Should we have concerns for Billy Corgan?
Could he be another suicide in the future?
I just read an article (Billy Corgan on Chris Cornell’s Death: “I’ve Been in That Exact Spot a Thousand Times”) where Billy Corgan was talking about suicide and how he’s experienced feelings that might be similar to what took Chris Cornell.
As a fan of both of these guys and someone that has seen them both play, it is crazy to hear and think about them struggling to this extent. This is just further proof that we are all human, suffering is part of the human condition, and it’s unavoidable no matter how much success, fame, or money we have.
I remember when I heard Chris took his life. I was really sad. It was hard to imagine why a guy like him, with the level of success he’s had, and the money that he had, and the life that he created, and the family he had, would be, could be, in enough pain to kill himself. I thought the same thing about Robin Williams. Both really surprised me. Sadness, grief, and struggles with self-worth are tough as they can be so easily overlooked (or maybe ignored) by society and maybe so well hidden.
Reading this article I see another artist falling in line and sharing his own struggles. Reading Billy’s thoughts and how he compared them to Chris’ assumed thoughts on struggle was easy to relate to. If you’ve ever been on this cliff, you too might relate.
One doesn’t need to jump off to understand. I personally have never been suicidal, but I have walked on that cliff a few times as well. I can totally relate to what Billy is talking about. Now I was never close to as famous, or as ‘successful’ as either of these guys, but I have had a certain level of success, then lost it, and gone into a dark place.
Can Meditation, Mindfulness & Buddhism Help Thoughts About Suicide and Depression?
What I can say from personal experience is that mindfulness, meditation, and Buddhism certainly DO HELP ME. This is why I created a mindfulness course. I wanted to help people. My struggles had to do with self-worth being eroded and struggling to find a way to regain it. It also was the loss I felt in my business and what felt like no interest from clients or prospects to see the value I brought to their life and business (or so I thought after a few big losses).
Sadly, I also had a very close business partner totally sabotage me personally and working hard to undermine my business and several business relationships. I went to a dark place and although I broke free of the dark place, the sadness or diminished self-worth can pop their head up in odd ways related to life situations and/or life struggles.
Billy Corgan shared these thoughts… ‘Is this worth it?’, ‘This is not what I signed up for’, or ‘Everybody else thinks this is great, but it’s not great to me and I don’t know what to do about it.’. I had some very similar hopeless thoughts, feelings, and conversations in my head, with my wife, and with family and friends. Sadly, this internal dialogue turns to rumination and perpetual headtrash that can be hard to kick and maybe leading to a downward spiral if not caught quickly.
When done with others, it often sucks nearly as bad, because the other person doesn’t know how to help you and this actually makes you feel worse. So you go back to keeping this shit locked up and trying to deal with it yourself. Which can be bad news and maybe what happened to Chris and any other person that ended things.
This is why I NEED to do daily meditation and I have been digging deeper into mindfulness and Buddhism. These tools truly help me. It is working on the mind and understanding what causes these ugly things to reenter my life.
Through daily practice and continued learning, I find ways to fight this mess. I actually have been on a self-compassion kick and practicing Metta Meditation regularly as a way to keep these things at bay for some 6 months during the pandemic. These may be helpful to anyone reading this who is having their own struggles and is fighting their own demons.
Metta, in a self-compassion set up, is doing a meditation where you think about yourself and offer self-care in a way you would offer help to a friend in need. In your meditation you may say a few phrases like…
May I be safe.
May I be happy.
May I be healthy.
May I live with ease.
This may sound silly, but unless you’ve walked on that cliff and struggled to get help, you may not understand that these words can be life-changing and the meditations can be very powerful.
I might also suggest looking into the Buddhist teaching of the Four Noble Truths as I think this idea sets the stage for overcoming the root of what causes these struggles. It sounds like via Billy’s story as he was talking about his own struggles, that being exposed to these idea would certainly help him and maybe even Chris if Billy’s assessment is accurate. This video offers a quick overview of The Four Noble Truths.
If you try going down one of these paths, I wish you much luck. If you need more help, you can certainly call the number below.
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 800-273-8255
If you get to this state or are feeling that you need help… please get professional help. Don’t fool around. You can start here if you need help now – National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 800-273-8255. They are available 24 hours a day.
Why is Hellagood Life Addressing Suicide
Helping others is 100% why I built this site. It is also why I created a mindfulness course. I want to help people who are struggling like I had and still do at times, and maybe as Chris did, and as it sounds Billy might from time to time.
In all honesty, being trained in Buddhist-based mindfulness and meditation would be the best solution in my eyes, but any mindfulness programming could help. The SELFCARE Mindfulness Course I created was a way to create a course to help people and avoid any fear of things being religious. Any mindfulness training could have helped both of these guys and most of society.
It is really a disservice that these skills are not common in our world.
You see, mindfulness is about awareness and being present in the moment with non-judgment. Often times our struggle can be about unmet expectations. We think things should be one way, and when they are not, we get sad, anxious, upset, or angry. If this happens often it leads to that downward spiral no matter how successful you are or have been. Maybe it is more common with the mind of a creative, as many artists go down this path or have these struggles. Reading Corgan’s words, it resonated with me deeply and I could also totally relate.
