'It's OK to feel,' says Utah entrepreneur during Suicide Prevention Month

HIGHLAND — A Utah entrepreneur and bestselling author was moved to action by his close friend's suicide — he started a program to help people develop a healthier relationship with their feelings and aid suicide prevention.

September is designated as Suicide Prevention Month, and Curtis Morley, of Highland, is calling for people who live in Utah — part of America's "Suicide Belt," an area in the Western U.S. where the suicide rate is particularly high — to look out for each other, develop emotional resilience and get the resources they need.

"It's OK to feel — and feel deeply. And, if you need help, there's help," Morley said.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found in summer 2020 that isolation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic led to a rise in levels of anxiety and depression among young adults, and to 25.5% of people ages 18 to 24 considering suicide.

Morley called this an "emotional pandemic." He believes much of what causes suicidal ideation isn't because people truly want to end their lives, but because they want to escape pain.

"It's because the pain and shame are so overwhelming, they need an escape. If we get rid of that shame … there's no need to escape," Morley said. "Leaving the shame behind and stepping into responsibility, stepping into guilt and stepping into making people whole will obliterate the idea of suicide."

"We need to break out of this new pandemic right now," he added.

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'I'm going to do something about it'

Two years ago, Morley was working on a sequel to his bestselling business guidebook, "The Entrepreneur's Paradox," when he found out his close friend, Jerry Williamson, had died by suicide.

"This still hurts. It does. I'm not OK with him leaving this earth too early," Morley said. "And I said, 'I am so not OK with this, but I'm going to do something about it.'"

Morley had been journaling, researching and working on learning how to process difficult emotions since his divorce around three years earlier. He found a difference between what he called "authentic" emotions like guilt and pain and connection — which lead someone to action, versus "counterfeit" emotions like shame and misery, which lead people to a downward spiral.

When Williamson died, Morley said he realized his friend might have been able to live if he had known how to process his pain. He tried to find more resources on authentic versus counterfeit emotions. But when he couldn't, he called his publisher and said, "I need to write a very different book."

Morley started working with focus groups to hone his ideas, and is now writing a new book called "Counterfeit Emotions." While the book is still underway, he has also created a company under the same title. Through his series of online classes, people can learn how to differentiate between 33 "authentic" and "counterfeit" emotional pairings, including guilt versus shame, pain versus misery, love versus lust and power versus control.

'Pain and joy can exist simultaneously'

Morley said an authentic emotion helps connect people to themselves and others, propelling them upward and forward, if it's motivated by love and surrender, instead of fear and control, and if it makes them value themselves more.

"The authentic emotions, every single one of them, value me as having infinite worth. The counterfeits say I'm worthless," Morley said.

His goal is to help people learn, "it's OK to feel."

"Pain is inevitable. Misery is optional," he said. "Most people, including myself, have never learned that principle … that pain and joy can exist simultaneously in the same space."

During Morley's college years, a friend's wedding was called off and he went to comfort her, he told her he wished he could take her pain away.

"She stopped crying, and she looked up at me, and she said, 'No, Curtis, no — if you take the pain away, you have to take the love away, too. And I never want to forget this love.'"

Morley explained that people who suppress their pain also suppress their capacity for joy, and that no emotion is bad, but all can be messengers. He said he's become grateful for what pain has taught him, and gone from seeing himself as a victim of his life to being a victor, and even a vessel who can help good things happen for other people.

"We can minimize our pain … but as we're doing that, we're minimizing our love, we're minimizing our joy," Morley said. "The more pain that we're capable of feeling, the more love we're capable of feeling."

Counterfeit Emotions co-hosted its first-ever Safe2Feel conference at Utah Tech University earlier this year, to teach teens and young adults emotional intelligence skills. Morley's company will hold a second conference Nov. 4 at Utah Valley University in Orem. Tickets are free for anyone ages 12 to 26.

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