emotional education” sent me back to your book, which I’ve read… a lot. Like 7 times. I hope someday you’ll do a post for people like me, who seem to have some kind of, uh, learning disability when it comes to understanding deliberate creation. For many years I lived in a space of “positive thinking” and “changing my thoughts” and I really, really felt that I was doing my best. but now I understand that I was also in heavy, heavy denial, because the underlying emotions were too scary for me to handle. It’s only now that I think I am even MAYBE starting to approach real understanding of how I really feel. But I find that quite alarming, because I don’t really understand how to improve how i feel for real. I only know how to put on a mask of bullshit and pretty words and sound like I feel better!

    Reading your book last night, I was reading your definition of “severe insecurity”. I think that’s the emotion that’s coming up to be released for me at the moment. I’m having a lot of feelings of paranoia, unsafety, Things Are Falling Apart (even though my own personal life is actually very safe and very comfortable!!), the apocalypse is probably coming in some form. Previously, I would have immediately tried to pivot and talk myself out of these feelings and thoughts. But that didn’t work. So now I’m trying to… be present? It’s difficult. I’d love you to speak more about emotional education, because I’m realizing that I still do not really understand how to consciously move through an emotion. It still feels dangerous to me to just be like “Okay, if I feel paranoid and like the world is spinning out of control, that’s how I feel” and like that’s giving in, or will take me lower, or that I’ll just be stuck there forever.

    Honestly, I feel like I may be the slowest learner of all time!

    • Hiya Cordy, I always resonate so much with your posts. But I think this time I have to say that I think I may be the all time slowest learner. I have been at this for ages too and it has taken forever. I think I understand now how to hold space for an uncomfortable emotion, but oh boy, I am also the absolute master of distracting myself. It really helps to work with someone, at least until you are comfortable with doing the process and have some practice of difficult emotions. If that is not possible I think it is good to try to sit with it much, much longer than you think you can or should or want to. I also find that bringing it into the body, rather than allowing the mind to go off on a story, helps quite a bit. Like, I can feel it in my chest – ooh, now it has moved to my throat, etc. Rather than ‘this is fear, or this is sadness’. The label doesn’t always help. And the practice of trying to get up the emotional scale inherently means that we are not accepting the emotion, just for now, just as it is, totally accepting. You can’t accept something while also wanting to shift it. I am still learning to do this, so this is actually advice aimed at me! Love to you.

      • “the practice of trying to get up the emotional scale inherently means that we are not accepting the emotion, just for now, just as it is, totally accepting. You can’t accept something while also wanting to shift it.”

        WOW! That’s so good. I felt a jolt of understanding as I read it. Ay ay ay. I don’t know why I can look at something a thousand times and nod along like I get it, and only years later do I actually understand what is being said. I am definitely obsessed, still (still!!!!) with shifting how I feel rather than just accepting how I feel. What an interesting insight. I’m scared to experiment with really accepting how I feel for realsies, I notice.

        I’m so relieved to hear that others are also in the slow learners club! I often feel, in deliberate creation circles, like I’m just not getting it like everyone else is, no matter how I try.

    • Hey Cordy,
      So…. welcome to the slow learner’s club. I’m a member, too! Seriously, you wouldn’t believe how many times I sometimes have to get slapped by the Universe before I start to finally get it.
      I’m actually putting together a new course right now that will teach exactly this – emotional competence and reality creation. You know. In a way that actually makes some freaking sense. Because I’ve become aware (over time… like I said, slow learner) that the book was not enough. I’m trying to incorporate different styles of learning, and make it as experiential as possible, so it really sinks in. We can only get so much from a book. So stay tuned for that!
      In the meantime, hang in there and just do your best. That’s all you can do, and that’s always enough. You’re just learning how to feel your emotions and allow them. That’s scary AF in the beginning. It’s not you. It truly is scary. For everyone. So go slowly and be gentle with yourself. Us slow learners may take longer, but when we get it, we REALLY get it. 🙂

      Smooshy hugs!

