change therapy

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image by stephen poff

medicalnews reports this today:

An article published in the recent issue of Psychological Science … demonstrates that individuals have a strong tendency to eat only a single unit of food, regardless of the unit’s size or caloric value.

The authors conducted experiments with offering free food in public areas, varying the size of the product unit and the size of the serving utensil …

The results demonstrate an identifiable unit bias, as passersby tended to take a single unit or spoonful of food without consideration for its size or quantity. As tests were conducted both within eyesight of others and in a more discreet location, the bias in favor of consuming a single unit cannot be attributed solely to the avoidance of perceptible gluttony …

well, that may be the case for some people. however, this last sentence reminds me how little people know about the inner workings of people struggling with addictions. a “discreet location” would still not be safe enough for many people with a food addiction.

the vast majority of people struggling with addictions function quite well in the “normal” world. part of this functioning involves an intimate relationship between addiction, shame, and intricate techniques designed to conceal the addiction.

for many overeaters, a “discreet location” in a public place will still bring forth the need to appear a normal eater. the deep shame over the addiction would be much stronger than the apparent safety of such a discreet location. many overeaters will only overeat in the privacy of their homes, often alone, maybe even with the curtains drawn.

i have met food addicts who had become experts at climbing out of bed, getting dressed and driving off in the middle of the night without barely making a sound, so as to not wake up anyone in the house and alert them to their excursion to a 24 hour convenience store.

of course, this often turns into a vicious cycle. the person wants to eat, eat, eat – but not be seen eating. so she creates a bubble of isolation around herself. this isolation is depressing, and the depression is then medicated with more food – and thus the cycle continues.

ironically, then, eating in public can be the first step towards recovery for some people. eating that second chocolate bar in public, or finishing off the big bag of chips for all to see, can be a healing experience. maybe the eating behaviour is still there, but at least the layers of shame and hiding are taken off.

isabella more
counselling in vancouver

… a topic that interests me a lot these days.  here is part 1 of a 3-(or more?) series i’m writing at brainblogger, inspired by research that seeks to illuminate the mystery of peace and conflict through dynamical systems/chaos theory.

the lavender here in this desert-like town is long and hard and spiny. its smell is harsher here, more pungent. and with the heat and the dry air comes a rising moon that lifts itself pure over the hills. pure, white, into the azure it emerges – and azure, really, that’s the only word for it. blue? many things are blue. jeans, cars, the background on a computer for sale at walmart. this sky, though, up here over the hills that cinch the long, narrow, deep lake, this sky is azure. tinged with a bit of violet and yellow at the fringes in the west, where we remember the sun has gone. the car lights up and down the street compete with the moon, seem to win for a moment, but they move in and out, leaving no trace.

the moon rises.

when humans are gone
insects with names yet unknown
will still sing your song.

are you in vancouver and looking for something to do on saturday? how about going to salmon insanity, run by gallery gachet apropos their mad pride events. gallery gachet is a collective of vancouver artists who have been affected by mental illness. i like how they make the connection between mental health and ecological health.

here’s their invite:

are you a salmon-lover or would like to be one?? local bands converge with run-of-river activist groups to network, update and rock the salmon as our precious “backbone of the west coast.”

bring a blank t-shirt for the free “salmon are sacred” and “gateway sucks” DIY screen-printing station!

express your love for salmon through creativity at our art table, including body painting and tattoos.

our featured musical talent includes

rick buckman coe

ranj singh and the discriminators

watasun

image by naturemandala

image by jwinfred

here’s another report from mental health camp. for some reason, i just can’t bring myself to get all official about it and write it from the point of view of the organizer, so i’ll write it from my personal point of view. so here are a few fragments, which do not do justice to the whole big event but which nevertheless will give you a bit of a taste:

our logistics on the day of were a little wonky; influenced, in part, i think, by the more official feel of the location. the event was in a beautiful building, the aquatic ecology research lab at the university of british columbia; the first one had been at the very intimate location of the sadly now defunct workspace. one of the things that were wonky were that the first presenters did not get introduced. steffi, who spoke about “ripping off the scabs through writing”, was understandably not very happy about it. what i liked was that we were to hear this complaint without getting defensive, and immediately rectified it, with the help of wonderful people like sue macdonald from the CMHA and kemp edmonds. (these two and our other volunteers were highlights in and of themselves!)

