Suicide Survivors Usually Hide Backgrounds
I very interesting observation I had during the last one and a half to two years of presenting my signature motivational speech based on my inspirational life book, ‘The Life Champion In You‘, is that no less than ten individuals from my audiences came up to me after my talks to reveal that they are also suicide survivors. These are people who have lost family members or relatives (or maybe close friends) to suicide.
In fact, this even happened just last night when I did my talk in Cambridge, Ontario for a group of engineers as one gentlemen revealed that he was a suicide survivor during the question and answer period in front of the whole group. This was the first time any of this group’s members even heard about this bit of background history of this gentleman.
Hope Through Inspirational Life
This gentleman from my talk last night as well as the other suicide survivors from other talks all had a similar pattern. They all kept these tragic parts from their past a secret and hid it away from others throughout the years. I can strongly relate to this as this is what I did for about twenty five years as well in my own case.
I had lost my own mother to suicide back in 1984 and it wasn’t until my motivational speech and book that my story finally came out into the public. The suicide survivors from my audiences said that I was the first person they have ever met who spoke about such a case in public.
According to these folks, hearing my story and what I did about it to turn a tragedy into hopefully an inspirational life in the eyes of others, gave these people hope in their lives. They now see that it’s possible to move on despite tragic incidents and even accomplish some awesome things in life.
For me, just seeing how grateful this small group of suicide survivors from my audiences are, is enough to make it worthwhile for me to do my motivational speeches which include the story of my background. If it helps others not only cope but florish in an inspirational life, then I’ll keep on doing what I do.
If you missed it, I do talk a bit about my background in my Motivational WebTV #9 video show.
photo credit: Bob B. Brown
