Today is the last day of September which is Suicide Prevention Month. Tomorrow kicks off October, and the beginning of the the loneliest time of the year for some.
If someone tells you they wish they were dead, take them seriously. Listen to them. You don’t need to have an answer, just listen. You don’t need the perfect words, all you need to do is show the other person you care. See links to articles at the end of this post.
In order to survive, we must feel:
Without these basic needs, life becomes unsustainable. When you listen to someone, you show them love, acceptance, and inclusion. Let go of your assessment and any need to fix the situation. Just listen.
In a great TedX talk, journalist Johann Hari talks about how connection may be the number one remedy for depression.
This is not ground-breaking news. We have heard it a million times. We know it. But…it seems so much easier to stay in our own world. No one knows what it’s really like to be us, right? Wrong. Everyone knows what it’s like to be you because we are basically all the same, but we need to be reminded over and over.
We ALL want to BELONG AND BE LOVED & UNDERSTOOD. Everyone. When you are talking to someone who is making you angry, take a breath and remind yourself of this fact.
“It’s not you, it’s me.” I love this line because it’s the truth about every single thing, in every single one of our lives.
Pay attention to the people who make you angry. They are teaching you something about yourself. EVERY. ONE. EVERY. TIME. I still doubt this every time I get upset…
Me to Me: “This is about you, not them.”
Me to Me: “I don’t do that! I’m not like that!”
Then I think and consider…meditate and argue with myself…
Me to Me: “Yep, that’s about me.”
EVERY. TIME.
“Take that window and turn it into a mirror because judgment is always about ourselves.” -Melissa Urban, Do The Thing Podcast
“Pain is perception. If you are perceiving something as being good, bad, right, wrong, you’re going to experience suffering. When you go to that neutral stance and see that everything has equal value…you find that things tend to flow.” –Wendy Kennedy
Connection happens without effort when we hold space for others to show up as they are.
“Only connect!”― E.M. Forster, Howards End
Links:
What it means to hold space for someone
A teen’s perspective on how to help a suicidal friend
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