perhaps the thing that most stuck with me was the role that art and creativity played at mental health camp. there was steffi talking about her writing. there was j peachy who presented a whole session of sound therapy radio, complete with a live band (ranj singh and the discriminators), each of whose member was standing in front of a painting (see here for a video clip of it). that session also featured a young woman talking openly about eating disorders for the first time, as well as creative participation by the whole audience. j peachy is part of gallery gachet, a vancouver collective of artists who have experience with mental health issues.

also part of gallery gachet was a lunchtime presentation of the beautiful film crooked beauty, which “explores positive and compassionate models for transforming the experience of madness in our culture.” it features one of the founders of the icarus project, ashley mcnamara.

the icarus project envisions a new culture and language that resonates with our actual experiences of ‘mental illness’ rather than trying to fit our lives into a conventional framework.

exciting stuff.

there was michelle clausius, who gave a presentation about the artistic endeavours of the young people who contribute to on the house, the award-winning blog of covenant house. this is what covenant house does:

covenant house exists for those young people for whom there is often no one else — young people aged 16 – 24 who have either willingly fled physical, emotional and/or sexual abuse, those who have been forced from their homes or those who have aged out of foster care. we bandage their cut-up feet from days and nights walking the streets; we give them hot food and a warm bed and we support them in their choice to change their present circumstances while helping them heal from past traumas.

another session where i experienced high creativity was katarina halm’s presentation on focusing. i loved how she used the yellow balls pressed against our bodies almost as “speakers” to help us feel our bodies better.

doing this with my good friend raul was a pleasure, once again. we feed on each other’s ideas and calm each other down when we fly too high. there were a few instances when we really needed that, most of it as a result of nasty troll comments directed at some of the presenters and also at ourselves. because of our support for each other, i hope we can say we managed to stick with our core philosophies: inclusion, compassion, and clear communication. thank you, raul!

yeah, i’m goin’ up the country, for my yearly week in the sunny okanagan, canada’s version of california.  for some reason, after mental health camp, my batteries are taking forever to recharge.  maybe because i never fully recovered from my trip to germany.  maybe because i had a mental health blip (was it a mini episode of depression?  or what?  it sure felt like the wiring in my brain was going all bzzzzzz and chrkhrrrrk) a few days before mental health camp.  maybe because there was some drama there.  maybe because work has been very intense.  maybe because i haven’t repainted my toenails yet.  who knows.

but as always, there is some learning.  i feel uncomfortable that i’m not back to form yet.  i should be back to form!  i should get things done and not be so friggin’ unproductive!  i should not get all squirmy and guilty when i say “no” to people and events.

well, you can hear the shoulds.

the truth is, it takes as long as it takes, and no-one but i can take responsibility for looking after myself.  there is no mathematical formula whereby i can calculate how long it takes for my batteries to charge.  it just is what it is.

so i’m going up to kelowna, where i’ll do as much relaxation as possible and you know what?  if i’m back and i still don’t feel recharged, i’ll just have to relax some more.

shoulds be damned.

i was going to write this nice first recap about mental health camp but then – well, life happened.  so instead here are the links to some people who have written a little about it.  enjoy!

http://katanaville.com/mental-health-camp-at-ubc-honesty-on-the-internet/

http://www.covenanthousebc.org/blog/2010/07/16/mental-health-camp-recap

http://theemperorhasnotoque.blogspot.com/2010/07/mental-health-camp-2010-my-view-after.html

http://cuntinglinguist.com/2010/07/mental-health-in-which-steff-calls-a-spade-a-spade.html

http://www.kidsideration.ca/?p=86

http://www.ridedonthide.com/2010/07/mental-health-camp-2010/

in the last few weeks, i have had many an occasion to think about humility. here, then, is a buddhist carnival dedicated entirely to humility.

this time, i will start with a poem of my own:

ha’aha’a: humility.
beyond this and that,
above servitude,
below arrogance,
not higher not lower -
just that:
here i am.
naked.
let the winds blow …
ha’aha’a.

