Blog | David M Masters

Christmas the Best and the Worst

Christmas Brings Out the Best in Us

You just gotta love Christmas. It brings out the best in us. We feel inclined to spread good will among men. We are likely to give to those less fortunate and shower family, friends and loved ones with cards,

No other time of the year is focused on making dreams come true, especially for the young (and the young of heart).

Christmas Love

If you have an inkling to love, the increased love or the season will infiltrate all life’s circumstances around you and you will feel a tendency to love more, with more passion than other times of the year.

Seeing the anticipation and tears of joy in a child’s eyes when opening a gift wished for fills the heart in so many ways.

Christmas Brings Out the Worst in Us

Christmastime also imposes an incredible amount of pressure on individuals and families around the holiday season. We might find ourselves battling the crowds in an effort to find that perfect gift (and may be willing to battle it out with another shopper for the last one in the process). While we are s[reading good will, we may find ourselves cussing out someone for taking the parking spot we intended on getting for ourselves.

Christmas can be used as a disciplinary weapon against our children, because, after all, Santa knows who’s been bad or good. And if you’ve been bad, you will receive no present from Santa Claus. (Ugh.)

Christmas Crime

In an effort to make sure everyone has a good Christmas, criminals are not on their best behaviors as they take advantage of Christmas celebrators who are less security conscious during the holidays will see increased rates of theft and burglary.

Interestingly enough, the pressure, stress and strain finds individuals challenged and at odds with those around them, leading to increases in assaults and domestic violence.

Christmas Is Offensive

Christmas is an American tradition based on Christianity. In early American culture Christianity may have been the predominant religion, and the benefit to retailers at the end of the year is priceless.

Since then, America has become much more diverse and people represented by other religions don’t get it. And even among the Christian religions, some find the commercialization of the holiday and the inclusion of Santa Claus offensive, with some refusing to celebrate at all.

Christmas Is Depressing

The holidays increase the load on mental health resources, more than any other time of year as we tend to be more lonely, blue, depressed and maybe even suicidal at Christmastime.

What’s the Christmas Answer?

I am not the political or religious person who could even offer a solution. Christmas is a messy subject in America. This tried and true American tradition has become such a cluster of chaos and confusion, I cannot imagine a suitable solution.

Fortunately, I personally don’t have any issues with the holiday, myself. I enjoy celebrating the birth of Christ and embrace the idea of Sending Love to the World during the holiday season in an effort to help mitigate the negative energy associated with the season.

If you feel differently, I honor you and your right to celebrate or not and I offer you my sincerest apologies for this holiday which has unfortunately gotten out of control.

What do you think the answer is?

Suicide for Christmas

On Christmas, this year, people will opt to end their lives. Though it has been rumored that this is when most people commit suicide, the tragic truth is that suicide rates are far more consistent all year long.

While the holidays represent the best things in life to those of us with family and friends, there are others who face life’s greatest challenges at this time of the year. Suicide is a very real growing concern in the world in which we live with one person choosing to end their own life every minute including one veteran suicide each and every hour around the clock.

The holiday season is the most tragic of times for someone to opt-out of this life as we know it by committing suicide on Christmas Day, followed by another surge of self-inflicted death on New Year’s Day.

Such a tragic state of affairs when there is so much love in the air.

What will I be doing this holiday season?

I will be joining with friends to set aside time to make the world a better place by

Sending Love to the World

I am not in the least bit suggesting that you not do other things to reach out to those less fortunate during the holiday season. Indeed, we should continue to help in the every same ways we have in the past, but this year consider augmenting your efforts by

Sending Love to the World

My friends and I will be taking time out of our Christmas Day festivities to take breaks in order to Send Love to the World.

How to Send Love to the World

The idea consists of taking out a few minutes starting at midnight Christmas Eve through midnight Christmas Day to send love to the world. Amidst all the holiday spirit of love and celebration my friends and I will be consciously excusing ourselves to send love to the world.

Sending love to the world can take any form you like. It is not a religious activity, but can be if you so desire. It is a decision to take a break from holiday festivities to send mindful thoughts, say a prayer, sing a song or meditate – in any way you see fit – for the benefit of others who may be struggling at the very same time.

