Are Alternatives conferences obsolete?
Ever since the Facebook conversations about the chance that funding for Alternatives conferences might have gotten cut, I wondered if folks were still thinking about, and discussing this. It kinda dead ended when the funds were assured. I think your raising it newly, and your call to action are right on time.
The upshot of the previous conversation for me was the possibility of seizing upon the uncertainty to propose new ways to produce the conference going forward. The specter of vanishing funds is still very much present. The Alternatives conference today is totally codependent.
Continue reading By Clif Wright – Why Alternatives Conferences are Obselete
Outreach is one important, vital and proven means of “reaching” the otherwise unreachable. It is proactive, not reactive, a preventative intervention, its about finding a Cho, Lanza etc. before they strike, and perhaps, turning them away from harming others or themselves.
Fiscally, the return on investment in prevention is dramatic. Money put into preemptive action against social ills yields anywhere from real bucks savings and dividends… 300 to 1000% return is a good deal on any investment, and it saves lives.
Can we prevent mass shootings?
It can address virtually any social need in almost any setting. Given the
Continue reading Clif Wright – How to Prevent Mass Shootings
I mean to be helpful, clumsily sharing some of the most powerful things I know:
1) that its all about personal responsibility 2) that everthing we need to deal with whatever is challenging us is alresdy there,and 3) the “focus on problems” conversation we’re having mostly keeps us from the power to solve problems
I’m certain now that people most readily believe what they come to discover for themselves.
I’ve discovered (been shown) that the usual conversations we have about the biggies we face are usually circular or dead end debates, mostly about whose right, who’s or wrong, etc. –
Continue reading Clif Wright – Mental health talks that just focus on problems limit us
Editors note: In one of our discussion groups, the question came up: What do you suggest for people who have a lot of loneliness and isolation? Don’t go out much? How do you know an ideal amount of social interaction for someone to have?
Corinna: Afraid of crime is one reason I’ve heard for loneliness and isolation, though the fear of crime probably affects life quality more than the actual risk. Another reason I’ve heard for a lot of loneliness and isolation is that people might not like to be around people – being an introvert. I guess the different
Continue reading Cliff Wright – Lonelieness and isolation are a choice
Editors note: Cliff Wright wrote this essay in our UnDiagnosing Emotional Distress Facebook discussion group. We’d love you to join this group – We are talking about how to create a language that can move beyond labels and medications and the disease model of emotional distress. This discussion on reducing veteran suicide gave us all some new ideas. The participants gave us permission to reprint their comments.
Corinna West: “What is the best way to help veterans? For reducing veteran suicide? If one vet dies by suicide every 80 minutes, what is the solution to that problem?”
The Chocolate
Continue reading Cliff Wright – The best ideas for reducing veteran suicide
The new collaborative model
Collaboration is a good idea with something underlying. Some people are torn between the traditional ideas of the industrial marketplace, and the newer, more collaborative model. Trying to put those traditional ideas inside this new collaborative model creates a lot of stress and friction.
The most powerful place to live within this competition between old ides and the new collaborative model is also the brightest hope for entrepreneurs and free enterprise. The new collaborative model is NOT the marketplace model.
How do people get compensated for their work, while doing good in that world? Look
Continue reading The Importance of the New Collaborative Model
One thing to notice about a symphony is that it is, first and foremost, an alignment of wholes — all players in their own place with their own instruments, their own voice. Each also shares the desire to harmonize, blend their voices, and create beauty. Mental health advocacy and a symphony should be more alike.
The thread that ties the players and music together is responsibility, each one, all together. taking personal responsibility for the music’s perfection, for their part, and, ultimately, for the harmony. The alignment of wholes, all commited to producing the same grand result, say Handel’s Messiah.
Continue reading Mental Health Advocacy and a Symphony Are A Lot Alike
The Experience of Being Poor
There seem to to be two streams of thought abour what being poor means in the U.S. Both are valid, both vital to any serious discussion of poverty. One is global, looking at the whole nature and profound impact of poverty; the other is far more personal, speaking to the personal experience of being poor.
Understanding and power despite the experience of being poor requires both perspectives, especially to the degree that our thinking and collective reasoning creates poverty and its horrific outcomes.
It is true that there are other kinds of riches, and
Continue reading What Does the Experience of Being Poor Really Mean? Part 2 of 2
Anger Alone Is Not Enough
Anger alone is not sufficient to create change. It needs to be focused purposefully and strategically employed.
When you study the movements that have actually changed conditions and circumstances, you find outrage that becomes focused action, based on principles, values, and a clear actionable vision of the future, not anger alone.
How Anger Alone Becomes A Movement
People become a movement that finds its voice. Finding that voice, and using it purposefully, profoundly is the point and within the context of recovery, one of the surest signs of life after illness and loss.
Then,
Continue reading Cliff Wright – Why Anger Alone is Insufficient, Part 2 of 2
Where is the Rage?
I don’t mean to offend anyone, but I do mean what I’m about to say. It’s meant to be real talk — RAW — about rage. Sometimes, the only appropriate response to oppression is rage.
Movements, civil disobedience, and especially non-violent direct action are not for the faint-hearted, can’t-we-all-just-get-along crowd.
This is for the bravest and brightest among us, folks who are ready to give EVERYTHING, put everything on the line, put their asses, freedom, and lives on the line to challenge the forces that would, and indeed are, destroying them, their families and all
Continue reading By Clif Wright – People with Mental Health Labels Should Feel Rage, Part 1 of 2
Helpers must love before they help
I would say to anyone wanting to become any kind of helper, no matter what their title, is helpers must love and listen.
This is manifest over and over in interactions with so-called consumers, clients, people in trouble, at risk, in transition, recovery, well and not so well. Folks like you and me trying to find their way.
Each of us is whole and complete and able within ourselves, capable of finding solutions within ourselves, finding a way to navigate our troubled waters, Though the solutions we are within us, sometimes we need
Continue reading Clif Wright – Helpers Must Love and Listen
|
|