“Are these just physical things?  I think it’s a multitude. When we talk about stuff or the things that we’ve lost or that we’re mourning, it really is up to you.

It’s the same thing, just with how individualized our grief is, how individualized we are as humans and the individualized experiences that we have, that what we are defining as stuff and the things that we have lost and that we will mourn, that is up to you. And I think that there’s a lot of power in that, in saying that this is my thing, this is my stuff.

I think even as we go through life, we talk about the baggage that we’re carrying. ‘This is my stuff.'”

– Dr Julie Shaw, founder of Hello I’m Grieving

Talk Excerpt: Grief and Your Relationship With Stuff

“A question that I like to ask people is: What’s your relationship with stuff?

Because usually, in the context of grief, I find that it gets all jumbled together. Like in my example, there’s my relationship with my mom. There’s my relationship with her house. There’s my relationship with losing my mother and that experience.

And then there’s the relationship with her stuff, which took over my life for two years while I figured out her estate. And then there’s also the relationship with my stuff. And then tangential to that, there’s my husband’s relationship to stuff, which looks very different from my relationship with stuff.

So I think that might be interesting for you, and when I say you, I mean generally everyone, for us to consider, what is my relationship with stuff? Has my relationship with stuff changed after significant loss?

So, for example, the soy sauce in my mother’s kitchen. When my mother was alive, I have never gotten teary over the soy sauce and her cooking oils before. After she died, that soy sauce represented so much, and it felt so precious.

I know that my grief response changed in terms of my relationship with stuff. I always enjoyed things, I enjoyed belongings, but suddenly stuff represented my connection to my mother. Stuff represented connection to my grandmother in a much deeper way. Stuff represented security in a much deeper way. I had lost my mother who was my security, so now her house or her stuff represented security.”

– grief coach Charlene Lam, creator of Curating Grief