Walking the Thin Line

Are you walking the Thin Line? Know someone who is? Don't know what to do? 

There is help all around. Reach out. Talk. It's not a Bad Life. It's a Bad Day. 

Deepika Padukone, a well-known Indian movie star, founded The Live Love Laugh Foundation after she came out about her battle with depression.

 https://thelivelovelaughfoundation.org/

The site is an excellent resource for those who are not sure where they are on the spectrum of mental well-being issues, whether it is time to seek help - and how. They also have programs for various groups, including children. One of our dear friends works there. 

India is seeing yet another amazing wave of positive social change amidst all the disaster, yet another testament  to our incredible adaptability and resilience. More and more people are speaking up about struggling with mental health issues. Seeking help is increasingly applauded as the right thing to do.  

Covid has finally brought in an increased acceptance that we are fallible, we have minds that need to be looked after as much as our bodies, and that the most resilient people are those who seek help.

Join the movement. Make 2020 the year you were an Agent of Social Change, part of the Big Wave that will go down in the history of this country. Tell me, you DO want some good memories of this year, don't you? 😊 

Speak

• Initiate conversations around mental well-being in your close circles - family, friends, office colleagues, apartment complexes, communities
• Of course it is uncomfortable. Change is difficult. Be a Warrior. "What do you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"*
• You will be surprised what change you bring about, bit by bit. You never know. 
• The time is right. Strike.  

Share

• Share mental health resources widely across social media
• You never know which helpline will save someone's life

Seek

• If you ever find yourself walking the thin line, seek help. There is a life after this. Believe me.

Why am I sharing this? This is a campaign that came out of Saturday evening calls I set up with ex-colleagues from 15-20 years ago when the lockdown started in March 2020. We hope to contribute to the Mental Health Revolution in India, in our own small way. We believe that it's when everything comes crumbling down that we have to rise, be engaged, go beyond the preoccupations of our own personal lives. 

Has any other time ever proved to us as much that we are all in this together, we are intricately and irrevocably linked?

Please share. Somewhere someday it may reach someone who is walking the thin line with nothing to break the fall. 

*Mary Oliver, 'The Summer Day'