desire to stay connected, to stay tied and tethered to someone who died is not crazy. It is normal
and deeply human. Many many cre vers, maybe even you who are listening right now, are looking for
actions that they can take, things that you can actually do, to help you feel close to a loved one
or loved ones who are no longer here on earth. And one way to create this connection is by creating
something that I call a science and symbols library. And this is a tool that helps you remember and
honor your loved ones using lists of your five senses.
[Music]
Hi there grief growers. I am so excited to be back here with you on grief grower. If you have been
growing alongside me for a while, welcome back. And if you are new to me and my work, hello, once again.
My name is Shelby for Cynthia. I am a grief coach, two times soon to be three time author. Thank you
all so much. Those of you who have pre-ordered my book and emailed me and let me know. Thank you so
much. I'll be talking about it more in coming episodes. So don't worry about it today, but thank you
so much for taking advantage of that recently. And I am also the founder of Life After Laws Academy,
where I have helped dozens of grieving people stop feeling lost, stuck, broken, and alone in the
aftermath of loss and start building lives that they genuinely love from the lives that loss has forced
them to live. This includes not only death-related losses, but also losses like divorce and breakup,
major diagnosis, and any other transition that changes your life. Here on the show and across
all of my work, we believe that grief is not something to get over. It is something that we grow
with and alongside. And that when we stop treating grief like a problem to be solved and start
treating grief, like an invitation to live life more deeply, we start creating meaningful worlds
that are rich with the memories that we carry and all of the struggles that we faced and the precious
awareness of what it means to be right here right now. This week we're continuing our deep dive into
Life After Laws Academy. We did an episode on the ground module getting grounded. The thing you
need to do first in the midst of grief, we did an episode on the release module, the two lists that
you need in order to release the person that you used to be in the life that you can no longer have
in Life After Laws. If you want to go back, you can certainly listen to those. Their episode 17
and 18 of the Great Grower podcast. Here on episode 20, we are doing the integrate module. And this
answers the question, how do I weave my loved one into my life? How do I weave this loss into my life?
So it doesn't feel so much like my loss exists over there and my life exists over here. One of the
biggest questions I get from grieving people is how do I carry my person with me every single day
in a way that isn't painful or how do I fold my loss into my life or weave my loss into my life in a
way that feels more positive than negative or in a way that pushes back against the societal narrative
of you just need to forget about it move on get over it, which implies as we've talked about
in previous episodes that you leave your loss somewhere back there while you without that loss
move somehow into the future. So what I want to do today is share one tool that comes straight from
Life After Laws Academy. So this is included in the integrate module inside the course. And if you
like it, I hope you will join us there. And this is how to keep a loved one's memory alive with
something I call a science and symbols library. Because when someone that we love dies, their absence is
loud. Especially if the person who died is someone that we saw or touched or spoke to every day,
their goneness. Yeah, that's a word I'm making up their goneness is this sort of full body
experience, a sort of full body shock that we suffer that we experience every single time we go
to reach out for them or to connect with them or to hug them or send them a text message. And
they're not there. It is something that the people around us, even if they are very good supporters,
don't necessarily see or even know to acknowledge, but it is happening for grievers across the world
every single day all the same. You go to send them a DM on Instagram, you go to their room to say
good morning, you go to get the mail and their mail is no longer in the in the mailbox. And this
experience of their goneness repeats over and over and over again. I know for me in my own life the
first few weeks after my mom died, I was still home. I was on winter break from school. She died the day
after Christmas. And I kept waiting and my other family members said this too, but we kept waiting for
her to come back into the kitchen as if nothing had happened just laughing with her sisters who
were visiting and telling us stories about where she'd been. And this sounds crazy because, of course,
I had seen her body at the wake. I had seen her dead body and logically knew that she was dead.
But some part of me could not genuinely believe at that time I would never ever be able to hear
her voice or hug her or smell her signature cloud of morning hairspray ever again. I longed to be
connected to her and that ache was actually physically painful for me. It was like there was this
cord with a hook on it just pulling me forward from my chest and the destination was my mother, but it
never it never landed. I never made any sort of connection to her in the physical world again.
