Sometimes when intensely grieving it can feel as if your heart falters and struggles to beat, together we will navigate the labyrinth of grief, creating a safe haven of connection, comfort and hope, with others experiencing profound loss. The workshop draws on the 'Walking in the Shoes Model' to support participants through storytelling and creativity, as they strengthen and heal relationship with their loved one, in ways that nurture and promote growth. Together we will draw on a well of possibilities to soothe wounded hearts and restore the heartbeat of hope.
Facilitator: Diana Sands PhD, Clinical Member PACFA
Location: Lower North Shore, Sydney
Images with permission: Gathering Wings of Hope wingsofhope.org.au
Restoring the Heartbeat of Hope Workshop
Creating a Resilience Cloak Workshop
A beautiful workshop encouraging you to find your inner strength to support you in coping with all that has happened, and gently restoring, and reaffirming your trust. Those grieving the loss of a loved one to suicide often report a sense of fragility, and dislocation in a world that seems fragmented. It can feel as if our resources are lost, or overwhelmed within the shadow of our grief, however this is the time when you most need your resources to support you and your family. The process of creating a resilience cloak is a way of gathering into yourself the nurturance of the many, varied and rich resources laid within you over
a lifetime. In this workshop you will be guided to reach deeply into your self-resilience, strengths, and the care and support of loved ones.
Facilitator: Diana Sands PhD, Clinical Member PACFA
Location: Lower North Shore, Sydney
Images with permission: Workshop, The Compassionate Friends NSW www.thecompassionatefriendsnsw.org.au
Imagination and Inspiration: Vision Journey Workshop
An invitation to take time out for yourself, a unique experience and moment to be amongst the healing green landscape of nature in the Southern Highlands. A secure, safe, and quiet space to come together, reflect, play a little, and lean into listening deeply. Finding our spirit within the stones of grief, listening to intuition and celebrating breathing, steps taken, one step leading to another, words spoken, moments over time, touchstones, prompts, merging, flowing, authenticity and innovation to replenish. Invoking imagination, and inspiration, we will seek the treasure and beauty within you, moments of your life, transforming your dreams, aspirations and stories of loss, heartbreak, and moral heroism, into a living legacy - a gift for yourself, for family, community and the future – an offering to the circle of life.
Respectful group sociometry gently finding connecting themes
Creative, safe, nurturing space for reflection and restoration
Experiential, creative arts processes
Storytelling, metaphor, nature, and symbolism
Guided visualization, relaxation and ritual
Facilitator: Diana Sands PhD, Clinical Member PACFA
Location: Southern Highlands, NSW
Images with permission: Research Paper presented European Symposium Suicide and Suicidal behaviour 2024 www.esssb20.org
This workshop invokes the spirit of the Phoenix emerging from the ashes to embrace the fullness of life, shining a light on the way forward. An invitation to take time for yourself, and together with others, reflect upon your heart journey, the many defining moments, and turning points that have shaped your life, and who you are. We will re-weave and deepen our self-narratives with understanding, courage, and compassion, to reveal new and creative possibilities and pathways. All of us have our stories - they are living and dynamic and meant to be heard – our stories are the currency of growth. In the richness of community with others our stories will shift and change as we learn and grow, healing in ways that allow integration, hope and purpose to enrich you, your family and community.
Group sociometry gently strengthening respectful interaction and connection
Creative, safe, nurturing space for reflection on the map of your life
Restorative expressive arts, writing and enactment
Storytelling, metaphor, nature, and symbolism
Meditative labyrinth process
Facilitator: Diana Sands PhD, Clinical Member PACFA
Location: Southern Highlands, NSW
Images with permission: Research Paper presented International Association for Suicide Prevention World Congress Conference 2021 www.iasp.info
Heart Map Storytelling Workshop
Creating a Sensory Portal Workshop
Sensory knowledge is our first and primary way of knowing the world and linking objects, which are those significant things that belonged to, or bring them to mind your loved one, can assist in evoking a range of sensory memories. Linking objects awaken entry to a world of sensory recollection, evoking nuances of the person who used, and touched the object, whether a pair of sunglasses, a hat, a wallet, handwriting, or a lingering scent on an article of clothing. These objects speak the language of the heart, and are imbued with a significance greater than the nature of the object itself, transporting us to times and places that mark the way you were together. In this workshop you will create a sensory portal collage, weaving the complex story of your loved one, in temporal patterns, and other ways of knowing, that integrate, and create the space, for new understandings to emerge -
to support you.
New Techniques of grief therapy: Bereavement and beyond. Sands, D. C. (2022) Creating a sensory portal. In R. A. Neimeyer (Ed.). New Techniques of grief therapy: Bereavement and beyond. New York: Routledge.
Facilitator: Diana Sands PhD, Clinical Member PACFA
Location: Lower North Shore, Sydney
Images with permission: Conference workshop Postvention Australia postventionaustralia.org
Song lines are illuminated pathways between worlds, songs that map the physical and spiritual worlds in Australian Indigenous belief systems. In the aftermath of a tragic death the known world of the family can become a lonely, confusing, unfamiliar landscape. While the family struggles to cope with intense grief it is often the mother who carries much of the responsibility for the ongoing demands of attending to daily needs of children and family life. Reweaving the Song lines is for mothers who are the weavers of their family heart path. Wearied with your grief it can feel overwhelming finding a new path of hope for your family. This workshop will support and nurture mothers.
Affirming your resources and heartfelt intuitive wisdom.
Restoring your hope, trust and sense of safety
With your loved one as a nurturing and caring presence
In a supportive group with other mothers, you will be encouraged through creative processes to find your own meaningful pathway of healing, reweaving your family Song lines, and finding the inner strength and courage to carry on for you and your family.
Facilitator: Diana Sands PhD, Clinical Member PACFA
Location: Lower North Shore, Sydney
Images with permission: Research Paper presented Grief Australia Conference https://grief.org.au/
Reweaving Song Lines of Hope Workshop
Dagda, is a father figure in Irish mythology, frequently portrayed wearing a cloak and playing the harp. Dagda’s magical harp controls the natural seasons, life and death, and releases into the world music, all sounds, words and emotions. This workshop is an opportunity for young men, who have lost a parent to suicide to meet and spend time together in conversation about the ways in which they have changed and are different in the wake of loss, and the importance of these changes in reviewing options, choices and life goals as they construct their future.
Facilitator: Diana Sands PhD, Clinical Member PACFA
Location: Lower North Shore, Sydney
Images with permission
Dagda: A Workshop for Young Men
Heaven, Earth and Being Workshop
This workshop provides a nurturing, supportive environment to explore, reconstruct and make sense of all that has happened. Gentle conversations and reflections on the process of re-defining yourself; your way of being, and place in the world going forward.
A breathing space to reflect on who you are now
Restore your heart centre
Create solid ground, safety and trust
Emerging different pathways
This supportive, intimate workshop provides an opportunity to reflect with others who have experienced the loss of a loved one through suicide.
Facilitator: Diana Sands PhD, Clinical Member PACFA
Location: Lower North Shore, Sydney
Images with permission: Workshop University of Hong Kong Centre Behavioural Health, Social Work; Social Administration; Suicide Research and Prevention’ https://www.cbh.hku.hk/
