Sunday was World Suicide Prevention Day and I thought I wrote a really good post on reminding people to seek help and where they could do that (one can call or text 988). The post didn’t go anywhere on Facebook, did a little better on Instagram, did the best on Stimulus. I bring this up because in the United State each day, we lose 132 people, that means a plane full of people dying each day. And yet I find it interesting that Meta, which owns both Facebook and Instagram, clearly kept my post from going anywhere.

Suicide affects us all and the numbers continue to push upwards. There are a lot of reasons to not be happy when one rolls out of bed each morning. Despite all this, I’m here to remind you that there a lot of good things in our lives, but it’s up to use to find them! No one else is going to do it for us. No matter what’s going on around us, we still need to get up, we still need to go through the motions. But in that, we need to add something– seeking what sustains the hope inside us.

I know where I find hope. I have worked hard to cultivate that in my life and I have tried to help others with these blogs and the things that I post on social media. As I write this, I’m getting ready to head up to the high school where Greg teaches and speak to two health classes. Part of my message will be about this very thing I’m writing here– sustaining hope. We can all find hope, but how do we sustain it?

In this National Suicide Prevention Week, my challenge to you is to think about what sustains your hope. Make a list! I hope it’s a long one! Keep it somewhere so that you can refer to it when you feel down (or down on the world at large). Remember that quote and saying, “Happiness is an inside job”? That’s the truth.

Seek it, find it, hold onto it.

Where Hope Resides

July 31, 2023Michelle Rusk

It’s hard to believe it’s the start of August and that Greg went back to school yesterday. I’m always reminded, as we head toward fall, that September is the month we put extra effort into suicide prevention with National Suicide Prevention Month and World Suicide Prevention Day.

But there have also been some deaths lately, a death here in New Mexico that no one is saying is a suicide unless one reads between the lines and the death of Sinead O’Connor who couldn’t seem to find peace in herself and then the suicide of her son that made it even more challenging.

All this together started me thinking on what my message September is this year and I realized it’s going to be much different than usual although not a new message for me.

It’s about where we find hope.

I don’t know why, but so often my head the phrase, “where hope resides” travels through and it did last week as I contemplated these deaths and the emotional pain that these people- and so many others– feel.

Life feels so much more challenging these days than ever before- we remain divided and angry. There has been change that makes sense to some and not to others. Even going to a restaurant has come to feel like a chore when you don’t know if they have enough staff to feed you (another topic for another day). Sometimes finding joy feels sucked away with the vacuum cleaner in this change.

When I find myself getting down, the question comes floating through– where does hope reside? In some way, it does in this photo of sunrise in the rice fields in Ubud, Bali. A new day always means a new start. And no matter how difficult the day before was! There is something about darkness giving way to light. After all, it can’t stay dark forever, the sun has to come back.

Perhaps instead of a message this year, a statement of inspiration, I’m issuing my own challenge to everyone (a good challenge, I’d like to think!): where does your hope reside?