By Heather Gibson

My brother committed suicide when I was a senior in high school. It was one of the darkest times in my life. I can’t describe it with words, except to say the sun was kicked out of my life. 

Everything felt dark and numb.

Time passed and I have learned so much from my experience. Watching him struggle through his mental health issues allowed me to fully understand the toll mental health issues can take on a family. 

I watched as medical science seemed to be useless in solving his issues even with brilliant minds and loving hearts all trying to lift him out of his illness. I learned of his intense pain and suffering, scary delusions that plague him and all the interventions that were tried from counseling, meds and hospitalization. 

These experiences have given me education that has made me a better mom, foster mom, friend, advocate and human being.

So was my brother’s suicide a bad or a good thing?

It is clear to see that both good and bad came out of it. 

Of course, I would prefer to have my brother with me now. I would give up the knowledge to have him with me now. However I do believe that I will see him again and that our parting is just temporary. 

With that belief, having him leave early, is just a very painful temporary inconvenience.

If there is good in a suicide, what else can you find good in?

When I am open to looking for the silver lining, there is always one. It takes extreme faith and mental effort in some cases! 

In other situations it almost seems comical that I worried about it at all when talking about it in the same post as my brother’s death. 

That is the Law of Relativity. All things are neither good nor bad until we assign it a meaning. Often we assign that meaning based on relationship to something or someone else in our lives.

Here is one of my comical examples of the Law of Relativity.

Several years ago my family and I went to Disneyland. I spend a lot of time planning and wished we had the funds to stay at one of the hotel resorts with close access to the park. Being unaware of the Laws, I spent a fair amount of time lamenting the fact that my siblings had enough money to do something like that. 

My perspective took a 180 when I spoke with a California resident that was unable to pay to go to Disneyland because of the financial situation she was in. I realized how blessed we were to be able to travel from out of state and have a 4 day hopper passed into both sides of the park.

 My lamenting turned into deep gratitude.

The practice of being grateful for the good in all situations is what allows us to be in vibration with the good. Remember we covered that in the Law of the Vibration?

I am not saying to sweep grief and pain away and ignore it. We must lean in and experience the pain to move through it. 

Have you heard about how cows and buffalo deal with storms? 

When the cows feel a storm coming they start to run away from it. When the storm catches up to them they essentially run with it until it finally moves past them. 

The buffalo on the other hand, head into the storm and run right through it. 

Both the cow and the buffalo have to be in the storm, but the buffalo significantly reduces the time in the storm by choosing to face it. 

Be a buffalo.

Facing the storm and finding ways to notice the good will help you heal from the pain faster and bring more good into your life. Remember that everything is relative. How will you choose to see your life?

P.S. If you missed the Law of Vibration explanation, you can find it here:

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