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

I recently sent an essay to TAPS Magazine, which is going to be published in its upcoming edition; and I decided to recognize National Survivors of Suicide Day by sharing an excerpt from the essay here on the Grief after Suicide Blog. In the excerpt (you may download it here), I begin with this statement:

I believe the love we feel for a person who has died and the pain of grief we feel are directly and profoundly connected: When people die, our immense love for them is, in a way, the source of our pain.

Then I say that realizing the "pain following the loss of a loved one is a natural phenomenon ... can empower you to give yourself permission to express your pain." I call expressing your pain "a healthy response to the death of a beloved person," implying that such expressions are connected to the loving relationship between you and the now-deceased person. In fact, I declare, "the pain of grief can provide the 'fuel' for profoundly heartfelt discoveries ... [about] the meaning in your loss." I close the excerpt with a list of questions that I hope might help people cope with their pain, followed by this conclusion:

The pain of grief can be terrible, and there is often no sure way to stop pain from unfolding in real time. But finding safe ways to process your pain can help you see beyond it even as it has you in its grip. And reflecting on the connection between your pain and your love for the person who died can help you uncover meaning in your life that comes directly from the relationship you had -- and still have -- with your loved one.

By Franklin Cook

A historic document, Responding to Grief, Trauma, and Distress After a Suicide: U.S. National Guidelines, was announced earlier this month at the Association for Death Education and Counseling conference in San Antonio and at the American Association of Suicidology conference in Atlanta. The Grief After Suicide blog -- in an upcoming series of posts -- will cover a number of ways that this groundbreaking document is paving the way for reinventing postvention in America. For instance, the guidelines:

• Summarize research evidence showing that exposure to suicide unquestionably increases the chances that those exposed -- perhaps especially the bereaved -- are at higher risk for suicide as well as for numerous, sometimes debilitating mental health conditions
• Highlight the effects of a fatality on people beyond family members of the deceased, including friends, first responders, clinicians, colleagues, and others (even entire communities) who may require support in the wake of a suicide
• Describe a new framework for classifying people who experience a suicide (Exposed, Affected, Short-Term Bereaved, and Long-Term Bereaved) that will help focus research and guide the development of programs and services to meet the unique needs of specific populations (see the graphic at bit.ly/continuummodel)
• Advocate for a systems approach, through organizing interventions into three separate, overlapping categories:
    • Immediate Response: Based on mental-health crisis and disaster response principles
    • Support: From the familial, peer, faith-based, and community resources that help the bereaved cope with a death
    • Treatment: By licensed clinicians for conditions such as PTSD, Depression, and Complicated Grief
• Argue that suicide bereavement is unique because death by suicide is unique (i.e., it involves questions about the deceased's volition, the effects of trauma, the degree that suicide is preventable, and the role of stigma in people's treatment of the deceased and the bereaved)
• Present an outline of the research needed to expand and enrich what is known about suicide bereavement and other effects of suicide (which will lead to the development of evidence-based practices in suicide postvention)
• Assert that suicide grief support efforts ought to be informed by research and clinical advances over the past 20 years in the fields of bereavement support, traumatology, and crisis and disaster preparedness
• Include an appendix outlining numerous, practical resources for the suicide bereaved and those who care for them (please link to the expanded, online version of the resource clearinghouse)

---

An excerpt of the guidelines (Table of Contents, Executive Summary, Acknowledgements, Preface) is available at bit.ly/excerptsosl, and the complete document is available at bit.ly/respondingsuicide. The guidelines were created by the Survivors of Suicide Loss Task Force of the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention.

I'm not going to be a spoiler for Jennifer White's inspiring closing line in her post about founding the Hope After Project in memory of her mother, who died by suicide in 2011: Please go to her post yourself and read it from top to bottom. Her story is as heartwarming as they come:

I had connected to what was good in [my Mom] and it produced something good in me. I had looked at the chipped paint and dirty walls and dedicated myself to making that school a better place for kids to learn. In that moment I forgot my pain for a minute. I thought about my friend who was with me and realized I had seen a lightness in her, too. By volunteering together we had found hope after our loss. In that moment [the] Hope After Project was born.