(ha’aha’a is hawaiian for humility. when the the spirit of aloha is explained, ha’aha’a has a place: a – akahi (tenderness); l – lokahi (unity, harmony, oneness); o – olu’olu (kindenss, being pleasant and agreeable); h – ha’aha’a (humility); a – ahonui (patience and perseverance)

everything is eye level

humility, very simply, is the absence of arrogance. where there is no arrogance, you relate with your world as an eye-level situation, without one-upmanship. because of that, there can be a genuine interchange. nobody is using their message to put anybody else down, and nobody has to come down or up to the other person’s level. everything is eye-level. humility in the shambhala tradition also involves some kind of playfulness, which is a sense of humor….in most religious traditions, you feel humble because of a fear of punishment, pain, and sin. in the shambhala world you feel full of it. you feel healthy and good. in fact, you feel proud. therefore, you feel humility. that’s one of the shambhala contradictions or, we could say, dichotomies. real humility is genuineness.

this is a quote by chögyam trungpa, at art of dharma. the post is about a comparison between buddhist and christian ideas on humility. i love the idea of playfulness in humility, and the paradox of pride and humility. definitely something to investigate a little further.

humility and moral outrage

staying with the theme of christianity and buddhism for a moment longer, paul knitter from how a christian buddhist sees it starts his post on the limits of moral outrage with these words

in these days of widespread – including my own – moral outrage at sacerdotal pedophilia and episcopal cover-up, this sentence from richard rohr’s the naked now stopped me in my moralistic tracks: “moral outrage at the ideas of others hardly ever serves god’s purposes, only our own.” (p. 132)

and later on asks

so, how can we be “outraged” without become “dualistic,” without making it an either/or between good/bad? how can we declare our opposition to something without cutting off our connection with that something?

he suggests

in declaring what we think is wrong or what we believe needs fixing, we have to feel, and we have to enable others to feel, that we recognize our own limitations. we are conscious that in speaking strongly we can never speak definitively. there’s always more to learn. there are always other perspectives. and yes, we may be wrong. we know that. and we must be aware of that as we voice our outrage

and concludes

if we can be outraged but at the very same time humble and compassionate – then, and maybe only then, can our outrage serve god’s purposes.

i wonder whether it’s possible to be outraged and humble at the same time. is it still outrage when we add considerations of humility and compassion? rage implies singlemindedness, even when used outside of human emotion. “the fire raged through the city”, for example, evokes a force that consumes everything in its path, without looking left or right. humility is everything BUT singleminded – it always considers the other.

humility and “i deserve to be treated with respect”

in buddhism … pride is thought of as one of the obstacles to a happy, peaceful existence. pride gets in the way of compassion, and compassion and cherishing others are what buddhists say lead to a happy and content life (more about compassion tomorrow). when you embrace pride, though, you see yourself as higher than others and you value your happiness over the happiness of others. when you embrace humility—the opposite of pride—you see yourself on the same level as others, and you value their happiness just as much as you value your own.

let me tell you, i struggled with this teaching for a long, long time. there was this one part of me that was all like, “i’ve worked hard to get where i am, and i am special, dang it. just look at all of those bestsellers that i’ve penned. i deserve to be treated with respect. i’ve earned it.”

this from alisa at project happily ever after. i still get a little confused over how humility and the idea of deserving/being special etc. related to each other. maybe the idea of equality helps here, too. e.g. if i’m happy to celebrate someone’s small accomplishments, then why not celebrate mine, too. if i’m special, then others are special, too, and vice versa.

