Over 800 community members attended the Suicide Summit held at Miller Middle School this past Thursday. I was amazed when I walked in the building to see so many people. I have worked in the non-profit/ health field since I moved here in 2009, and during this time period I have never been to a public health event with so many people in support of one cause. This tells me that our community really really cares about taking action on suicide, and that each person matters.
As a suicide survivor, I had chills running down my spine just from the amount of people that showed up. When I lost my Dad it was the most isolating experience of my life. I hid behind school work, staying busy just to get by. No one knew how to speak to me about suicide. It left me feeling different, alone and judged. While my hopes were for this to be nine years ago; I am grateful that our conversations and actions are showing movement.
What I can say is that our community cares, and even just that act of showing up, speaking about it and offering support is a giant leap forward. So how do we take momentum and move it forward?
I want to count down the number of lives lost from 10 to zero suicides - I want each and every person to sit by my side.
This past year I went to a Collective Impact Summit held by Civic Canopy and I was able to learn how Karen Pittman created the Forum for Youth and moved the dial greatly on a tough issue. It started with one action in the community, and with enough actions eventually they started to see results. Many leaders in our community call this living vision. Not just, I "have" a vision, but "living" vision. A few key agencies are carefully crafting next steps, and most importantly for anything to happen. For vision to live on this level of change - we all get to be a part of it. It appears connection is at the core of the summit; how to connect people, resources and build on support systems.
What comes up for me is the quote, "creativity is the power to connect the seemingly unconnected."
Steve jobs said, "Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while."
So if, as Friedrich Nietzsche says "Invisible threads are the strongest ties." Then how as a community can we BE creative and find these invisible threads?
What if you are an invisible thread? How can you create a strong tie if you haven't let yourself be seen?
This is the question I am asking the community - are YOU using your gifts to make a difference around suicide or are you hiding it? What service is it to hide? The excuse of "I have no gift or I have nothing to offer" is a story, an ego story. Ask yourself if that is really true. I will leave you with another quote…
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." - Marianne Williamson
