Suicide Prevention

Over the course of my life, I have encountered many friends and individuals who are at the point of suicide.  Whether they are just about to or are just starting to think about it due to hopelessness or feeling trapped having no way out of a situation.  There are so many hurting people in this world.  It is so sad to think about even one that thinks suicide is the only way out of a desperate situation.   I have a strong passion for helping people to find hope, their light, their path because it helps lead them back from the brink of death to life, filled with joy, hope, love, laughter and light.  Within each of us, no matter how dark we feel our lives have become, there is place filled with light that will  never go out!

Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.  Together each of us can make it through the hardest, darkest, most difficult nights.  In order to do that, we must reach out, move beyond our comfort zones and seek out people who are alone or appear sad, lonely, troubled.  To put it simply – actually care about other people who we encounter on a daily basis.  If you do nothing, who will help?  

I copied the below warning signs from www.save.org

Warning Signs of Suicide

• Ideation (thinking, talking or wishing about suicide)
• Substance use or abuse (increased use or change in substance)
• Purposelessness (no sense of purpose or belonging)
• Anger
• Trapped (feeling like there is no way out)
• Hopelessness (there is nothing to live for, no hope or optimism)
• Withdrawal (from family, friends, work, school, activities, hobbies)
• Anxiety (restlessness, irritability, agitation)
• Recklessness (high risk-taking behavior)
• Mood disturbance (dramatic changes in mood)

If you or someone you know have any of the above signs, please reach out.  Seek medical attention immediately, call 911 if you are tempted to harm yourself or know of anyone else who wants to hurt themselves.  If you see the signs, don’t wait for someone else to figure it out.  Those precious moments could be what changes into a mircale that is transformed by help, healing and recovery.

Suicide prevention sites:

Suicide Awareness Voices of Education: www.save.org

National Suicide Prevention Hotline: http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/  or call 1-800-273-TALK

Movie for teens about suicide prevention: To Save a Life Movie http://tosavealifemovie.com/
Dan Savage ”It Gets Better” Project: http://www.youtube.com/user/itgetsbetterproject

If you know of other sites or services that could help assist others in the prevention of suicide, please leave a comment.  Thanks!

Remember you are LOVED! You are LOVED for who you are now – in this moment- always and all ways! Never ever doubt it!

Stress Train Has Left the Station

Below are 9 ways to get life back on track when things seem to have gotten off track, or feel like the train has left the station without you.

I take a few moments to stop, breath and really look at what is going on. I take time to evaluate what is really important to me and my life. Most situations are not life or death; most situations simply require breathing room to allow inspiration to return to find a solution.
Most situations that we are so worried about or anxious about pass quickly and before we realize it we are worried and anxious about something else. Can you remember what you were so worried or freaked out about 2 months ago? How about 2 weeks ago? Or even 24 hours ago?

Some ways to pass the time instead of stressful worrying, negative thinking or regret is to:
1. Go for an active walking meditation
2. Go for a long drive where you can sing along with good music
3. Return to nature, find a park, beach, lake, etc to commune with your spirit and the real world around you
4. Find a friend and have some fun laughing, giggling and playing
5. Write out what is stressing you out and burn it, write out what is important and put it in a place you can see it every day
6. Visualize what you really want to be happening in your life
7. Do something creative, whether it is artwork, craft, sand castle, or a new route home.
8. Regain power and control by taking responsibility for your life and how you choose to react to it.
9. Stand in a place of peace within yourself.

Song of the Day – Hold Fast – MercyMe

Hold Fast by MercyMe

I heard today’s song while driving to work this morning. It is Hold Fast by MercyMe. It’s one of those songs that reaches into your heart and helps lift out some of the pain, stress or weakness when you are in the middle of a tough season of life. Sometimes it feels as the song says like the season will never pass. Perhaps you are in the middle of a long, desperate time that feels like you will never reach summer where abundance and joy flows. Hold fast to the strength of your spirit, reach out to others who can help encourage you to live on through the challenging times. Reach out to God and ask for help, guidance and understanding for what is going on in your life right now. Help is always around you when you ask for it. Allow yourself to reach out and overcome your pride that keeps you from receiving help and encouragement.