I believe this concerted effort of my friends and I will help to raise the overall vibration (which is already high at this time of year), enough so as to be able to help someone consider staving off their feeling that life is too painful to have hope for a better day, at least one more day.

I know that when I’ve felt like I just couldn’t take it one more day, and death would be a pain-free alternative to life… not killing myself has allowed life to show me how amazing it can be.

I would hate to see someone rob themselves from the opportunity of enjoying the best this life has to offer by just giving it one more chance for one more day.

If I’ve ever learned anything, the importance of allowing one more day is the greatest opportunity offered any of us, which more often than not, we take advantage of every waking day.

Top 5 Holidays to Commit Suicide

The top five holidays to commit suicide are 1) Christmas, 2) New Years Day, 3) Thanksgiving Day, 4) Veterans Day, and 5) 4th of July.

Call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline 1-800-273-8255.

Remember, everything is always getting better.

Signs from the Afterlife

The experiences that I have with my clients run the gamut. Fortunately, many have involved interactions with those who have had afterlife experiences including near death experiences and loved ones communicating after death.

Although I am not an expert on the subject, I have had the privilege of accessing and collecting an impressive amount of compelling data based on the personal experience of others around this idea of integrating with these varying afterlife concepts.

There was a surge in the attraction of individuals who had afterlife experiences after my own interaction with the afterlife. In fact, of all the people – myself included – who have had such experiences, life as we know it takes on an entirely new look and feel after experiencing or interaction with the other side.

One of the life-changing effects of experiencing the afterlife is the realization that the other side is not that far off. For instance, those of us who have this first-hand knowledge possess a knowingness that loved ones who have passed are very near to us in real time, not in some faraway place and not simply non-existent.

As you may have guessed, this idea is incongruent with popular opinion, so for the most of us, we remain tight-lipped about our individual experiences, rather than forthcoming about these most-private and intimate true life experiences. The last thing anyone desires, is to be challenged or put in a position to defend such an intimate experience, so they simply hold their stories safely hidden away.

After exchanging data and reviewing it with people I gave been convinced there are empirical after death communication signs which are used by loved ones from the fourth dimension to let us know they are still in our lives.

You might ask yourself, “Can the dead communicate with the living?” The answer is, “yes.”

After Death Communication Signs

Here are the top 7 most reported signs that a deceased loved one is nearby:

1. Dream Visitation

After you’ve fallen asleep, the dearly departed can access your subconscious and actually send messages via your dream state which may (or may not) feature your loved one responsible for the content in a starring role.

2. Physical Touch

Your loved one can touch you from the neighboring fourth dimension, which will feel like a light bush on your hair, feathery stroke or light graze in a very sensitive area of your body.

3. Voice/Name Recognition

You may hear the voice of your loved one who has passed on to the other side, or alternatively people (who you are not engaged in a conversation with) will be talking about someone with the same name nearby, or someone who you don’t know, seen in passing, casually mentions the name of your loved one.

4. Moving Things

While it may seem to be a bit of trickery or game-playing, with much concentration and effort on the part of the nearly departed, they may be able to move things in the third dimension from beyond. While it may seem foolish or scary, they are desperately trying to make their presence known.

5. Speaking Through Songs and Music

Even though at first blush, hearing familiar songs may seem coincidental, when prompted from beyond, the idea of coincidence falls by the wayside as the uncanny precise timing could only come from

6. Aromatic Visitations

Familiar smells associated with your deceased loved one will become apparent, and your sense of smell will light up with a familiar fragrance associated with your loved one from the other side.

7. Sense the Presence

After some attempts to contact have been made you may become more sensitive to their presence in the fourth dimension. In the fourth dimension, they can occupy the same space in time that we are in and even though we cannot see them, we can develop a sense of knowing they are near.

Love After Death

There is no doubt that we are visited by loved ones communicating after death and we know that they love us and our love for them acts like a carrier signal to the fourth dimension (the other side) making it easier for them to find us after they have arrived in the afterlife.