shin buddhism, humility and “inner togetherness”

jeff wilson has a guest post at daily buddhism, where he shares some delightful words about shin buddhism. he points to the great importance of relationships when it comes to humility:

for me, shin practice is about humility, gratitude, and service to others. and also good food and dancing, since shin temples are true communities, with many activities for all ages and lots of yummy japanese cooking. … none of us are deluded about our level of attainment-we are ordinary people, prone to foolishness. but everyone, shin buddhist or otherwise, exists within an inconceivable network of support from all things, an ever-changing matrix that provides us with nourishment, shelter, love, and, if we don’t let our egos get in the way, pushes us on toward final liberation. awakening to this inner togetherness which we all share helps us to get a perspective on our karmic limitations, and this engenders humility, patience, and a sense of humor about our shortcomings and those of others.

humility, bullshit and conceit

i am always interested in buddhism from the point of view of martial arts. at dharma-zen blog: martial arts in the modern age we find the lovely zen story of buddha mind and bullshit mind.

the eight winds cannot move me
one fart blows me across the river

maybe you want to go and find out what that’s all about ..

image by alex de carvalho

image by werner kunz

my talk at mental health camp yesterday:

it’s not about mental illness. it’s about mental health.

in 1996, 510 murders occurred in canada. taking a prevalence rate of about 3% of violent crimes committed by people with mental illness, at the most, 16 of these people were killed by someone with a mental illness. i’m mentioning that because of the tragedy that happened a few days ago where a little girl was killed.

still. i’d like you to get that number. 16.

at the same time, 45,000 deaths were attributed to tobacco, 2,900 to car accidents, and 1,900 to alcohol.

mental illness is not the big problem.

i think mental health is.

an industry that makes products that kill tens of thousands of people in canada alone is not mentally healthy. in fact, they are literally insane.

i’ll tell you what else is insane.

a country that does not extradite someone who has been judged responsible for the death of at least 25,000 people is insane. the country is the united states, the person in question is warren anderson. he was the executive in charge at the time of the bhopal disaster.

who else is insane?

a company that disregards safety just like union carbide in bhopal did. the company is BP. they are insane.

a police force that is more concerned with turf wars than preventing disasters is insane. the police force is the RCMP and the disaster is the air india crash.

i’m not here to say that mental illness is not important, that all of us here who are dealing with depression, PTSD, bipolar disorder or whatever among ourselves and among our loved ones is not important because otherwise we wouldn’t have mental health camp.

but right here, right now, i want to talk about mental HEALTH. because i’ve looked at all these things and all of a sudden, i realized one big thing:

the vast majority of big disasters nowadays, from environmental crimes to wars to major health problems such as lung cancer and diabetes – you know where most of them come from, or more precisely, where the decisions are made to go ahead and do or not do things that have vast negative consequences?

they are all fomented in the work place. union carbide, the RCMP, the cigarette company philip morris, BP – all the decisions that have a horrible effect on countless people are made at the workplace.

those workplaces are insane.

who here has worked in an insane workplace?

who here is working in an insane workplace right now?

what type of insanity do we find in the workplace?

• incivility
• bullying
• abusive supervisors
• resentful
• never being appreciated
• blame
• betrayal
• cynicism
• distrustful, always on the lookout for trouble
• focusing on shortcomings
• obsessed with reputation
• reluctance and lack of cooperation
• fear of disappointment
• anger
• grief
• anxiety,
• extreme vigilance,
• phony
• being a “hard-ass,”
• playing favorites
• irrational
• scrutinizing everything for hidden meaning
• closed minded
• uneasy relationship that never get repaired – toxins build up
• layoffs and other painful measures that are being pushed through disregarding the effect they have
• disconnection from reality
• in-groups and out-groups that fight each other
• differential treatment from bosses
• active and passive provocation.
• incompetence
• not admitting problems
• not asking for help
• lack of meaningful relationships at work
• getting blindsided
• frustration
• evasiveness
• lack of fairness
• nobody listens
• deflecting responsibility
• self-handicapping