Remember, you are not alone and that no one could possibly know or understand what is happening in your life. When you reach out, you will be amazed at how others will respond to your true vulnerability with overflowing love, concern and support. Ask God to bring people into your life to help you find your way, help booster your self esteem and help you to hold fast until a new day dawn’s with the promises of love, hope and abundance in all things.

You are loved beyond measure.
You are a masterpiece.
You are an important part of God’s plan.
You are not junk, a mistake or a loser.
You are God in Action!

You Are Your Own Valentine

While you are spreading the love this Valentine’s Weekend, don’t forget to sprinkle some of that love over yourself.  One of the most important valentine’s in your life is you and your own heart.  Whether it is taking a long deserved nap, special candlelit bath or doing something you enjoy yet put off doing because you feel obligated to take care of others first.  Do something special for you this weekend.  

Perhaps you aren’t quite feeling that much love for yourself.  Do you feel unworthy of love or feel like it would be too much work?  You are worth the effort to renew the self-love that each of us should share within ourselves.  Look yourself in the mirror in the eyes and say “I Love You! You are Beautiful!”  Say it until you truly mean it.  No matter what has happened in your life, what mistakes you think you have made or how you feel your life has turned out – you deserve love and forgiveness.  Give yourself the gift of forgiveness, love and compassion.  Wrap it up in a little box and surprise yourself with the blessing of unconditional love just for being you.  Truly you are a glorious, lovely, beautiful being. 

Perhaps you only see that others’  lives are better than yours, that they are more beautiful, worthy or better than you in so many ways.  When you find amazing traits in others believe that those same wonderful and beautiful things can be found within you.  Perhaps they are shining out the qualities that you have yet to realize are truly found within you at the same time.  Within each of us is the ability to rise above, be more than we think we are and make a true difference in our lives and others’ lives.  When someone else reflects back a positive loving example, take some of that light and raise your own candle high and shine back in unconditional love and acceptance.  Acceptance for the beauty that is in the other person and the acceptance that this beauty is also found within you. 

Love can be expressed and received in so many ways beyond romantic partnerships.  Love can be simply sharing a smile with a stranger, opening the door for a co-worker or helping another carry a heavy load.  Simple acts of kindness are so important in this time when people are so disconnected and stressed out.  You have all of the tools you need to be a miracle in the world waiting for you to tap into.  I dare you to step beyond your comfort-zone and love fearlessly in the world.  Take a small step in that direction and see love blossom and fill your own world in infinite ways that you cannot yet imagine.

Life’s Twists and Turns

Life takes many twists and turns. Often times leading us in places we never knew we would go and other times leading us down roads we never thought we could go even if we wanted to.  It is amazing to me to see the roads my life has gone down, many times by choice and other times not at all by choice.  Currently it feels like I am being lead down a completely different road with even more choices to rise above and push through walls and circumstances that I never thought I would enter.

 

So many others are feeling the same way, coming up against walls of built out of fears that they don’t have enough, feelings of insecurity that they don’t have the funds to meet every day expenses, let alone emergencies.  The fear that is surrounding so many communities is palatable; you could almost cut it with a nice.  It is a feeling of depression and failure that men and women can’t support their families and that no amount of success in the past even measures up to the current status of their lives where the years they may have put into a job or learning a career don’t mean anything. 

 

It is at these moments when life seems darkest and most fearful that we have to reach deep inside and reflect on what is truly important in life.  Reflect on what it is that we truly want to create with our lives.  Perhaps what we most desire has to be released so we can welcome in something new that we were meant to be. 