When it comes to ideas about grief and healing, the Hope After Project is brilliant. If you've got two minutes, let this creative, innovative young woman tell you about it herself:

I know Barb Hildebrand both for her thoughtful posts on the American Association of Suicidology listserv (a members-only community) and for the abundant and helpful content on her "Suicide Shatters" Facebook page (which I invite everyone who might be interested to follow).

Describing her mission on Facebook, she writes:

I am a passionate advocate for suicide prevention and mental illness since losing my late husband, Rob, to suicide Dec. 2000. I've had a lot of time to learn, accept, forgive, heal and move forward and feel so strongly that this is my purpose, to take my own experience, share with others and help them on their journey of recovery.

I got to know Barb even better when I recently encountered her story in a post she wrote for the Grief Toolbox about her experience as a survivor, in which she gives us a dozen valuable insights about coping with grief and shares in a most helpful way how her healing unfolded over time.

She believes a key force in her recovery has been forgiveness, which she says has freed her from painful emotions that were "consuming me and destroying me":

Forgiveness is ... not necessarily done for someone else, it is done for you, so that you can begin to heal whatever is holding you back. I have ... learned that forgiveness for yourself is best done first ... I have since forgiven myself many times for things I have done that most definitely contributed to how my life turned out. Each time I do, more and more is released ... and I [recognize] my anger [has] slowly dwindled away.

During the 15 years I've been involved in suicide grief support and prevention, I've known many fellow survivors of suicide loss "from a distance" and then either met them face-to-face or, as was the case with Barb, "met them" more intimately online. These connections stand out to me as a precious reward for doing this work -- and more importantly, as a vital reminder that we are not alone.

I could begin everything I write about grief after suicide with this: "Everybody's journey is different. Each of us is trying to find our own way to carry our grief." (To carry our grief: I'm holding on to that idea.)

A post from Anne Thorn of Cornwall, England -- "Will I Ever Get Over the Guilt?" -- reminded me of the singular path that each of us follows, and I am thankful to her for describing a part of her journey. In brief, three things helped her reconcile her feelings of guilt after her son, Toby, died by suicide: (1) something the author of this little booklet wrote on the topic (see pp. 16-20), (2) this handout from LaRita Archibald, and (3) this advice from her physician:

When I went to my GP and I told him that I would have found it easier to cope with losing Toby if he had died of an illness ... he said to me "Your son did die of an illness, it was called depression."

Now, I might have thought (and you might think, as well), "if those three things helped her deal with her feelings of guilt, maybe they'll help me," which is an altogether reasonable -- and very hopeful -- assumption. In fact, for me, the awareness that my father died from the disease of depression was extraordinarily helpful in coping with my feelings of guilt.

However, when I go to the contents of the booklet and the handout, I find some ideas that do not line up -- for me -- with what is helpful regarding guilt. The booklet gives a prescription (tells me what to do, exactly) that I dont agree with, and the handout makes a bold statement about personal responsibility that I half agree with but half don't.

Even so, those items were obviously helpful to Anne (for she is recommending them to others). Would I recommend them to others? Absolutely, yes I would.

Why? Because if one survivor found them helpful, another might also find them helpful. The booklet was was written for the American Association of Suicidology by Jeffrey Jackson, who is a survivor of suicide loss, and the handout's author, LaRita Archibald, is a survivor and a leading expert in the field. Most of all, I would recommend them because, to come full circle, "Everybody's journey is different."

Nobody's way of grieving is right or wrong. Survivors who share what has been helpful to them, like Anne and Jeffrey and LaRita, are offering an invitation, as 12-Step groups say, to "take what you want and leave the rest." We are strengthened by our diversity -- by our sharing and our conversations about our differences -- as well as by our awareness of all that we have in common.