(adapted from an MIT sloan management review article)

there’s quite a bit of research on the dysfunctional workplace, for example on violence in the workplace, or the effect abusive supervisors have on turnover in the workplace. however, i haven’t seen anything yet on how the dysfunctionality that seems to be the norm in many workplaces makes it possible for disastrous decisions to be made.

but i’m just going to go out on a limb and say that someone who is in complete and optimal mental health cannot make the kinds of decisions that end up killing people, destroying the environment and otherwise compromise the wellbeing of people and the planet.

let me use the air india disaster as an example. reading through justice john major’s report, we see that these things happened at the RCMP and CSIS

• not communicating effectively with each other
• RCMP not sharing information with CSIS when they clearly should have, and vice versa
• not respecting each others’ rules and requirements – e.g. RCMP was often careless in protecting CSIS sources
• a culture of managing information designed to protect individual institutional interests and not the public interest
• compromising the need for reliable proof (when the parmar tapes were erased)
• misunderstanding or dismissing that the relevance of information, not who has the information, determines what happens before the court
• institutional lack of self-restraint and self-discipline
• overstating the need for secrecy

i propose that all of these things are signs of dysfunctional mental health. i propose that most people would say that these are signs of mental health

• open and honest communication
• reflecting on the consequences of one’s actions
• having a degree of basic trust towards others
• working hard to resolve any tensions that arise
• co-operating for the common good
• a degree of maturity that includes self restraint and self discipline where needed

and i propose that if these and other indicators of mental health were present, there would be less, and probably far less, calamities in the world.

in a moment, i want to talk about a book i read and also explore the question of what all of this has to do with mental illness. but before i do that, i’d like to ask you what you think so far.

—–

i have to tell you that these ideas are still pretty new to me. as some of you know, i was going to talk about a different topic. but then one day, interestingly enough, when i was preparing a talk somewhere else about mental health in the workplace, i saw this connection between war and destruction and the workplace.

so – the book. i have been reading, avidly, tony schwartz’s book called the way we’re working isn’t working. you can follow tony on twitter, it’s @tonyschwartz.

i want to read you just a few excerpts. here is the one that may have triggered all of this:

not a single CEO or senior executive at a large bank ever stood up and blew the whistle on the practices that led to the worldwide financial meltdown in 2008. nor has virtually any one of them ever explicitly acknowledged any personal responsibility for what happened.

we tolerate extraordinary disconnects in our own lives, even in areas we plainly have the power to influence.

human beings have continued to evolve by leaps and bounds in terms of what can be externally measured and observed. but for all these extraordinary external advances, we’ve devoted remarkably little attention to better understanding our inner world.

[we have a] tendency to default to impatience, irritation and even anger as a way to mobilize others to action

no single behaviour, we’ve come to believe, more funamentally influences our effectiveness in waking life than sleep

the survival zone is an acceptable place in which to operate in most organizations

[when amy pascal needed to implement some major changes at sony] she began by asking herself a simple question: “what is the right thing to do here? … everybody knows that it means to do the right thing. it means serving the greatest good even when it doesn’t seem to be in your immediate self-interest. it means you don’t make choices out of fear of failure or just because they seem expedient, you don’t make choices that are quicker or easier because that’s what everyone else is doing.”

okay, so now we’ve spent about 35 minutes on doom and gloom, and that’s just about all i can handle. i want to talk about more positive things now. like mental illness.

actually, about the experience and wisdom of people with mental illness. more precisely, the experience and wisdom of people with mental illness who are working hard at making the best of their lives. i’ll assume there’s a few of us in here right now, and more who may have friends or family who have learned to manage mental illness.