 

Right now for me, it is amazing and odd to be seeing what new possibilities can come out of going back to work at a university after spending so many months trying to create a healing practice.  Along the way, I have learned so much and realize there is still so much more to learn that it isn’t the end yet of that dream.  That dream continues to be reshaped as it is bigger than me and what my own vision can hold.  While working at the university, I will be able to return to get a master’s degree and pursue a different way of helping others.  I am still unsure where this path is going and it is often frustrating that things aren’t going how I planned them to be. 

 

As I look at all the broken pieces, I am rearranging them into a new picture, perhaps something stronger and more detailed than what it had been before.  Often when I am most frustrated I find the words that help not only myself but help others to find that inner strength and courage to keep pushing forward, too.  There is so much darkness surrounding the world right now, it takes every ounce of courage within each of us to shine our light out, to shine the love we have inside to help bring about something greater than we had dreamed of. 

 

I am confident that in each person I talk to that each one has something special to share, something important and vital that is waiting to be shined out.  Right now, while I am cursing the walls around me, I am also grateful for the insight they have given me.  It is a reminder that within me is something greater than just the day to day challenges of life.  That inner spark is more powerful than the world around me can drown out.  I will tend to my spark and hope it helps light the way for another to shine brighter.  Cause God just isn’t finished with any of us yet! 

 

Continue to have faith in your heart and shine your light.  When in doubt of your true worth, reach out to those who have loved you, who have stood beside you no matter what – without judgment of who you truly are.  Remember you are loved, that your love is important for someone else in your life.  Shine your light!

Choices

 

 

One way to live a better life is to make better choices for your life.  These choices are not only about choosing to eat better or exercise more.  These choices are about treating yourself better, accepting that you may want something different out of life than other people want for you, or choosing to express how you feel no matter how other people will respond. 

 

Are you making choices that make your heart sing?

Are you making choices in your life that make you dread waking up each day?

 

Everyday is filled with a million choices to be made, ranging from:  Do I get out of bed this morning?  What am I going to have for breakfast? What kind of activities do I really want to do today?

 

Each question can have a million different responses, based on your internal workings, morals and desires.  Sometimes choices are not made from our heart but from what our mind deems is the best choice.  The mind’s choice isn’t always a horrible choice, but it also isn’t always the best choice. Sometimes it is the mind choosing to get up and go to work even when you do not really feel like it. This is a decent choice because usually the reason behind going to work is so you can pay bills, take care of your responsibilities and fulfill obligations.  Other times it is choosing to go to an event or activity that you really don’t want to go to, but still attend out of a feeling of responsibility or desire to please your family, spouse, friends, etc. 

 

Each choice can lead us further and further away from where our heart’s desires truly lie.  Our heart will never really lead us astray, but our mind sometimes will.  Choices you make from your heart will help your spirit to feel fed and fulfilled.  If your spirit feels fulfilled you will not need to feed it so much with food.  However, when you continuously make choices from your mind, you create situation where you do not feel fulfilled but instead feel overwhelmed, stressed out, angry and discontent.  These choices lead to the cycle of feeding yourself with food to suppress these emotions, so you can continue to live exactly as you are without changing anything.

 

This week look at the choices you are making.  Are they truly serving your spirit or are they stifling your spirit?

Beautiful You

Beautiful You!

 

Rev. Alicia M. Erchul

 

Be proud of who you are!

No one else sparkles or shines like you do in the entire world!

 

Smile your special smile and love with all your heart for you are loved always!

 

Sometimes we forget just how special we are.  We forget what makes us unique and sets us apart from everyone else in the world. We all have our own special light to give, our own special way of living in this world that is so completely unique that no one else on the planet is living that way now and will never live that way again at any time. Only the present moment of you is all that there is. Your light, your life is amazing and adds so much color and vibrancy to the world and universe around you. Never forget that what you bring to the world is of value.  It is so important to share who you truly are – because you are the only one who can share it!  We may never fully know or understand how our lives affect those around us or who the ripples will reach by the way we live our lives. Sometimes these ripples are positive and sometimes they are challenging; it is all in how we live each present moment.