Until mid-December, I'll be writing "FJC On the Road" posts to keep readers up-to-date on my travels and on my reflections about suicide bereavement. FJC

There has been a two-week hiatus in posts on Grief after Suicide because I am on the road, having driven from my home in Watertown, Mass., to Colorado Springs, Colo., for last weekend's TAPS National Military Suicide Survivor Seminar. This is the second year I have attended the TAPS (Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors) event as a trainer of peer helpers on suicide bereavement support group facilitation. I've used the opportunity to refine a facilitation model of my own creation,* called "Peer Sharing Circles."

Peer Sharing Circles are governed by fewer, simpler, and more generally stated "ground rules" (called "Protocols") than those in other mutual-help group approaches. Here are the Protocols:
• I agree to listen attentively and respectfully to the person who is speaking (only one person speaks at a time).
• I agree to talk only about my own experiences and to refer only to my own thoughts, feelings, and beliefs.
• I agree to speak to the whole group (not to just one individual).
• I agree not to judge others, correct others, or give advice to others.
• I agree to keep confidential what is said within the Circle.
• I agree to give the facilitator my attention when he or she asks me to.

The recently published "Pathways to Purpose & Hope" is a comprehensive manual providing expert guidance, pointing to key resources, and sharing practical examples on how to create a community-based organization to support survivors of suicide loss. And the entire manual -- all 100-plus pages of some of the most practical information available on suicide grief support -- is absolutely free to download.

The manual was created by Friends for Survival, one of the oldest survivor-run organizations in the country focused exclusively on suicide grief support (and which publishes the "Comforting Friends" newsletter). Although the manual was designed for a California audience, 95% of it is applicable to any community anywhere in the country, and anyone interested in developing a broad range of survivor services would be wise to add it to their list of prime references.

It begins with this claim:

Survivors need more than a meeting with a couple of sympathetic souls and a box of tissues These guidelines are based on a program designed by 50 survivors over a period of 30 years to provide multiple services to meet the complex needs of survivors in the aftermath of suicide. This guide offers a detailed discussion of the process for creating and sustaining a suicide bereavement support program that is effective, community based and supported by professional resources in the local area.

Between 20 and 30 percent of the bereaved who receive support from the private organization best known for serving those who have lost a military loved one are, in fact, suicide survivors, according to Bonnie Carroll, founder of the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS). In a Huffington Post article, Bonnie writes,

Every day, three to four people contact ... TAPS for the very first time seeking help and support in coping with the death by suicide of a loved one who served in our Armed Forces. They join the more than 4,000 people grieving a death by suicide who are already part of our community of care and support at TAPS.

In fact, TAPS annually conducts the most extensive healing conference in the world exclusively for survivors of suicide loss (this year's conference is Nov. 1-3 in Colorado Springs, Colo.).

Bonnie's husband died in a military aviation accident in 1992, and for two decades, she has been a tireless advocate for the bereaved families of those who serve or have served in the military. TAPS offers a variety of support and professional resources to the bereaved, and it is a pioneer in comprehensive peer support services, including a mentor program that matches a newly bereaved person with a trained peer helper.

We have found that people find healing and comfort in peer support and connecting with others who experience a similar loss.

June 20 is PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) Screening Day. But regardless of what day it is, if you are concerned about the possible effects of trauma in your life, please learn about the symptoms of PTSD and take this free, confidential screening.

Here are two websites that cover every aspect of PTSD, including what it is, what to do about it, who to contact, and how you can be helpful to others:

• U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs PTSD Awareness Month website, which focuses on PTSD in the military and among veterans, and in addition has many helpful resources for the general public
• National Child Traumatic Stress Network, which focuses on caring for children who have experienced trauma

PTSD is an important topic when it comes to dealing with bereavement after a death by suicide, but certainly not everyone who has lost a loved one to suicide suffers from PTSD. PTSD is a concern because suicide is an inherently traumatic way to die, and many survivors are exposed to the trauma. It is inherently traumatic because people who kill themselves, in order to do so, must exert an unnatural psychological force directed at destroying themselves in a way and to a degree that it overcomes the biological drive for self-preservation. In other words, regardless of the method a person uses to kill himself or herself,* it is an act of violence at the psychological level.