If you’ve ever wondered, “Can the dead see us,” or “Can the dead hear us?” The answer is yes. Even though we cannot see through to the fourth dimension, we can be seen and heard (loud and clear) from the other side.

Whack Upside the Head

Ever wonder why your fears are often realized? Well, the answer is it’s all because of you, based on your fear, you’ve placed your fervent request that God give you a big ol’ whack upside the head. He does. So, enjoy your misery and suffering. You asked for it and you got it (sometimes in spades).

You refute, “No! That’s not true. I didn’t say I wanted that to happen. I prayed for it not to happen!” But it did anyway.

It doesn’t take rocket surgery to figure out – because you know this is true via the experience of Trial and Error, so I risk stating the obvious, though it may not have occurred to you, yet – that if you are fearful of a particular negative outcome, it will come to pass.

The more energy that you put into your fear, the more that which you fear is likely to be increased when you look it face-to-face, eye-to-eye. Why?

You were not designed to maintain yourself in a state of fear. You are designed to be the powerful, dominant life force on this planet. In fact, that’s why God made you in His image to represent His loving dominion and to fully enjoy all He has given to you. Even His Son insisted that you hold the very same miraculous powers within, if you only would allow yourself to believe and receive.

What?

Yes. You have all these God-like powers lying dormant within you, begging to be released empowering you to be the full representation of the Creator enjoying all this life has to offer.

You may doubt this, but your fear and realizing your fears in the actual 3D world we inhabit is proof of the awesome power that you wield.

For when you fear, you’ve effectively placed your order at the Drive-up window of the Universe and paid for your fears to be actualized. The price you pay is commensurate to the amount of energy with which you place your order. The more you fear or dislike something the more you’ve paid. You pull forward to the next window to receive your order, and you’re surprised when you get the whack upside the head, just as you ordered it.

But that’s NOT what I want!

You protested, that’s not what you wanted. So what do you think you should do about it?

How about stop placing your order for what you don’t want and start placing your order for the things in life that you do want?

Just as fear is the currency for placing and paying for what you don’t want, love is the currency representing the desires of your heart. To get what you want, you must stop fearing and start loving.

The powers that be do not want you to realize that you have this power, so they keep you in a state of fear with a constant barrage of presenting you with ideas, images and stories representing what you don’t want. By maintaining a base-line frequency of fear, you are powerless to fully engage your God-given love machine for full abundant manifestation. (This effectively reduces you to a drone to carry out the mandates of the system to support the “machine” which rules our planet.)

Regardless of their efforts to suppress our spiritual growth and enlightenment, we are beginning to awake to the idea that there is more to this life than we are programmed to believe possible.

Fear and Love cannot effectively occupy the same space within your heart and mind, so eliminating fear and replacing it with love and maintaining a state of love changes your overall vibrational frequency.

You can start by not focusing on that which you do not want and start spending every conscious effort dreaming, imagining and expressing gratitude for its receipt in advance. See what happens then.

Instead of getting the whack upside the head, you will notice the things that you’ve longed for will begin to come into view.

As you do this – and continue to love instead of fear – you will begin to see how fun enjoying all that this life has to offer can be.

How I Achieved Everything

Whatever it is that you seek to accomplish in your own life, it makes a lot of sense to do some research, do our due diligence and possibly find someone who has already accomplished that which you seek.

So you find those who are willing to share their story

• How I won the lottery
• How I lost 40 pounds in 20 days
• How I found my soul mate
• How I saved my marriage
• How I brought my family back together
• How I cured myself from cancer
• How I created a Top 40 song
• How I wrote a best-selling book
• How I created a viral video
• How I became famous overnight
• How I went from employee to CEO
• How I became a multi-millionaire
• How I came up with the most profitable invention
• How I grew my home business to worldwide corporate success
• How I achieved enlightenment
• How I saved a village from starvation

Regardless of what you are looking for, there is likelihood that someone has already accomplished it and is willing to tell their story of how to achieve anything. The most popular way for us to have access to the story and its accompanying data is via the printed word. What does it cost you to get access? Simply the cost of purchasing a “How I did it” book.

As you hold the book in your hands (or on your device) you have the author’s blueprint, the step by step process, walking through the very same process as revealed by the author.

