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The Leftover Pieces; Suicide Loss Conversations
This podcast focuses on surviving life after a suicide loss, an experience that can be devastating and leave you feeling lost as you try to pick up the pieces of your shattered heart. The host, Melissa Bottorff-Arey, lost her 21-year-old son, Alex, to suicide on August 7, 2016, and brings (& often shares) her insights from her personal journey.
In each episode, Melissa engages in honest and challenging conversations with other survivors of loss, healers, and mental health experts. She also produces shorter solo episodes where she reflects on her own thoughts and experiences thus far. The podcast covers a wide range of relevant topics and addresses difficult questions. Melissa explores all aspects of grief, including trauma, hope, healing, self-care, legacy, and stigma. She believes that we learn to live alongside our grief rather than get ing over it. Actual change comes through authentic, meaningful connections and mindful choices.
For supporters or educators, these conversations provide valuable insights and shine a light on suicide and grief genuinely and unapologetically. Listeners who are grieving a suicide loss can find comfort in the community and hope for a better tomorrow. Melissa aims to help others, like herself, transition from merely surviving to discovering a life filled with meaning and, potentially, even happiness amid the leftover pieces around you.
[Please NOTE: This podcast is for only relational, informational, and entertainment purposes. It candidly and openly discusses sensitive and sometimes activating topics. There will be no in-depth or graphic descriptions of the method, but merely the possible mention of suicide, murder, rape, and the like. Be guided and care for yourself accordingly. Also, Melissa is not a doctor or licensed therapist, and nothing on this podcast should be taken in place of, or as, medical/mental health advice or recommendations.]
The Leftover Pieces; Suicide Loss Conversations
January 5 Daily Nugget: Clarify Your Intentions
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 with us in January
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Go to my WEBSITE "The Leftover Pieces; Rebuilding You" is support central.
PS....The FIRST SESSION of the Legacy Writing Project in 2024 has finished & the last one is under way...GET ON THE LIST NOW for the SINGLE DATE start for 2025
For a way to leave a Legacy of your child - GO HERE
If you, or someone you know, is struggling ww suicidal thoughts, reach out:
CALL 988 OR, you can also TEXT the word "HOME" to 741741 in the USA