Kasey's Key
"There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy." Albert Camus
This website and the blog postings are for you. Along with bereavement groups, grief counseling, and other valuable activities and therapies, it is meant to strengthen the 'core' you. We hope to help you develop tools to construct a new future for yourself. When you are ready.
As survivors of suicide loss we face many unprecedented and extremely difficult days, months and years ahead. I hear so many survivors echo the same refrain, "I don't know who I am anymore." Or they say, "When my loved one took their life, I died as well".
Eminent psychologist, Rollo May, said, "Despair is the inability to construct a future". That may be what our loved ones thought right before they left us. This is what we may be feeling now in the wake of our almost unbearable loss.
This is where I believe that creativity can become a personal tool - a sword or a shield - often times both. I will write more in the future about the Science of Creativity. After many losses in my personal and professional life, including the suicide of my brother in 2011. I got a Masters of Science degree in Creativity and Innovation. I started a new for-profit company devoted to increasing creativity for all people via an app called - Accelerate. I used my pain to carve meaning out of what was chaos and despair.
Let's get right to some techniques we can use right now for some relief from grief. Anger is part of the grieving process. Sometimes we take out our grief on those around us. The very people who care most about us. No two people grieve the same way, in the same time or with the same intensity.
Creative technique #1
Take some old business cards or plain postits. Write on each one, "I give you one pass". Make many of these until you have a stack of them. If someone in your close circle says or does something inappropriate or hurtful. Take a deep breath. Realize they are not walking in your shoes. And give them a pass. This will allow you to forgive their behavior - they may be having a grief wave. When I shared this idea with my nephew (who also lost a daughter to suicide) he asked, "have you filled some passes out for yourself?" What a concept! Forgiving myself for not doing grieving well. Yes I can do that. Now I give myself a pass.
What is the value of this? The action of giving out a pass employs our ability to be mindful.