You take copious notes, and chart the step-by-step process and ready yourself to duplicate the author’s journey.

No one would blame you for expecting to achieve the same results as the author if you acquire the same ingredients, apply the processes and closely adhere to the ABC’s of the extrapolated formula.

No matter how hard you try to duplicate every possible detail of the formula, your results will not be the same as the results experienced by the author. You might ask

Why?

And insist, “But I did everything right…”

What you failed to note in your equation was the quandary of the extraordinary.

The truth of the matter is this: You cannot duplicate the success of anyone else because you are not the other person. You were not at the same time and place in space and all the possible variables could not possibly be duplicated.

Can you do something similar?

Yes, but not exactly the same.

You can achieve success and you can look at the work and results achieved by others, but to have a chance at your own lightning strike of success, it would be prudent to have at least one (the more the better) lightning rod(s) in place to be in a state of readiness when lightning strikes.

The universe is always expanding and growing and good fortune is coming down from the heavens to strike some “lucky” individual with a great idea who is in the right place at the right time.

Only, in many cases, the overnight success we hear about has much less with luck than you might think. Even though in the rarest instance someone does get hit by success’ lightning strike, in many cases the lightning has struck one of the rods that one has erected to attract the point of impact. This preparation can take a great deal of time and effort and has less to do with luck and more to do with the Law of Attraction, immense fortitude and commitment to see a thing (or many things) through.

So, don’t worry so much about following someone else’s footsteps on their path to success. Focus on blazing your own trail in your own way, continue to do your research and the work necessary to be in the right place at the right time when lightning strikes.

Volunteer Helping Others

If you want to live a better life, there is no better way to accomplish this than helping someone else live a better life. Besides performing random acts of kindness, you can offer your time and assistance to a worthy cause. By helping someone less fortunate you can indeed make the world a better place.

Certainly, you can donate money to a worthy cause and this might make you feel better, but the true reward comes from actually physically interacting and assisting in the process. Plus, it is a far better method of service – to act, rather than just donate money – for it is a far greater value.

When you offer financial support to a cause, movement, organization or supportive service, you are helping. There is no doubt that without financial support, their good deeds would be minimized or possibly even non-existent. So, if you are in a position to support someone making a difference financially, by all means do so.

The real power of your ability to reach out and help others is in you as you volunteer your time, more so than your money.

Volunteer Helping Others

The act of volunteering maximizes your impact on the world. As you think about volunteering, you may feel as though you have little to offer and that your participation may not yield much, but every person who reaches out to actively help, is part and portion of the greater whole supporting the growth and expansion of the peaceful consciousness yielding a better world for our planet and all its peoples and creatures.

As you awaken, there is a draw to make a difference to be a part of the change.

Though, most of the people that I work with feel a great deal of anxiety at the outset when contemplating volunteering their time to assist an organization or less fortunate.

Please believe me, the reward comes from taking the action of helping others. You can do this. You must do this. It’s as easy as picking up the phone, or checking in with the web site, initiating contact with an organization or movement that touches your heart.

The nest time you see a news story, advert or public service announcement that tugs on your heart: Reach out. That tug is calling you to service. Answer the call and you will receive greater blessings as you move forward blessing others.

You will receive innumerable rewards for your sincere act of service.

Volunteer Helping You

If you ever felt sorry, sad or blue about your situation or station in life, helping others less fortunate is an excellent way to remind you about how blessed your life is, instilling heartfelt gratitude about where you are in the now.

This places your feet firmly on the ground, which is the best way to launch into your future with a firm platform from which to launch.

As you give of your time to help others, you gain perspective. You get a broader sense of where you are in the world. This also helps to define a more clear path for your future.

Science indicates that volunteers experience measurable stress reduction, are less likely to suffer from depression, have higher functional ability and happiness, live longer and enjoy a better quality of life than those who do not volunteer.

Even more is in store for you as you give of your time for the benefit of others: Love wells up inside you. Love, the highest vibration, begins to grow and affect the frequency that emanates from within and permeates all that surrounds you. The more you give, the more your surroundings will adapt to your higher vibration of love.