Do Successful People Struggle With Self-Worth Issues?
Self-worth can be a tricky thing. For years we may have gotten our self-worth from others and so we might need validation from others to feel good or normal. At the same time, we thrive in our uniqueness and difference. I had always been a non-conformist and proud of it. In a vulnerable state and in rough times with my business, I asked a more conservative friend for help. I was thinking maybe a job or introduction to any connections that might need my type of help/work that I do.
I was told that they couldn’t help me because I was a non-conformist. Asking for help and being denied because of who you are is an awful experience. I was desperate and needed something and was basically told that I offered no value to the world and so I was unhelpable. Now, this may not have been what the friend meant or said, but it is totally what I heard and felt.
I still struggle with self-worth and it is because society values the wrong shit and trained me to place my self-worth in the wrong shit. When that stuff is gone, so is your self-worth. Daily meditation was one tool that helped me turn things around. Mindfulness is like Buddhist psychology offering better solutions to wellness than our typical Western medical culture offers (at least in my experience). It is what has helped me more than anything else. This is why it attracted me so deeply. I needed help and society and the medical community were not responsive to my outcry for help.
Without mindfulness maybe I would have gotten to the point of suicide, who knows. What I can say is this is why I am so passionate about mindfulness. Since the government sucks at offering decent healthcare, the medical community is (or seems) really focused on profits, society is focused on mass consumerism… and NO ONE wants to talk about mental health, self-care or wellness, we are left to find our own devices of dealing and healing.
In my eyes, this is why we see alcohol and drug abuse as coping tools and why things can often end in overdose or suicide. Or we see abuse and violence on the rise. We are not equipped with the tools we need in my opinion and in my experience.
Wellness and mental health are not respected enough to address publicly for some reason. So I try to address it whenever I can. I also want to be part of the solution, not perpetuate the problem.
Again, this is why I created the SELFCARE Mindfulness Course. Is it a solution that can help nearly anyone, but also assist suicidal people giving them one tool to address their suffering. It certainly cannot help ALL people and I am not sure if it could help people in the state of thinking about suicide per se, but it might help some people from getting this far down the cliff. At least that is my hope.
I see mindfulness and meditation as preventative medicine and a wellness routine.
Do Others Struggle In Other Ways?
There are many people out there struggling without solutions to help them overcome their struggles. Hell, if we look at US politics, this is why Trump got elected and half the country voted for him for round 2.
People are struggling, broken, and missing something. In trump’s case, these people either seem greedy wanting to leverage his bullshit in order to profit in big ways (seeking external happiness) or they feel that their life is in danger (financially from Women, Blacks, Hispanics, AI, or others taking their job, guns, or lifestyle away from them – fear and potentially a self-worth thing) or they are filled with hate (fear, maybe self-worth, or a ignorance or misinformed reality).
Many of these things may be able to be fixed, but the root of the problem needs to be addressed. As a side note, not all Trump voters are crazy or fit into this list, but I feel some of them might. It might be just something missing in their lives and not just that they are jerks as they may be painted in the media.
I feel sad for them and want to help people that are doing desperate things or acting irrationally and harming themselves or others. This doesn’t need to be the solution as there are other options just as with the suicidal community.
None of this might be true about the trump community, but I have thought a bit about why we as a country are so divided and why extreme actions, thoughts, and content are being shared. Don’t get me wrong, Democrats are also fighting their own demons and struggles. This is not 100% on trump and his people. This division serves no one and should be let go to heal and come back together, but it’ll take work on both sides.
Conclusion
Sadly, no matter what makes a person feel different, broken, or worthless if it isn’t addressed it turns into something else – violence, anger, self-medicating, depression, and suicide to name just a few. Because of my own struggles and my own success with mindfulness and Buddhism, I felt obligated to help this struggling community.
I feel that if mindfulness can help me, then there is a good chance it can help other people as well.
As hard as it was to get help in my own situation, it seemed like that had to be a better way. With my skills in building products, sales, and marketing in business, I should certainly try to improve the broken system and help any people seeking help. The first step is admitting there is a problem and the current solutions are not working and then being brave enough to ask for help.
We’ll see where it goes, but right now I am writing this and building this site to help people create and live a ‘hellagood life’. So if you are struggling and need help or you think that there is something wrong with society, what they tell you to do, or who to be, and you feel outside that space, then maybe this site or this mindfulness course (SELFCARE) is for you.
You deserve to live a full and rewarding life and that is what a Hellagood Life is to me.
May you find peace, love, and respect on your journey.
Honoring Chris
Let’s give Chris some respect and a moment of silence or send him some Metta. Here is an overview of his last 12 months and then one of the songs I love that seems fitting – Say Hello To Heaven.
Respect to Billy Corgan
Here we’ll show the interview of Billy Corgan with Howard Stern talking about Chris Cornell’s suicide. It is tough to watch and think about and his version. Sadly this paints a real situation of dealing with these struggles.
Billy Corgan Photo by: apardavila
Chris Cornell Photo by: Andreas Eldh
Want to try adding mindfulness and meditation to your self-care routine? Click below to get details about the Introduction to Mindfulness & Meditation mini-course.