This experience reminded me very much of a story I heard a few years ago about world's
loneliest whale. This is a whale who's alive now on planet earth who sings her song. Is it 52
hearts? That's a way you measure sound. This is a higher frequency than any other whale on earth.
No other whale sings this high. And this whale she is doomed to swim the seas and sing her whale
songs all by herself because there is no whale in existence that has the power or the ability to
respond to her. So I very much felt after my mother's death that I was singing a song that only she could
hear and that she was no longer alive to respond back to it. I was calling but there was no
responding. I encountered this feeling again after my best friend Tammy died suddenly from COVID
in 2022. She was my neighbor down the street and we texted every single day and we would have
longer friendship chats and like catch ups when we went for runs together here in Chicago.
And while I did not get the opportunity to see her body after her death, going from seeing her
enter the ER, I rode with her in the ambulance to the ER and watched her get wheeled away. To
getting the phone call that she was dead was very distressing. And for months after Tammy died,
I would go to text her and realize I couldn't. I would walk by her apartment expecting to see her
cats or her protest signs in the window only to realize that a new tenant, one with no cats, one with
no window signs, had already moved in to her unit. Again, kind of like my mom's death, I felt
pulled physically to these places. I used to interact with her physically and digitally and I was
devastated when I would get there and she would not be there. Years of grieving and to being a grief
coach has taught me that the desire to stay connected, to stay tied and tethered to someone who
died is not crazy. It is normal and deeply human. Many many grievers, maybe even you who are
listening right now are looking for actions that they can take, things that you can actually do
to help you feel close to a loved one or loved ones who are no longer here on earth. And one way I
teach students inside life after a loss academy to create this connection and here is where we get
to the tool for the day is by creating something that I call a signs and symbols library. And this is
a tool that helps you remember and honor your loved ones using lists of your five senses. This is
an easy, I mean done in five minutes or less way for you to fold your loved one into your life
through sights, smells, sounds, tastes and touches that shine a spotlight on their presence and the
ways in which you are still connected instead of shining a spotlight on and highlighting the fact
that they're no longer here. And whether you believe that your person has the ability to send
you messages from the afterlife, this is something I personally believe or if you don't believe it
in afterlife and want to feel surrounded by their memory every day, this tool is something that can
be helpful to you. So let's start with what the heck is a signs and symbols library. It sounds very
fancy. It sounds like a very official established building. It is not. It's a list. A signs and symbols
library is a collection of sensory activators, sites, sounds, smells, tastes and textures that connect
you to or remind you of the memory, presence and essence of someone you lost. This is not about
making your grief disappear. It is about inviting your loved one back into your life in ways that are
intentional and comforting. And here's the key to you. I do not want to see anything on this list
that is a reminder or a comforting thing for somebody else in your life, whether a friend or a
family member. I want your signs and symbols library to only be made up of things that feel resonant
for you. You can think of it sort of as a personalized to you memory bank that are full of sense-based
reminders and symbolic anchors that help you feel tethered to your person who died. Here's how to
build it, how to build your own signs and symbols library wherever you are. So get out a piece of
paper if your old school like me, paper and pen is great. If you're new school or if you're like
on the go, you can do this in the notes app in your phone as well, kind of regardless of which
carrier you have for your phone. At the top of your note or your piece of paper, just title your list.
My loved ones signs and symbols library. You can put their name. You can say my mom signs and symbols
library. You can say my spouses signs and symbols library. You can say my dog signs and symbols library,
whatever the case may be. Use their name, use their relationship to you, whatever resonates. And then
write down or make a space for each of the five senses. Site, smell, sound, touch and taste. And leave
room under each one of those for three to ten items. I don't know how many you're going to think of.
The sky is the limit, but leave room for you to make lists underneath those. And then set a
timer for five minutes and under each one of those headings under each one of the senses list
as many things you can that remind you of your person or I did mention dogs of your pet who died.
