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Upright With Knickers On
On the evening of 15 March 2021 The Compassionate Friends hosted a unique online event showcasing the very best of peer support from The Compassionate Friends. Three bereaved mums - Kelly, Anne and Jill; three dads - Terry, Andrew and Graham; and a bereaved sibling - Rachael, spoke movingly and with huge courage and honesty about what has helped them survive and find meaning and hope again after the death of their child or sibling.
The event was based around Gina Claye's book, Upright with Knickers On: Surviving the Death of a Child. Gina is a bereaved mum of two children and a Compassionate Friends trustee and volunteer. In the book she shares with us through prose and verse how she has survived her losses. The book also provides an opportunity for other bereaved parents and siblings to share the variety of ways in which they have approached their grief and learned to survive the loss of their beloved child or sibling and particularly, how they have found meaning, purpose and hope again. At this online event, our seven contributors to Gina's book shared with us something of what they wrote at that time and then reflected on how they feel now about what they wrote then and whether their grief has stayed the same or has changed. Each shared what has helped them to get through, to survive and to go on in a positive, meaningful way.
Upright With Knickers On - Surviving the Death of a Child and Don't Let Them Tell You How To Grieve both by Gina Claye are available to buy and can also be borrowed from the TCF library. Contact library@tcf.org.uk.
"This evening...was so inspiring. It really was TCF at its best - bereaved parents and siblings sharing honestly the way their grief had affected them and how, with TCF help they have found ways of living with their loss. All the speakers were brilliant, and all had a different experience but a similar pattern of grief - and all had survived and were able to offer their words of comfort and hope. (Our) immediate reaction was that "professionals" could learn a great deal from that hour and a half. The empathy, love, and concern that was so evident will have surely lifted all who watched and will have given so much hope to those who continue to feel in despair. Adrian & Carol
My Champion, Me - Let's Talk Self-compassion with Sangeeta Mahajan
Review by Lisa Mayland
On Tuesday 16th February TCF members assembled online to hear Sangeeta Mahajan's second talk entitled My Champion, Me. Let's Talk Self-Compassion. Hosted by The Compassionate Friends, Sangeeta spoke about her personal grief journey and her amazing serenity and calm wisdom were instantly evident. How can it be only six years since she lost her beloved 20 -year- old son Saagar to suicide?
Describing the horrific and cataclysmic shock of losing her son she spoke of how instantly everything that she was and had been came into question. Her role as mother, doctor, friend, wife was now utterly threatened. The guilt and self-recrimination were total, not just things she perceived herself to have not done before Saagar's suicide but indeed every decision she had made about him since he was born. It did not matter that others were trying to comfort and support her, she thought it was all her fault, and, as she said "You are always with yourself" 24 hours a day and the self-torture is unremitting. I think this resonated with many of the audience who commented that they are still struggling with this guilt many years on.
Gradually Sangeeta began to be aware of the difference between her attitude to herself, and that shown by others to her. She saw that the compassion shown by others constituted a sensitivity to others' feelings and a commitment to doing something to deviate another's suffering. She realised that her recovery depended on being able to do this to herself. She began asking herself "Am I a friend to me?".
She gave us a practical exercise to do, describing a time when she had left her house unlocked and she had arrived back to find thousands of pounds worth of belongings had been stolen. Firstly she asked us to write down what we would have said to Sangeeta, and everyone replied with positive and supportive comments. She then asked us to write down what we would have said to ourselves if it happened to us. It was astounding how critical, dismissive and unkind we were. What a powerful way of exposing our inner critical voice!
Sangeeta quoted the Buddha's saying that when we suffer misfortune two arrows fly our way. The first, the actual event, hits us without warning and we are unable to avoid it. The second arrow is more insidious, it is the self-torture and blame we mete out to ourselves because of the first arrow. We do not have to accept the second arrow because this time we have a choice. She says that there are three pillars of Self Compassion that can help us to deflect the second arrow, these being the very framework of our recovery and journey to peace. This resonated so clearly for me and it felt almost joyful to hear them described:
Legacies from Grief
A new book has just been published with contributions from many members of The Compassionate Friends.
Legacies of Grief, edited by Freddie Bagley, is a book offering hope to bereaved families. The reader will find here not only an insight into the devastation brought by the loss of a precious child, but many stories of hope and light. These are demonstrated in the form of inspiring and heartfelt legacies created in memory of a child that has died.
Available from Amazon and Waterstones. If you are purchasing through Amazon please use Amazonsmile and choose The Compassionate Friends as your charity. Thank you.
All proceeds to The Compassionate Friends and Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY)
YouTube Channel launched
The Compassionate Friends UK have a YouTube channel!
You can view, watch and listen again to our autumn series of talks, the beautiful candle lighting event last month, our short film, Say Their Name, and much more on the channel.
We will continue to add to the content there too, so do subscribe and you will be alerted when a new video is posted.
The Compassionate Friends YouTube video channel
UK Worldwide Candle Lighting 2020
The Compassionate Friends, UK Worldwide Candle Lighting on 13 December 2020 is available to view on YouTube on The Compassionate Friends UK channel. If you weren't able to be at this special event of remembrance and light last Sunday or would like to view this wonderfully connecting evening together again then please click on the image above.
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Each year thousands of parents suffer the loss of a son or a daughter. Please help us to support families in their time of greatest need.