Enjoy enhanced health, vitality, self-confidence and a greater sense of purpose as you volunteer to help others.

In these ways (and likely so many more) you receive so much more than you could possibly give.

Please continue to support with your wallet, but more importantly, consider lending a hand as you help to make the world a better place.

Encourage Others to Volunteer

By sharing examples about how you have benefited from the benevolent sharing of your time to help others, your story may encourage someone else to take the first step in volunteering.

Comment below:

Self Sabotage

You want it. You want it bad. You want it more than you’ve ever wanted it before. Your desire has brought you to look at it in the eye. Here you are face-to-face with that which you desire. It’s so close, you can sense it, see it, smell and taste it.

The planets are aligned, the moment is here. This is the right time and the right place to finally get that illusive thing you have longed for.

What do you do?

You might be surprised to discover that most (if not all) people will unwittingly do anything possible to prevent taking full advantage of the opportunity to have what they want. In fact, they may unconsciously disregard, disrespect and ultimately destroy the opportunity altogether.

Self-sabotage

If you’ve done this – and I know you have – you are a self-saboteur. How do I know you have done this? Because everyone has committed self-sabotage at some point in their life. I don’t know one person who has not sabotaged themselves at some point (well, maybe one, but I believe he is in denial – and that’s okay).

Why would I sabotage myself?

This is something that happens deep inside your self – the you that you are in the core of your being – that subconscious part of you that desires to protect you from all things that may lead to disappointment.

Your subconscious is your oldest protection mechanism. It perfectly recalls every moment when you were disappointed, experienced distress, pain, or got your feelings hurt. In those moments, this deepest part of you vowed to protect you from ever feeling like that again.

This part of your being is also the keeper of your deepest fears and lack of self-esteem or sense of unworthiness.

Experience + Fear – Self esteem = Self Sabotage

When these ingredients are combined and activated, the toxic result is Self-sabotage.

With the best of intentions, your subconscious will do everything possible to avoid – or even push away – that which you so sincerely desire to preserve your state of being.

Unlike you conscious mind which might be able to rationalize, with Tennyson’s, “’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all,” your subconscious believes it is far better not to have had anything than to suffer the anxiety, disappointment, pain or sadness associated with loss.

Your subconscious is always ready to do battle with any tools available to prevent you from having what you truly desire – if there is a chance things might not ultimately work out, like you would have liked.

Your subconscious takes this so seriously that it believes it’s thwarting your possibility of happiness is self-preservation, a life-saving effort. It’s as if your life depends on avoiding this opportunity at all costs.

How Do I Stop Self-sabotage?

The answer to the question about, “What can I do about my tendency to self sabotage?” can be complex and when I work with someone on their propensity to sabotage themselves, it’s easy to see no two self saboteurs are alike. Nonetheless, the process always centers around the same base ingredients of the equation.

Experience, Fear and Self esteem

If you can recognize the experiences that are preventing you from moving forward, what your fears are and what they are based on and ways that you might lack self esteem or sense of unworthiness and resolve these underlying issues, then you can confidently destroy the self-sabotage defense mechanism, while retaining the wisdom associated with your life’s experience.

Short Cut to Freedom from Self Sabotage

You might think, “Oh, that sounds like a lot of work… Isn’t there something I can do now to avoid self sabotage?”

Yes, you can start with reprogramming your self-conscious by adding a layer of worthiness using your imagination and positive affirmations.

Create a Vision

Create a vision of yourself in your mind’s eye of you completely happy, having that which you desire, fully safe and secure in its fullest expression. The more elaborate the vision with all five senses fully engaged, the more effective it will be. Take five minutes in the morning (preferably the first five minutes of your awakenedness) and five minutes in the evening to take yourself to this place, imagining how great it will be.

Affirmations

Reciting positive affirmations is a good way to start reprogramming your self-conscious. Following are some ideas for affirmations that you can recite (more effective out loud, if possible and silently if more appropriate) which can effectively begin to become more believable or real the more you recite them:

I love and accept myself unconditionally.

I release any need for misery and suffering.

I let go of anything in my past that might be holding me back.

I have high self esteem and I respect myself.

