Today, we offer up some words from the heart by our friend Nancy Palagano. We thank her for continuing to share her voyage with us. Feel free to contact her through The Lotus Healing Project on Facebook…

The degree to which we fall prey to susceptibility is the degree to which we suffer from stigma.

We can always hope to change the perspective of another and raise awareness, and we must, but most assuredly we can raise and change our own.

Susceptibility is defined as: the state or fact of being likely or liable to be influenced or harmed by a particular thing.

I grew into the stigma that filled my daily existence.  I rooted myself in it and lived by it. The distortion eventually became “me”.  I was unaware of any distorted growth until I recently awakened to it through a transformative inner journey.

The very real circumstances of any mental health condition take a toll on us. Stigma is the fine print which permeates that toll and winds its way into our souls.

We can teach about stigma and its effects to those of us graced with a mental health condition at the onset. We can teach parents and employers, doctors, teachers and social workers the deeper, more paralyzing life altering effects of its nature. We can master susceptibility, how to strengthen our muscle against it. We can master how to protect and serve ourselves. I believe we must, otherwise, we serve the poison of stigma.