  • Thanks for sharing, Melody. As someone who has depression and has felt suicidal and sometimes still has these feelings, I’m learning that it’s very important to learn more about my emotions. I’ve been exploring that more. In fact, I was just re-reading the sections on deprsssion in your book recently. 🙂

    I’ve also been going to some courses at my local mental health centre this year, and have just started a group called Self Management which looks at our thoughts and emotions and dealing with them.

    • That’s fantastic Moonsparkle! Congratulations!
      The more you learn to use your emotions by listening to their messages and using that information to shift energy, the better it will get.
      It’s not always easy, but it does get better. Way better.

      Sending you huge supportive hugs!

  • Hi Melody,
    This video was so helpful and came at the perfect time. I’ve been feeling depressed and I even have thoughts of suicide (I always have on and off since I was a teenager and attempted once when I was young.) I wouldn’t do it now but it just feels better to think about it for a minute when I’m feeling really bad. I’ve worked with compassionate therapists and still do so I’ve come a long way but when I do feel like this I forget (because of conditioning, the only emotion allowed in my home growing up was happy) like you said that it’s part of the human experience. I start trying to force my way out of it and feel all this pressure to be better, happy and not be a burden. Watching this video reminded me that it is part of being human and lifted the shame I was feeling. Now I know I’m just experiencing a need to go inward and not judging myself for needing to. When you talked about depression I thought of my son when he was in his late teens telling/asking me, I want to just sleep for a year and be with the goddesses, can I do that? I told him yes you can absolutely do that. I felt nervous inside because I knew he would feel suicidal at times but I felt that supporting him with that need to go inward was the best thing I could do. We also supported him to go to therapy whenever he was willing of coarse. Anyway I don’t comment often but I wanted you to know how good and validated your video made me feel. I’m also with you 100% on emotional education. When I first started therapy years ago I said to my therapist this is what they should teach in school. What I remember most are a few compassionate teachers who validated my feelings.
    Hugs,
    Jessica

    • Hey Jessica,
      Great to hear from you!!
      I’m so glad this video helped. I know it seems counterintuitive to go inward and surrender to it, but only because we’ve been taught not to. It does work.
      Sending you huge smooshy hugs and lots of love!

    • “the only emotion allowed in my home growing up was happy”

      Me, too. I’m discovering how much it harms people to be trained out of feeling a big chunk of their emotional range. It’s like a person who has been taught that it’s bad to feel cold, no matter how cold they are, they can’t admit it or acknowledge it, and now imagine that person living in a climate that experiences very cold winters. That’s sort of how I think a lot of us are living, like we’re shutting out a whole section of the experience of being in our bodies.

      • Hi Cordy,
        I like your analogy. I agree it is harmful to be trained out of being connected to our emotional bodies. Becoming aware of what I’m feeling and the ability to be present with it is something I’m still learning to do after so many years. I think the suicidal thoughts I have usually come when I’m feeling shame about something. That was something else I was taught to feel (shame) for just about everything except putting a smile on my face and behaving the way that was expected of me. I’ve worked with some good therapists and released a lot of repressed feelings from childhood but I’m still learning how to be with the feelings I have now. The training of being disconnected to my emotional body has weakened so when I have a suicidal thought now the impulse is weak and I can usually connect it to judgmental thoughts I’m having about myself. I’m sorry for the long (and maybe confusing) reply. I don’t usually post comments because the shame I sometimes feel after expressing myself.

  • This makes me think of a recent episode on Tim Ferriss’s podcast in which he interviewed Michael Pollan on his new book “How to Change Your Mind” all about the new science of psychedelics that’s emerging. It also makes me think of Besel Van Der Kolk’s brilliant book “The Body Keeps the Score”

    The point I’m making is that there are some brilliant people within the science world who are really addressing this issue with brilliant insight, and these books are best sellers. So I think there’s some hope!

    • Yes! Thanks for sharing Alex! There’s definitely hope. There’s even optimism! You can even be joyful and happy and ecstatic. It’s all there. But, we have to be able to and willing to see it. And more and more people are building bridges so those who are ready can cross more easily. 🙂

  • The strangest thing is that as soon as you try to help… the very moment you try to help, you are harming. The desire to help is an implied judgment (why help unless something is first judged as wrong?). The only way to meet depression is with complete acceptance, and this means doing nothing but attending without expectation, without desire for improvement and with minimal action.