I deserve all the best this life has to offer.

I think on these things: Love, Good health, Prosperity and Positive outcomes. As I do, more love, greater health, wealth and the best things in life come to me.

I love and respect every moment of my life and am so grateful for the blessing of living my best life as it continues to get even better.

And now that you know this, the next time your approached with an incredible opportunity?

Consider jumping into full immersion.

What if it doesn’t work out?

You will not have to be like so many whom I have visited in their last moment whose lives are full of regret for not taking action when they had the chance.

You might get your feelings hurt… and that’s okay… because

It might just be your greatest experience ever!

Do Others Control You?

When you get upset at someone else, about what they have done, or some injustice you’ve suffered due to people, events or circumstances beyond your control, you actually bequeath to another (whomever you feel the offender is, whether it be another person, organization, government, system or even God) complete control over you.

While it feels as though someone or something outside of yourself has insinuated circumstances which has in effect victimized you in some way, as might be the case in terms of the loss of a job or a loved one, or the diagnosis of a severe illness, it is up to you whether you allow yourself to become a victim, or not.

If you feel bad, allow your feelings to be hurt by someone or something outside yourself, for every moment you allow your thought processes to be distracted by someone or something else due to your emotional state, you are forfeiting control.

Who You Blame is In Control

The object of your mind’s focus (whoever or whatever they are) is indeed in control of you and your emotional state. If you are blaming a circumstance, person, place or thing for things going badly or some injustice which you have suffered, then you are a willing victim to the object of your attention.

Is that what you want?

If someone has wronged you, do you really want that person to continue to further victimize and have control over your life?

In terms of psychopaths, narcissists and those along the Anti-Social Personality Disorder spectrum, they revel in the idea that they are honored by being remembered by you and are constantly in your thoughts. They feed off your negative attention and it empowers them to conduct more discontent in the world, as they continue to further enjoy the fruits of their efforts to drag you down and you continue to sink into depths of despair.

Your discomfort, loss, sadness and depression is their continued reward. They arrogantly acknowledge complete control. They assert their win and your loss as they enjoy every minute of it.

How to Stop Giving Away Control

The key to taking back control of your life is to stop blaming someone or something from causing your current negative emotional state.

If you want control of your life, you need to assert control and the only way to do that is to accept full responsibility for things being as they are.

Stop Blaming

Take Full Responsibility

You must find a way to stop blaming and start taking full responsibility.

A common method of taking responsibility is to accept the fact that your life is a journey, a path you travel which will have many experiences, some good, some bad, all to experience a full range of emotional states and allowing you to gain knowledge and grow as a result of the myriad of experiences you have along the way.

I, on the other hand, enjoy taking it a step further, imagining myself in a far-off place high above the world where we live out our life’s journey. In this place, I selected my parents, the time and place of my birth, the circumstances surrounding my journey as well as the challenges and obstacles that I would face to maximize my experiences throughout the course of m life.

I imagine myself as if I were off-camera (so to speak) hooked up to advanced equipment, enjoying having all the experiences that I have while hooked up to this equipment.

From this perspective, I am much more likely to not take things personally. It’s as though all my life experiences are part of a film I am watching, though I am able to experience all the sensations of my character in this medium.

If this is too far out of a concept for you to wrap your head around, no problem; you need not go that far out in space.

Just find other ways to stop blaming and accept full responsibility for your life. Find ways to release the emotional pain by any ways or means possible and retain the learning from all life events.

You’re Not Doing It Right

There comes a time in your life when you get the sense that you’re not doing it right.

You’ve worked hard to get where you are in life and while your friends and family are all envious of the heights you’ve achieved, you’re not sure.

When you’re operating in your sense of purpose, fulfilling your life’s mission you know by how you feel.

When you are “in the zone” you feel incredible about the work that you do, very little effort is exerted (because it seems to come so easily), time seems to slip on by (or there is little or no sense of time passing when your are on task), obstacles are viewed as interesting or fun challenges and there is little or no stress.

How Can You Tell If You’re Not Doing It Right?

No one knows better than you, if things aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. You’ve done the work, you’ve exerted adequate effort, dedication and resources to get you to where you are, yet you know that it just doesn’t feel right.

