Are we healing or hurting the world?

Today is Christmas Eve. I just spent a little time on Smule, Inc. , and after singing some Christmas carols, I sang "Hurt".

And I started crying while singing.

Memories flooded over me. All the kids I have worked with, struggling through life, fighting addiction, a world that doesn't understand them, abuse, neglect... and also, the life of my mother, psychologist Reidun Ueland, fighting for her clients right to an undrugged life ...

So, this article is for them. The ones strong in sensitivity, unable to cope with the life we have created.

What are we doing with our world? We were given Paradise; what have we turned it into?

We are killing the environment. Destroying mother Nature's soil & soul. We use religion as an excuse to fight, instead of letting it be what was intended to be about: sharing love.

We have turned the Divine's most beautiful gift; sexuality; into something dirty. A commodity, something to trade or sell.

Our schools force children into a form, which doesn't fit many of them. No, it is not natural for a child to sit still in a classroom for hours, listening to an old geezer preach. Children are best taught in activity, with a side order of joy.

"Faith", in many parts of the world, has become a diagnosis. If you believe that you have a connection with the Divine, and that your God speaks with you, you need medication. The stories we share during Christmastime; angels speaking, a child of God being born; if we have experiences similar to these, we are psychotic.

The coldness of science has laid its dark cloak over the world.

But is this truly science? The medical establishment, hell-bent on limiting human emotions into simple equations of "unbalanced neurochemistry"... instead of recognising the fact that instead of understanding our marvellous brain, we are limiting it.

No! Science is about wonder. About the joy of discovering. True scientific discovery is not very far from religious rapture; the Eureka Eureka of Archimedes, the dream that lead to E = mc2, the whole life of Nikola Tesla; science should not be led by greed!

A friend of mine is just now suffering from stopping Abilify. And yes ... he is suffering. Deeply. Unlike many of my therapist colleagues, I have experienced the mind-numbing effects of such drugs. My mother, may she rest in peace, used to call them "chemical lobotomy" - a very fitting term.

So ... here's a question to anyone from 辉瑞 , 礼来 , 百时美施贵宝 , 阿斯利康 , 强生公司 , 荷商葛蘭素史克藥廠 & Allergan reading this:

Take a look at the state of global mental health. The number of suicides, of people on welfare and disability pensions, of people hurting. Really delve into the statistics.

Now, I want you to imagine you are sitting in front of the children I write about here. And that they ask you "Has your work helped heal or hurt us?".

What is your answer?

HRM Ueland is a monk, humanitarian and artist. He has spent 22 years in social work, with the most marginalised children and adolescents that can be found in Norway. His job has left him blunt but not blunted. With scars on his soul and body.

He is a member of "UNITY OF NATIONS" ACTION FOR CLIMATE CHANGE COUNCIL ( UNAccc ) , Global Goodwill Ambassadors Foundation (GGAF) , The TOP Person - An International Business, Politics, and NGO Magazine and a Global Charity , the leader of Poetic Genius Society, and the founder of Earth House Church, a non-denominational church.