This Time We Live In

I’m so thankful for this time that we live in. 

Last month as I traveled to a business workshop in Texas I sat next to a gentleman on the plane not much younger than my own dad. He is a farmer among other things. I learned much about the work he does. The strong daughters he raised. The wife he loved and respected so much that he was willing to let her go because that was what made her happy. We also talked about his Father. 

When he asked me what I do for a living, I told him I was a Life Coach and explained a little about what I do. He thanked me. That was when he told me more about his father. 

His father had severe depression. The farmer told me of the experiences he remembered growing up when his dad was at his worst. He told me about the electric shock therapy his father received not once, but twice. And how long it took him to recover afterwards. The farmer continued to tell me about how his father checked himself into a hospital when his grandmother past away. How to this day he has no idea what the doctor said to his father when he was in the hospital, but that once everyone in the family left town to go to grandma’s funeral his father went home from the hospital and was finally ok. From that day on his father was fine.

We talked more about mental health and all of the advances we have made since then. We talked about the work I do to help people handle the hard things that we can’t seem to avoid in this life we have. We talked about how some people naturally have the ability to handle hard things and how others can use the help to understand how to do it. We talked about how no matter who you are there is a point where we need someone to walk beside us. To help gives us direction from time to time and to love us through it all. 

Yea, I’m so very thankful for this time we live in. 
We no longer do electric shock treatment or lobotomies to over come depression and anxiety. We have so much more understanding. We may have a long way to go, but we have made so much progress. We have medications for those who really need it and benefit, we have techniques we can use that don’t do physical harm to the body, we have phycologists and therapists and counselors. And in my case we have coaches like myself who are trained in knowing how our thoughts create our feelings and so we can help bring awareness and teach people how to create new neural pathways in their brains so they can simply feel better. 

It is such a beautiful time to live.

Love you madly.

Leslie

P.S. Thank you Farmer. For your vulnerability and willingness to share. Thank you for permission to share your father’s story. 

P.S.S. If you have depression, there is no shame in reaching out for help. And if your just looking to feel better, for someone to come along side and show you how. Let’s talk. We can see if we are a good fit for one another. Email me at leslie.canup@gmail.com