We Need Therapy, Seriously

May is designated as Mental Health Month, and if you haven't considered it before now, this is the perfect time to choose to springboard your way to getting your head (and heart) squared away. I posit the bold opinion that the United States of America, collectively, needs therapy. The current mess that is the presidential election campaign of 2016 has demonstrated quite clearly that the 'U' in USA is a misnomer and perhaps for the sake of truth in labeling, should be replaced with an 'S', for Schismed because we sure as hell aren't trying to come together and personify an entity that can factually be called united. It has become far too easy for people to evoke the name of Hitler these days when hurling insults, but I'm not trying to hurl insults, just sharing a thought worthy of consideration: When a person who is a legend in his/her own mind is given a platform to light and stoke fires that speak to the basest of human desires and ideas and the fears that are buried just beneath the surface, and those desires and fears are fanned into a roaring fire which spreads uncontained, you can see how Nazism became the rule of the day in Europe. It wasn't that Adolf Hitler was such a great person -- it's that he tapped into the worst thoughts of the human being and fanned those sparks into an all-consuming flame; and that's when it became okay to personify evil. It happened before...and it can happen again. Each of us has learned to embrace some smelly thoughts, even if we've kept them under wraps for the most part. I say that we learned to embrace ugly thoughts because only brand new babies are untainted with the sense and fear of otherness. That choice to keep undesirable thoughts under wraps comes from a deep knowing that stinkin' thinkin' is not the best of who we are or were meant to be. You or I might not be the smartest, funniest, most attractive, etc., in the room, but there's no reason for either of us to fear the person who does embody the traits or characteristics that we might be without, because God has imbued each person with their own individual gifts. So we need to work on tamping down that fear...there is enough for us all. Abundance abounds. And YOU are enough. Additionally, tearing someone else down doesn't build you up. No, it actually decreases your stature, even to yourself if you're honest. A good mnemonic for fear is: False Evidence Appearing Real. I began this piece by saying that we need therapy, and we do, so that we can come to terms with the real deal of who we truly are as individuals and realize that one plus one can indeed equal three, four, five, six, ad infinitum; because when we grow together, we do so exponentially. Peace and love.