 

Sometimes we lose sight of our own unique light, but we do not have to lose our voice or our song.  Look around you for ways to add your song and special note to the song of the universe to create the most beautiful melody that can be heard. Let your heart sing out its pretty tune or beat its own drum. Being yourself – your true self creates more beauty than any other form you try to make of yourself. Don’t fit into what others think you need to be or what their beauty ideals are. Be yourself – all that you are is beautiful and lovely just because you are you!

 

Create your life from your heart and see the beauty that transforms around you:

 

~ in this present moment

-you can create the beauty

-you can create the love you need

-you can create the joy and happiness your heart desires

-you can create the peace and serenity that your soul longs for

-you can create your world for your life.

 

Be brave.  Be bold.

Be true to you!

Brand New Day

Sunrise from Haleakala, Hawaii

 

Brand New Day

Rev. Alicia M. Erchul

 

 

Good morning to you, where ever you are!

Hope your day starts off with a song in your heart

and a twinkle in your eye.

 

May your day be filled with peace, hope, love and joy

for all the infinite possibilities that you can create with your life.

 

Each day is a new day to live your life anew,

with brand new choices, brand new ways to make

your life the best life possible.

 

Don’t let past regrets or worries over mistakes

keep you from choosing better possibilities

for your life or for letting yourself be all that you want to be.

 

You don’t have to live inside a box,

stuck and trapped by old habits or

old ways of thinking about yourself.

 

Start over each day with the belief that

today is brand new and so are you,

each moment is a fresh chance

to make a brilliant choice for your highest and greatest good!

 

 

Where Does God Go?

Where Does God Go?

Alicia M. Erchul

 

Pain rises wave upon wave.

Filling the mind and breaking the heart.

Pain increases making every moment torture.

Breaking the body and depressing the spirit.

 

How can the world be filled with so much pain?

How can one body be filled with so much fear that it has forgotten its soul?

How can one go on day after day when they are all the same?

How can one live when they are all alone?

 

Where does God go when the body is in pain?

Where does God go when the mind is filled with disease?

Where does God go when the heart weeps in despair?

Where does God go when the world keeps spinning without any peace?

 

Does God run and hide away,

Waiting for another day to come out and play?

Does God turn away,

Hiding behind the clouds like the sun?

 

There is never a day when God hides from you.

There is never a moment so dark that God would leave your side.

God stands ever faithful, by your side, in your heart and all around you.

With a helping hand and a loving embrace, God is there to help you go on.

 

God is there, when you are crying.

God is there, when you are in pain.

God is there, when you are weary.

God is there, when you are in despair.

 

Let God release the pain.

Let God come and fill your heart with gladness.

Let God step in and lift your pain away.

Let God’s radiant light surround you till the darkness is but a memory.

 

God’s light is there to lift your spirits.

God’s hand is there to heal your pain.

God’s love is there to bring you back to health.

God’s faith is there when your own faith thinks life is impossible.

 

Find hope in God’s promise that you are never alone and always loved.

Find joy in God’s creation that each day is truly brand new.

Find peace in God’s grace that you are forgiven and healed of all pain.

Find strength in God’s faith that there are infinite possibilities for your life.

 

Blessings in the Rain ~03.18.08

 

Blessings in the Rain

Alicia M. Erchul, 2008

 As rain blesses your day with sprinkles

Don’t fall into darkness or despair.

 

Let each raindrop caress your face

And wash away the dust from your eyes

Open your mind with clarity to see the world brand new.

 

Be refreshed by the coolness on your skin

Lifting all sorrows from your heart

And raising your spirit higher.

 

Let the rain feed and nourish your soul

And help seeds grow and take root in your heart

Blossoming into flowers of joy and love.

 

So let the rain fall softly or come in a rush over you

Embrace this opportunity to be cleansed and refreshed.