11 Mar Working With Linking Objects For Grief
In many of our workshops (Online Support Circles, One Day Community Journey and Weekend Community Journey) we invite participants to bring linking objects. One or more object to represent something that is supportive, and one or more that helps people to connect with their grief. A linking object may help someone to connect to someone who has died, as part of a Continuing Bonds process (Klass, Silverman and Nickman). It may represent both support and grief of any kind.
In Grief Tending, we begin by encouraging people to focus on the things that support them. An object might be one kind of support alongside many other supportive practices and ideas. People bring all kinds of momentos to use. The object itself may be satisfying to touch, sitting snug in the palm of a hand, or perhaps on a chain around the neck, so that it can always be reached for. A familiar object can be a touchstone to reassure.
In addition to its physical presence, an object for support may have an association, a reminder of something significant, or be a keepsake of personal value. It may have been a gift, something from a significant location, a symbol of faith, luck, beauty or simply something that reminds us of someone.
Often something chosen to offer its supportive presence might also be linked with loss – a linking object. It might be a piece of jewellery gifted or inherited for example or the photograph of someone held dear who has become an ancestor.
One of the practices we may use in a workshop is Betty Martin’s ‘Waking the Hands’ from the ‘Wheel of Consent’. Our hands are sensory receptors, and exploring the touch of an object can be an excellent way to increase awareness, sensation and help us to activate our rest and digest system. This externally focussed touch can be a helpful way to bring attention into physical sensations and present moment awareness. ‘Waking the Hands’ can be explored as a regular practice to increase receptive sensitivity and as a cornerstone of embodied consent.
Many of the people I meet reveal touchstones that they keep in a pocket or close at hand for comfort and calming. In childhood, an object – mine was ‘the fluffy blanket’ – can become a stand-in when a care-giver is not available, in order for a child to manage anxiety. Throughout life during challenging times, a ‘transitional object’ might also become significant to help us to manage feelings.
Any of our senses may be involved as this particular object brings comforting sensations and allows us to keep in touch with someone who has died, for example. As a linking object, the smell of a longed for person may linger in their hair-brush, scarf or hand-bag. In Euphoria, the central character Rue Bennett continues to wear her father’s baggy burgundy hoodie as she grieves.
Linking objects chosen to help people to evoke grief may have a different emotional affect. They may represent more challenging experiences of connection with or disconnection from what has been loved and lost, an absence or active hurt. As with supportive keepsakes, the grief associated may be invisible to the casual observer. These objects may reveal intimate moments of distress, or bring forth the telling of a story.
At Grief Tending events, we invite people to use these objects to connect with feelings (if they choose to), during a ritual for the expression of emotions. Someone may titrate between grief and support objects to manage moving between resourcing and the expression of grief.
At home, having a special place to honour someone can be a helpful practice. It may be a small shrine or altar, or simply be somewhere that a linking object might be placed in remembrance. And it may be that a box of keepsakes to return to occasionally feels more manageable.
After someone has died it may take months or years to sort through their legacy of objects and clothes. I am still trying to figure out what to do with some of the things that have been left behind by ancestors. It takes the time it takes to process what remains, but choosing one or two objects can be a helpful way to maintain significant connections. I find my mother’s dental bridges particularly poignant, and my step-grandmother’s shoes seem to embody her movements as well as her style.
For some there may be an absence of objects, removed access or estrangement from them. In this instance it may feel helpful to choose something and imbue it with linking significance or memories that intuitively feel appropriate. This might be a creative opportunity to make something that signifies remembering someone. Other things, such as a plant, a time of year, a scent or piece of music may also link us with chosen memories.
However you choose to use them, whatever they are, objects can help us to connect in ways that support our grieving process. They may be used as part of home grief rituals or support us at a workshop, and they may help us to link to a sense of continuity with what has passed.
Sarah Pletts is a Grief Tender and Artist who offers workshops in London and online, sharing rituals where grief on all themes is welcome. For more information about Grief Tending events see here.
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