part of that management is medication. but the other part of that is therapy and even more importantly, leading a life that strives for as much mental health as possible.

in the course of managing mental illness, we have learned some valuable things. so what i’m saying is that precisely BECAUSE we are forced to manage mental illness we have gained tools that can make a difference, a big difference.

so my final point is, seeing that the world needs help, and seeing that in managing mental illness, we have gained these valuable tools, how can we practically, day by day, today and not tomorrow, use these tools to influence our places of work. because i think that’s one place where we can start. make it our responsibility to make our places of work places where we can be in what tony schwartz calls the performance and renewal zones, where we can be calm, engaged, invigorated and peaceful, mellow and receptive. and even more specifically, how can we use social media to make this happen?

these are my opening remarks for mental health camp today. if you’re on twitter, you can follow the conference via the hashtag #mhcyvr10.

this is a conference that was conceived and organized in love, excitement and harmony. while we talk about stigma and silence, what is much more interesting to us is to move forward and make the world a better place.

i’m an old hippie, so i have a constitutional right to talk about love and peace and harmony.

to us, mental health camp is more than a conference where people exchange information. it’s an unconference because we have space for people to present impromptu sessions, and because so-called experts and so-called non-experts mingle freely. but it’s more than that.

mental health camp is also about working together in harmony. part of this is because raul and i and the other volunteers just happen to work really well together. when you see raul and me twitter about each other like two love birds, it’s because we just can’t get over how well we work together.

but part of this is very, very intentional. we WANT there to be open, clean and clear communication. we WANT there to be respect. we WANT for trust to unfold itself so that new things can be explored and tension can be seen as productive and exciting, not fear-inducing and creating animosity.

mental health camp is about inclusion. it’s really, really important to us that everyone gets heard, that there is a space for everyone. we were able to include just about every idea and presentation that was proposed to us. the only ones we said no to were proposals that were things like, “10 sure-fire ways to end your depression forever” – there’s lots of other venues for experts to give those kinds of talks.

and over and over again, we kept saying, mental health camp is about taking care of ourselves. i can’t tell you how often raul and i said to each other and to volunteers and presenters that we can’t have mental health camp turn into a stress fest. how absurd that would be! we need to walk our talk.

you can see, then, that mental health camp is about mental health. it’s not called mental illness camp, or depression camp, or stigma camp. a huge part of mental health consists of harmonious co-operation, good communication, respect, trust, inclusion, self care – and love.

it is with love, then, that we break the silence, because love needs to express itself. breaking the silence, setting us free is the theme of this year’s vancouver mental health camp. love does not constrict, that’s why “setting us free” is important.

it is with love that i want to thank our wonderful PR person and media concierge cathy browne for coming up with just the right words to express our theme, and for all the great things she’s doing for us.

it is with love that i thank airdrie, who started this whole thing. airdrie had this idea last year to do a little panel about mental health with herself, tod maffin and myself, at our annual blogging conference, northern voice. well, that little 45-minute panel was the powerful seed for what is now starting to feel like a movement.

this is the 3rd mental health camp in 14 months. there was one in toronto in may, and they will certainly have another one. we know of two other people who have plans to do mental health camps, one in the UK, another one here, specifically for the south asian community, to be run by kulpreet singh. we’ve also heard rumours of places like san francisco wanting to do something like this, right, AJ?

and it is with love and respect and admiration that i want to give you a brief overview over some of the ideas that are being offered to you today.

the topic of breaking the silence, setting us free, is being touched on by many of our presenters. steffi cameron, for example, will talk about “ripping off the scabs”. it’s interesting to think about that image. it’s not exactly rosy and mushy. come to think of it, the idea of “breaking” the silence is also pretty strong. clearly, finding a way through to honest self expression isn’t always easy. and by self expression i mean artistic self expression but more than that – expressing the self. this is who i am.

