大象传媒

Good morning. I was very struck by Prince Harry鈥檚 comment the other week when he said that until three years ago, he hadn鈥檛 talked about his mother鈥檚 death. In a very traditional way of looking at things that could well have been taken as strength but the Prince went on to say that It is OK to suffer, but as long as you talk about it. It is not a weakness. Weakness is having a problem and not recognising it and not solving that problem鈥�<?xml:namespace prefix = "o" ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Throughout my life, I鈥檝e come across many people carrying heavy burdens who felt it was impossible to talk about them. Sometimes it was the death of a baby or child when the general assumption was that you would get over it and have other children. Sometimes it was a feeling of guilt over something someone had done or not done, or even imagined that that they鈥檇 done or omitted to do. Often it was related to mental health issues when there seemed to be a fear that admitting these could affect a career - and sometimes that fear was only too real. But I suspect that many of them, particularly men considered that talking about things like that betrayed a sense of weakness.

Some years ago just after Christmas I was hit by a fierce bout of depression that lasted a number of months and in the back of my mind there鈥檚 always the fear it could recur. At the time I did the man thing, denying there was anything wrong. After some fairly miserable weeks, a colleague, who鈥檇 had many ups and downs in his own life, came into my office, told me I was depressed, brushed off my denials until I finally admitted the truth to him and, more importantly to myself, for that meant I could start to ask for help.

Lord we pray for anyone struggling with a burden they don鈥檛 feel they can talk about. Help them to be open and honest and to see that as a sign of strength. Amen