Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain--We Understand Your Pain

What a devastating week.

Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade have left our physical plane and many of us are feeling the sorrowful shockwaves.

When celebrities take their own lives, many of us are left in shock. We hear ourselves thinking, "Kate Spade? Anthony Bourdain? How could this be? They looked so happy. They were living the life. They were rich and famous! They were living the dream."

Perhaps, this is part of the problem.

As someone who has suffered from thoughts of suicide myself, I understand the deep, insurmountable grief, powerlessness, and desperation that comes when in your darkest times, you think and feel, "I just cannot take this pain any longer."

If we were having a heart attack, ambulances would come, doctors would be alerted, and if we were lucky, we would survive. Perhaps we would need surgery and some dietary changes, but, the healing process would be tangible. We would have skilled surgeons we could rely on and nutritionist who could teach us to eat this and avoid that.

But, where do you take your most shameful thoughts? Where do you take feelings you know others might not understand? Where do you take your feelings of 'not enoughness' to, when you know the world knows you have so much? Who do you turn to when you are the one people turn to?

I am not shocked by Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain's deaths because I know pain is real and often times, it is those who others see as 'together--and lucky' who suffer in silence the most. This, I believe, speaks to the need for our society to get more real about emotional pain. We need to stop calling depression a mental illness--and instead call it for what it is--it is PAIN--MENTAL PAIN and it is valid.

If your life is falling apart and you have everything--and you may or may not have some childhood stuff to deal with that has not been resolved--are we really mentally ill if we are depressed and start thinking, "What the hell am I doing here?" Isn't it normal to think, "What is this all about?"

What we need are tools--awareness--understanding--and a movement that encourages TRUTH--rather than SHAMES the truth.

We have to STOP glorifying celebrities for our sakes--but mostly for THEIR sake. Emotional pain is something we are all vulnerable to. It is something none of us escape.

Celebrities become ways in which OTHER people get to make money. Brands that build companies make other people wealthy but the pressure is on the one at the top of the food chain. THIS, most people do not understand.

I can only imagine the pressure both of these brilliant, lovely, genuine, human beings felt in their careers as well as in their lives, as whatever was swirling within them was taking place.

Thoughts like these--sadden me. Right under our noses--in plain sight--on our feet, on our arms, in our homes, and on our backs, as well as in our living rooms, Kate Spade Designs, and Anthony Bourdain's road trips held secrets their deaths cause us to consider.

We can help change the world by learning to tell our truth--if to no one else but the self.

I do not know what these two dear souls struggled with personally, but my hunch is there were many things, too many things, all coming at them at once--emotions--thoughts--ideas--rambling through their body and their minds--causing enormous visceral and sensory reactions to take place in their body and their minds. Unlike a heart attack, with evident warning signs, emotional pain resides below the skin and all too often, those of us in pain have learned to mask the pain we feel. We have learned to NOT clench our chest or to grimace in pain. We have learned to smile and work, and do, and to be what we know others expect us to be.

Only the TRUTH can set us free and ultimately, the love of SELF.

We all must LOVE the self enough to tell our truth--no matter how many people get upset--lose their jobs--or how deeply stock values drop.

The world never stops spinning--not for any of us--and I only wish--that these two wonderful souls knew that their INNER world is what mattered most.

What we owe ourselves and the world is only the TRUTH.

If you are in pain--that is your truth--and that is alright. You are enough--your pain is valid--and your only agenda is to learn how to HONOR YOU--because when you do--you release yourself as well as the world from dark chains that can keep the best of us down.

May you rest now Dear Ones--we understand...

You were not crazy--you were just in pain...

Namaste...