    • And the attention should not be on the depression but the emotion they are keeping hidden from judgment – the emotion they are “depressing”. But it’s a bit pointless saying this because very few people ever do it. It’s extremely counterintuitive.

    • When I say “you” I don’t mean you, Melody, I mean “one”. When one tries to help. All one can do is attend to the underlying emotion.

      • I agree CJ. This is why I say that healing is a profoundly selfish process. You focus on your own energy, and as you align, you help others as a byproduct. When you make healing others the goal, you’re making yourself responsible for their healing, which won’t work out for either of you. <3

      • Thanks. Say as a healer you focus on your own energy and get it up nicely, would you say that it doesn’t really matter what you do next? Could you for example do some cartwheels around the room and it would still be as helpful to the client as conventional textbook treatments? I’m getting a feeling that it might be.

      • Or…. is it more like you get your energy up to a peak (as a healer), thereafter, simple intent for the client’s improvement is enough? Is there any “doing” that can actually help? I often wonder that.

      • Hey CJ,
        Your energy is the most important thing. And… then you just follow your intuition. That might include some action, even cartwheels lol, but it might not. While it’s great to learn many techniques and even develop them as I have, those are tools in your toolbelt. Never give the power to the tool. It’s all about the energy. If you get the right, the action doesn’t really matter.

        However, what does matter is the belief of the person you’re assisting. You can’t manifest change for them. You can only guide and support. So, some techniques help to build a client’s belief, which in turn helps them shift. But you’ll manifest the exact clients that are right for you, and want to play with you in the way you’re projecting. So, if you really love working a certain way or using a certain technique, you can attract clients that will love those too. That makes it a lot more fun for you. Which is the point. 🙂

      • Thanks again. I had a strange thing happen a while back where I decided to change the way I worked. I started doing things in a way which was very exciting and fulfilling for me. There were some people who loved it, but more who didn’t like and a few who hated it. Initially I thought this was the way of clearing out the old and bringing in the new clients who are a match (like you have said in a few recordings). But it never happened. Business just got worse and worse and I never made sense of it. I found myself having to change back to the old style which I hate but the clients like. I could never understand it.

  • Yes Melody! This post was even BETTER than I anticipated. I even had a distinct shift while reading it yesterday evening, so had to get a good night’s sleep before trying to comment anything 😀
    I used to suffer from depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation so am somewhat familiar with the mental health system here. Ironically, all the talk therapies (I refused to go on meds, even though some practitioners tried to bully me into taking them) only made me worse. It was exactly because of the reason you stated in this post: they wanted me to realize that I’m broken. That I’m not normal. Not healthy. Not knowing what’s best for me. And, above all, anything but powerful.
    Yesterday evening, when I had the shift, I realized these were some majorly insecure people I was dealing with. Insecure about the value they could provide for their clients. Insecure about their own motives and attitudes. Insecure when clients and patients reject the label of a “broken” person. Hence the only way they could validate themselves was trying to make the client adopt the mindset they’re the “broken” one, in need of “fixing”, and it’s only their therapist or psychologist who can “fix” them.
    I realize this is a very toxic approach, so that’s why I’ve been concentrating on cleaning up my own energy and mindset before officially setting up my life coaching practice. After all, I cannot help clients if I’m stuck in powerlessness myself, right? My NLP coach has been of invaluable help, and I’ve also utilized meditation, spirituality blogs, reading books about alternative/critical psychology, spending time out in nature, drinking liters of yerba mate 😉 and much more. What’s best, all this doesn’t feel like “work” at all. I wish I had known sooner there’s a much more pleasant way to clean up your energy, other than digging up and dissecting your ancient traumas 😀

    Lady R

    • Hey Lady R,
      Congratulations on having this massive shift!
      Unfortunately, the Universe can only ever mirror back our own vibration. So, when we’re powerless, we attract practitioners that will try to keep us powerless. But that’s a good thing. It gives us something to push against. It gives us the chance to say “no!” and make a different decision to honor ourselves. So, bless even those insecure practitioners. They were a catalyst that helped you get where you are today. Maybe not directly, but nonetheless. 🙂
      Hugs!

