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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 27 Daily Nugget; The Three Areas of Training
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 27 - THE THREE AREAS OF TRAINING
Get your own copy of The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday & Stephen Hanselman**
“There are three areas in which the person who would be wise and good must be trained. The first has to do with desires and aversions—that a person may never miss the mark in desires nor fall into what repels them. The second has to do with impulses to act and not to act—and more broadly, with duty—that a person may act deliberately for good reasons and not carelessly. The third has to do with freedom from deception and composure and the whole area of judgment, the assent our mind gives to its perceptions. Of these areas, the chief and most urgent is the first which has to do with the passions, for strong emotions arise only when we fail in our desires and aversions.” —EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 3.2.1–3a
Today, let’s focus on the three areas of training that Epictetus laid out for us. First, we must consider what we should desire and what we should be averse to. Why? So that we want what is good and avoid what is bad. It’s not enough to just listen to your body—because our attractions often lead us astray. Next, we must examine our impulses to act—that is, our motivations. Are we doing things for the right reasons? Or do we act because we haven’t stopped to think? Or do we believe that we have to do something? Finally, there is our judgment. Our ability to see things clearly and properly comes when we use our great gift from nature: reason. These are three distinct areas of training, but in practice they are inextricably intertwined. Our judgment affects what we desire, our desires affect how we act, just as our judgment determines how we act. But we can’t just expect this to happen. We must put real thought and energy into each area of our lives. If we do, we’ll find real clarity and success." - all above quoted words from the credited to the 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.
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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