An article in a recent issue of the University of Portland campus newspaper,The Beacon, introduced me to a story about a death by suicide that was stigmatized and how the effects of stigma are unfolding in real time -- and hopefully about how stigma is being overcome.

The article, by UP student Logan Crabtree, caught my eye because he tells of founding, with fellow student Jesse Dunn, an Active Minds chapter at UP "following the suicide of our friend Mike" -- and I am always moved when, in the aftermath of suicide, survivors like Crabtee and Dunn take action to improve mental health resources and services in their community.

I was also touched by Crabtree's frankness about the struggles of the new chapter, including the impact that another student's suicide had on him, only nine months after the death of Michael Eberitzsch II:

We were devastated by the news of Conner Hall’s suicide ... For me his death felt like a personal failure. I spent weeks questioning and reviewing every event, article and Facebook post we had made [during the start-up of Active Minds]. What else could we have done? Why did this happen? What else can we do?

I sympathized with Crabtree regarding his feeling of personal failure, which I believe everyone involved in suicide prevention has grappled with, each of us in our own way -- and I was curious about what was happening at UP. An Internet search led me to the backstory, which is, at turns, both troubling and hopeful -- just as facing the harsh reality of suicide often is.

Self-compassion can be a potentially valuable skill for bereaved people to consider, and I believe I've found a simple exercise that I hope -- if it appeals to you -- will open the door to practicing self-compassion in a way that contributes to your healing.

The exercise -- the "Self-Compassion Break" -- can be found on Kristin Neff's website both as a written instruction and in an audio version. Clear, brief, step-by-step guidance is given on the website, which outlines three basic steps to pausing in the midst of a painful experience to invite self-compassion into the situation:

1. Be still for a moment and observe that you are suffering.
2. Recognize that your suffering is painful -- and also is part of being human.
3. Declare that being kind to yourself is your intention.

Why do I think this self-compassion exercise might be helpful to people who are grieving? Because there are times when the pain of loss touches us so deeply that it is not possible -- at least for a time -- to squelch our pain or to escape from it. And I hope that, if we are able to bear the pain and at the same time to be actively compassionate toward ourselves, we may begin to experience something meaningful beneath the pain -- or beyond it.

Please try the "Self-Compassion Break" -- perhaps beginning not with the most troublesome pain you feel but instead practicing with any kinds of difficult or stressful situations -- to see if it might hold value for you.

If self-compassion is an concept that resonates with you, here are some additional resources from Neff:

• "Self-Compassion Guided Meditations and Exercises"
• "The Three Components of Self-Compassion," a 6-minute video presentation (from which the illustration above is taken)
• "Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself," a 50-minute video interview with CJ Liu, about Neff's book on self-compassion
• "Why Self-Compassion Trumps Self-Esteem," an article from Greater Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life
• Self-Compassion on Facebook

So I noted with interest an op-ed in the Houston Chronicle by a leading suicide researcher, Thomas Ellis, who commented on Warren's first sermon after his son's death four months ago. Ellis writes,

[Warren] resisted the urge to explain the unexplainable and instead delivered a sermon with a passionate call to action. His emphatic message was that neither suicide nor mental illness should be cause for shame; and he committed to his global audience to use his public ministry to eradicate the stigma associated with mental illness.

In a Washington Post story, Henry Davis, leader of the evangelical First Baptist Church of Highland Park in Landover, Md., said,

When people suffer despite prayer and consider therapy, "people think: 'Is this a knock against my faith? Am I not believing in God enough? Now I have to resort to this?' ... "I believe God is in therapy. I believe God can be in medicine. If someone says, 'I'm just going to pray,' you have to do more."

Our pastors were a tremendous help to us in their calm response, in their willingness to discuss suicide openly and candidly, and in their help in creating a beautiful service ... in which the cause of death was openly recognized, in which we were assured of the gift of resurrection, and in which the young people in the congregation were directly addressed.

The women's stories shed light on how people cope with grief each in their own way, even in the face of being misunderstood by religious people or struggling to find a safe, supportive -- and secular -- place to grieve.

Carol Fiore's husband was treated for injuries in a Catholic hospital before he died and was given last rites and prayed over until she actually had to kick the priest out of the room. And people's "reassurances" after he died ("'God has a plan,' ... 'Eric is going to a better place'") were infuriating to her.

Everything I found had to do with God -- putting your faith in God, believing that God had some sort of plan. I found nothing to help me.