      • Thanks for your reply Melody! I agree the value of having something to push against. Rebeling against something can feel extremely empowering and it does catapult us out of powerlessness, yes. I wouldn’t go as far as bless those practitioners, because I personally disagree with the verb “bless”. To me, it’s a pretty low vibing word, like you should be thankful of something you’re not. I often replace words and expressions I find disempowering with better feeling synonyms of them. For example, I never “forgive”, but “let go” or “release”. The latter is actually one of my favorite words in English language 😀 I’m a very word-oriented person and have a pretty extensive vocabulary both in my native language and in English, so finding an alternative term shouldn’t be too challenging a task 😉

        Lady R

    • Hi Lady R, replying to your last comment. I personally struggle with “forgiveness”, so after reading what you said I’ll try think of it more along the lines of “letting go” and “releasing”. Thank you for sharng 🙂

      • You’re welcome Moonsparkle! I’m glad that sharing my perspective helped you 🙂

        Melody, I tend to “appreciate” a lot of things but it doesn’t feel quite right a word in this context…Now I got it! “Acknowledge the value”. Semantically, it may be the same but energetically, it is not. To me, I mean. THIS is why I love words so much. <3

        Lady R

  • Thanks for the video, Melody. Some of these suicides did leave me in shock but when I started reading comments and reactions of others, I realized I wasn’t alone in my mourning. That helped a lot. Your message of engendering inclusivity is an important one. I’m pleasantly surprised by this post though..it came just as I finished reading Michael Pollan’s How to Train Your Mind where he talks about the psychedelic based treatments out there, which have been suppressed in mainstream medicine, having been quite effective. Since it’s the current NYT bestseller, i think people are becoming more aware and accepting of alternate ways of healing. I find watching Queer Eye also helps me just soothe myself (I start entraining to that lovely, positive, upbeat energy of the lovely guys), but I digress. All this to say, I love how the universe is opening up to me ways to find more clarity, in the midst of such news. Smooshy hugs 🙂

  • I would like to be able to address the problem of suicide pacts. I had two friends who committed suicide and they had a pact with an even larger group of friends. They all agreed that if one died, the others would die with them, by committing suicide.

    What do you do when about a situation where not only is there a depression or a problem where someone feels powerless, but you have several people connected who agree to support those actions, even if may not necessarily be suicidal, and then you have even less power to do anything?

    I am at a loss of how I could prevent such a situation and yet I know I needed to be able to do something.

    Thanks!

    • Hey Dee,

      Great question. I believe that people make these kind of pacts because they’ve finally found someone who understands what they’re going through. And that’s a powerful thing.
      What we can offer is that understanding and it must come without judgement or without trying to make them feel better. You can’t argue depression away or fight it with logic. It’s not logical.
      Show them that you understand them and you’ll give them hope. And that changes everything.

      Smooshy hugs!

  • You mentioned you were from Idaho —— next to Mormon Zion. That is likely the largest problem in Utah and Idaho. The ‘church’ sets totally unreasonable standards (perfection) for imperfect humans. LGBT, people with bad habits, etc. people in the ‘church’ have little chance to not suffer!!!

    • Hey Ray,
      I don’t think it’s really the Mormons, lol. I think most religions are built to disempower people. But individual people, even the religious can make different choices. And more and more people are waking up to that, including the Mormons. I mean, look at what’s happening in the Catholic church… 🙂
      Hugs!

  • Thanks for this, Melody. I agree. I know the work I’ve put in to this, and it’s hard for me to think about the people who don’t know this. Like this work is difficult for me, and I’ve been studying it for about five years. I guess I just think like, other people have different brains and find different ways to heal themselves.

    • Hey Amanda,
      The journey isn’t an easy one. But I’ve found it’s the only thing that really works. I know it does because it did for me and countless of my clients. It’s not instantaneous, but it does get better. <3
      Hugs!

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