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The Leftover Pieces: Suicide Loss Conversations
Suicide loss changes everything. The Leftover Pieces® Podcast explores life after suicide through honest conversations with survivors, experts, and grieving parents learning to live forward after unimaginable loss. Parents, partners, siblings, and friends share what it means to keep living when the world has been forever changed.
Hosted by Melissa Bottorff-Arey, whose 21-year-old son Alex died by suicide in 2016, the show blends intimate conversations with survivors, healers, and mental health professionals with short solo reflections you can actually use. Together we explore child loss, trauma and nervous-system care, anniversaries and seasons, stigma, faith and meaning, legacy, and the everyday practices that help make life livable again.
At its heart, this podcast is about learning to live forward after loss. We never move on from the people we love, but we can learn to carry the grief differently. This road can feel incredibly lonely—but you are not alone here.
For supporters, educators, and professionals, these conversations also offer insight into the realities of suicide grief and what genuine, non-fixing support can look like.
If you’d like to share your story or expertise, you can request to be a guest through Melissa’s website.
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Content Note
This podcast speaks candidly about grief and suicide loss and may feel activating for some listeners. We avoid graphic descriptions and discussion of suicide methods. Please care for yourself as needed. Melissa is not a doctor or licensed therapist, and nothing shared here should be considered medical or mental-health advice.
The Leftover Pieces: Suicide Loss Conversations
January 5 Daily Nugget: Clarify Your Intentions
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
As a sort of "Re-Boot" for The Leftover Pieces; Suicide Loss Conversations podcast after taking the last 6 weeks of 2024 "off" I am choosing to 'start over' this way .... please listen weekly to Down the Rabbit Hole episodes dropped at the start of each week and / or listen daily to these readings from The Daily Stoic-- nuggets as I call them -- of wisdom passed along from Ryan Holiday. Stephen Hanselman and the ancient Greek Philosophers such as Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus and Seneca. I hope you will do both. I hope you will consider journaling along with me. I hope it provides some inspiration, even motivation to keep going, to how we do what we do, to why we do what we do in moving forward 'after'...I hope it is a tool that you (like me) might find useful in your life after loss by suicide.
The following is an excerpt directly from the book -- they are not my words and are placed here as a sample to help you journal. The full book must be purchased to follow along all year. I am ONLY doing this in January (on the podcast).
TODAYS READING January 5 - CLARIFY YOUR INTENTIONS
Get your own copy of The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday & Stephen Hanselman**
“Let all your efforts be directed to something, let it keep that end in view. It’s not activity that disturbs people, but false conceptions of things that drive them mad.” —SENECA, ON TRANQUILITY OF MIND, 12.5
"Law 29 of The 48 Laws of Power is: Plan All The Way To The End. Robert Greene writes, “By planning to the end you will not be overwhelmed by circumstances and you will know when to stop. Gently guide fortune and help determine the future by thinking far ahead.” The second habit in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is: begin with an end in mind. Having an end in mind is no guarantee that you’ll reach it—no Stoic would tolerate that assumption—but not having an end in mind is a guarantee you won’t. To the Stoics, oiêsis (false conceptions) are responsible not just for disturbances in the soul but for chaotic and dysfunctional lives and operations. When your efforts are not directed at a cause or a purpose, how will you know what to do day in and day out? How will you know what to say no to and what to say yes to? How will you know when you’ve had enough, when you’ve reached your goal, when you’ve gotten off track, if you’ve never defined what those things are? The answer is that you cannot. And so you are driven into failure—or worse, into madness by the oblivion of directionlessness." - all words from the credited authors**
I hope you are considering journaling along w
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💜 The Leftover Pieces is support central for grieving hearts.
🔗 Stay connected: Join my free email community for weekly check-ins, resources, and encouragement.
🌟 For moms: Explore the $9 Lighthouse Community — safe connection, tools, and hope.
🛠 Resources for all grievers: Start here.
🤝 One-on-one grief coaching for moms after child loss to suicide: Learn more here.
📞 Need help now? If you or someone you love is struggling with suicidal thoughts, dial 988 in the U.S. & Canada, or text HOME to 741741.