Essential Wisdom Tells Us...Your Kindness Knows No Bounds

Judee Regan is an intuitive Business Consultant, an engaging Speaker, a wise Elder, a gifted Storyteller and Author of the book 'Meaningful Work...the Entrepreneurial Way: Your integrated guide to Career and Personal Life Management and book publications in electronic form as well as textual CDs. Judee champions taking responsibility for your own life through action, contribution and Work-Life wholeness and well-being through awareness, vision, and choice. Learn more about her philosophy and her services at http://www.worldofwork.com .

Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada (PRWEB) December 15, 2004 -- I was driver to an 'almost eighty woman recently who asked me about my work. I talked a bit about the stress in the workplace and said that people were afraid to say they needed help for fear of judgment and loss of status...a perfect way to encourage a full blown mental illness. 'Oh she said, I know all about that.

As a young woman, very bright and adventurous she considered herself the luckiest woman alive to fall in love with a widower -- twenty years her senior with two children. They had a good life, a couple of kids of their own and the best of times until they werent. Ten, twelve years in he was diagnosed with manic depression. She described what life was like through the teenage years of their children when he was functioning at work but not at home. And she was in charge of two main issues: keeping the house together and the kids on track and making sure that no one, but no one got wind that her husband suffered from mental illness.

'Of course she said 'I imagine the medications are much better today. It was a problem to keep them regulated so he could function. We knew that he would have been finished if the word got out to anyone, so we told no one, for fear of what the repercussions might be...not even our friends knew. I know you understand, you are such a good listener. Do you know that you are the first person I have told this story to, and I now am going to ask you not to repeat it.

When I drove her home, I said -- 'I believe your story is one to be told. There are thousands who need to hear it. 'Alright -- just dont say my name.

And the Essential Wisdom is: can you imagine the weight of that baggage ...carried all those years? A caution for those who would be critical of her choices! I have walked with a son who has been challenged by a mental illness. To come to the moment when I chose to acknowledge it, to trust that his universe would unfold as it should was not easy...but it has been empowering. But the isolation and the fear and judgment of others is something my son and I both know. In truth that woman knew what the world would do to her and her husband, so she coped the best she knew how. Today, forty years later not much has changed and people in many, many workplaces know it would be wise to keep a low profile when it comes to stress and anxiety. They know at some deep level that the price of discovery is too high...and so they choose to keep the secret rather than ask for help. Surely an isolation that knows no bounds!

In this season of giving and receiving...remember those who suffer silently and who would be deeply touched by the warmth of your connection. Surely your kindness would know no bounds!

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