other people who speak directly to this topic are terra, who did an unforgettable talk about mommy bloggers and mental health last year, as well as catherine omega and steven schwartz. steven schwartz will also talk a bit about mad pride, i think. the mad pride movement goes beyond breaking the silence, it breaks new ground. mad pride, steven tells us, was grown on the success of gay pride. and let’s not forget the commonalities here. being gay was also once something that had stigma attached to it, and look how far we’ve come. there’s lots we can learn here. mad pride is described as “a fun movement that celebrates the human rights and spectacular culture of everyone who is “different,” and isn’t that everyone?”

another group that’s connected to mad pride is gallery gachet. gallery gachet is a collective of artists who paint, draw, sculpt and do all kinds of other neat things and also happen to have run-ins with ill mental health. gallery gachet will be hosting a series of mad pride events starting july 14, and today we have two presentations from artists connected to gallery gachet. one is jay peachy, who will do an interesting live radio event, complete with art therapy. the other event is the showing of the film “crooked beauty” over the lunch hour in the auditorium.

another presenter speaking about art, among other things, will be michelle clausius, who will be presenting art work by youth who are facing difficulties with homelessness, abuse, addiction and mental illness. covenant house’s blog “on the house” is the vehicle with which this art is expressed, and recently won an award for it.

earlier i talked about inclusion, and one of the things that we’re working towards is to try to include as many aspects as possible of mental health. homelessness is one of them, and another important one is ADD. pete quily is THE indefatigable advocate for attention surplus condition – yes, you heard it right. i love his positive twist, sounds more interesting than attention deficit disorder.

talking about positive – that’s something very important to AJ, also known as depression2.0 on twitter, who will propose the idea of an online game around mental health issues. it’s called escape from bummer island.

sean cranbury will give us a bit of balance and talk about mental health from the perspective of care providers. and i will discuss what i’ve already started here – the importance of focusing on mental health for everyone, because literally, our lives depend on it.

and talking about balance – one of the things we wanted to accomplish in this mental health camp was to give it a strong online component. one thing we’re doing is that we have a number of online moderators. they have the imaginative names of mhcmod1, mhcmod2 and mhcmod3. they will be gentle shepherds for the mental health camp presence on twitter.

the person who has inspired us to do that is amy kiel, also known as @abeeliever on twitter. she is the host of the mental health social media chat that happens on twitter every tuesday, the hashtag is #mhsm. she will be hosting a special mhsm talk today, also on twitter. i am really excited to have a virtual presence here in this real life space. this is something that i think the vancouver social media community is very good at – thanks to people like raul, we are connecting in multiple ways and building true community online and offline.

talking about offline – we have some real life support here. if you feel you need to talk someone, we have a quiet area over there. jael will be there for you, as well as perhaps a few other volunteers who have experience be present to people’s emotional needs. jael is currently studying with katarina halm, who will also give a presentation on that topic. focusing is a technique that incorporates the body’s information with emotional and thought processes. it’s fascinating!

and we’ll end with a bicycle! in a few weeks, michael schratter will start circling the globe with his bicycle. he’s doing that to bring awareness to mental illness. did you know that suicide kills more young men than anything else? michael, and i’m sure all of us, want to put an end to this, and he’ll talk about how he’ll use social media to do that.

and now i want to come back to love. i don’t necessarily mean the mushy stuff, the disney version of love. i mean the greek concept of agape. love that supports, love that revels in the presence and expression of the other, love that passionately wants the best for the other, love that heals, love that is patient, love that is so big it’s hard to describe because it brings a magical quality of goodness to all that it touches.

if we – and by we i mean you and you and you and me and all of us – if we bring these things to mental health camp today, if we bring these things to mental health and mental illness, if we bring these things to the world, then i say, we are doing a fine job.

today you may want to amble over to brainblogger, where i’ve posted an article apropos mental health camp.  the post, social media and mental health, discusses some of the difficulties associated with the intersection between mental health and social media such as internet addiction, insomnia, etc.

image by zenera