By Michele Tenney
Here’s to Your Health
Michele Tenney
Friends, I have often said “you are a spirit that has a soul that lives in a body.” I’ve spoken to you about the importance of having all three of these pieces of ourselves in good working order.
These times are so uncertain and so stressful. Both TV and social media have taken us to another level of despair, as if the virus wasn’t enough. Your emotional wellness is going to have to be a purposeful decision you make these days. When we feel discouraged, defeated, oppressed, judged and without a voice, a door opens for our wellness to decline. Depression, anxiety and so much more may overwhelm us.
I’m here to encourage you there is hope. I speak to you today from the deepest places of my heart simply because I love people and because I have been feeling the same challenge.
When I was growing up, I was taught to “think outside the box.” I really enjoyed the challenge in that way of thinking because it encouraged me to take an adventure to another side of the norm. I loved discovering another point of view I had not seen before. It was like a treasure hunt.
Today when I post things to inspire others to think outside the box, I am being thrown into a box, taped up and labeled. I’m either left or right or a conspiracy theorist. My question is: why? I am a “why” learner. I always have been. When I understand the “why,” then I can understand what X or Y means. I am a truth bug, so in order for me to find truth I need to dig, try different soils and then nest in a place that feels right and comfortable to me.
Recently, I posted a couple of articles from a newspaper I subscribe to on my social media page. Some of those posts were censored, which is very disturbing to me. A dear friend I’ve known since grammar school replied to my post that he didn’t read the article I had posted and said if he were me he would put the newspaper in the recycle bin. He expressed strong accusations about the source and added to the end of his comment, “to each his own.”
My response was: absolutely to each his own. However, I would be doing myself a great injustice to throw the newspaper into the recycle bin because there are always different points of view. I asked him how he can make such strong accusations without having even read the article.
We cannot afford to be one-way thinking, to the left or to the right, up, down or anything in between. We should be seeking several different opinions before making one of our own. We need to look at the same thing from many different vantage points, take what we feel makes sense to us and respect others’ decisions to do the same for themselves.
It’s when we make a decision based only on what we see or hear and leave it at that when division comes in.
These are beyond troubled times we are living in. We need to come together, not tear each other apart. This country was founded on several different opinions and lifestyles coming together in unity to make this one great nation. Our mental and emotional health is tied directly to our physical health. Let us help one another in love and in unity despite our opinions or beliefs.
Love is the most powerful of all things we have been given. Here’s to your health in peace and with love.