You may feel as though you are

• fighting an uphill battle
• on the verge of burnout
• competing against others

You struggle with

• lack of energy and/or fatigue
• defending or justifying your work
• lack of satisfaction or sense of accomplishment

You may

• question your own authenticity
• place significance on material things
• desire to keep up with appearances
• have a tendency to want to keep up with the Joneses

You can see how much more satisfying it can be to be plugged in, embracing your gifts, talents and/or special abilities in congruency with your life’s mission and purpose.

While you might think it might be nice if everyone were operating in-the-zone, society and the powers that be dissuade us from an early age encouraging us to think of such ideas as foolishness, asserting that more practical approaches to work and career are more apropos. For if everyone were operating on purpose who would run “the machine?”

The system is convinced that the world must be full of worker bees; none of this fanciful “achieve your highest and best” falderal, so worker bees we are trained to be from the earliest of age. We are trained to go to school, be good and do well, so that we can get a good job. This is the standard by which we are all measured.

You, on the other hand, are part of the evolving being. You mind is expanding. You are realizing there is more to this life than being defined by your job, what you do or what you have.

You know there would be no greater satisfaction than that which comes from being on-purpose, on-track and singing your song.

Nothing is more important to you than embracing and practicing your subdued super powers, exercising and growing in confidence and coherence to deliver the message that is truly yours to share with the local community and the world at large.

You desire to live a better life, your best life, and make the world a better place.

You are on your way.

Imprison the Mentally Ill

I was having a discussion with a client who was creating a program to assist the homeless. Now, I have a particular view about the homeless, because my brother is responsible for helping many of the homeless in Washington D.C. Even with plenty of services, shelters, food, clothing and training offered to support them, you still see them sleeping in alleyways and panhandling on the street corners, or holding Will Work for Food signs at intersections.

Having the privilege of serving the State of Washington for over a decade in law enforcement (2 years in juvenile) I am (as well as all the other multitudes who support the law enforcement community are) aware that an uncomfortably large percentage of the criminal population consists of individuals with mental health issues, placing an inordinate strain on the legal system.

The mentally ill, who do not have access to the necessary treatment and/or medications overpopulate the jails and prisons, as well as probation and parole systems, also contributing to the homeless population.

Though it may sound Hitleristic, we here in the United States forcibly sterilized over 30,000 mentally ill patients in the first 40 years of the 1900’s while they were incarcerated or in State mental hospitals as an approach to decreasing mental health issues over time.

Prior to 1960 just under 600,000 mentally ill patients were able to find the help they needed at State run mental hospitals. Over the next 40 years, State mental hospitals had kicked over 500,000 mentally ill patients to the curb. Now the legal system is left as the only available resource to deal with nearly 1 million sufferers of mental illness, basically criminalizing them for their respective conditions.

There exist many programs to assist the homeless… Why hasn’t it occurred to someone that the segment that is the most neglected – having access to the least amount of service or support – is not the homeless (though their numbers are often counted here), but the mentally ill?

In my opinion the crime is not mental illness, even though we prosecute, house and feed them in our jails and prisons, as they accumulate a rap sheet a mile long. No, the crime is forcing individuals with mental health issues to acclimate to the revolving door of our criminal justice system.

I am not convinced that having the State pick up the bill and expand their mental hospital services and facilities is the answer. I believe society has turned its back on those unable to adequately deal with their mental health issues and has forced them to be lumped in with the criminal element and I believe it is up to us to find – and provide – a solution to this growing problem.

There is indication that without a lengthy criminal history and institutionalization, that many of these suffering from lack of mental health treatment could become productive members of society if afforded the opportunity to engage in treatment and proper therapeutic intervention.

Yes, this would be an expensive undertaking, though I believe privatizing the care and treatment would be a more cost effective alternative than wasting 110-times as much by allowing State or Federal bureaucracies to deal with the problem.

I believe we – you and I – as well as our organizations, non-profits and churches could deal with this problem, creating an effective alternative for those dealing with mental health issues as an alternative to imprisonment, just as we are making progress with the issues of homelessness.

What do you think?