Remember that the goal of this tool is to engage your five senses and notice what brings your
person to mind. You're not making anything up. You are simply tuning in to what you already remember
about them. And I want to give you some ideas to get you started. So, under site, you might put
photos, home videos, favorite clothing items of theirs, a place that they love. This could be a beach
or a local cafe or the skyline of a certain city. You could do their favorite color or visual symbol.
A lot of people mention butterflies, dragonflies, cardinals, stars, things like that.
Under smell, you might do something like their perfume or if they were cologne or aftershave or a
kind of soap that always reminds you of them or specific scented flower. That might be something
worth putting under smell. You might do a meal or a baked good that they used to make like you'd walk
in the house and smell something and it reminds you of them. You might do things like outdoor smells,
like yard clippings, flowers, books off the shelf or old books. That's one for a lot of people.
Or any other nature smell I'm thinking like, um, sometimes I don't know if this is resonant for
anybody else, but like sun-baked laundry. Like laundry on the line has a very specific smell to me
and that always reminds me of my mom. Under sound, you might list things like their favorite music or
their music artist or a song that they always played or sang. You might have voice memos from them,
voice mails, old recordings. You might also list again kind of going back to nature sounds, the sound
of rain or wind chimes or other natural sounds that they left. I've seen a lot of grieving people
list water or the ocean as a sound that reminds them of their person. For touch, you might list things
like fabrics that remind you of them. So like a soft hoodie or a denim jacket or flannel or like a
coat that they used to wear. This could also be a piece of jewelry that they wore or something that
they gave you or something that you had made to remember them. I'm thinking rings, watches, cufflinks,
whatever, things that you can touch and and remember them or textures that connect you to them.
So like a warm blanket or a nail file might be something really interesting to put under touch
and then under taste, this could be a recipe that you made together. Maybe something that was
passed down in your family or your friend group. This could be a drink that they loved, whether it's
coffee or wine or a very specific hard to get kind of soda. This also could be something seasonal or
something cultural that is linked to them or something that they loved. And this is kind of just like
ways to get you started and obviously you can go more than five minutes when making your list. But
I usually find as a way to get like your strongest sense memories out and as a way to not get overwhelmed
by this exercise and kind of do a deep dive that might give you an emotional hangover. Five minutes
is usually good cutoff time for listing at least some initial sense memories that would remind you
of them. I want to pivot really quickly and if you are a person who like me believes in an after life,
I'm going to take you into a corner for a second and have a little talk with you about what if I
believe that these signs are spiritual and if you don't believe in an after life hold tight,
I'm going to come back to you in about two minutes. Okay, so for spiritually inclined people,
your instinct might be to think what if these are actual signs from my loved one. This can be
something that like really lights you up inside and many students I work with inside life after
loss academy say things like these signs and symbols, the ones on my list and others are gifts from
the other side. These are messages from my loved ones that are designed to comfort me to offer me
some sort of life direction, this decision or that decision to say I'm surrounding you or get the
sense that my person is okay. Like whatever's happening in my life, whatever's happening where
they are, they have made it somewhere safe and that they are okay. If this is you, if you believe in
an after life or a heaven or any other sort of place that people go or pets go when they die,
the signs and symbols library can become a way of sort of training your attention, kind of building
an after life or a loved one's sonar to notice things that your person might already be sending you.
So that when a cardinal lands nearby or your grandmother's perfume suddenly pops up in a crowd,
it won't feel random, then it will feel sacred and it gets you talking about this. By choosing signs
and symbols that remind you of your person or pet and then also staying open to unplanned encounters
with them, you are creating space for all and for meaning and for ongoing relationship and especially
if you're looking for meaning and purpose after a loss and you believe in an after life or a God or
heaven, this can be a way of of connecting more strongly to that. And this is one of my favorite things
as new to you signs appear. So maybe they weren't on your list initially but you start seeing them.
You can add them to your library and this strengthens your connection with your loved one over time.
For example, I've told this story before but after my mom died, I felt most connected to her
when I heard old hymns played on the piano or when I found a penny on the ground. I still find money
and I think of her. But a couple months after her death, I started seeing palindrome number patterns
and these are numbers that are the same forwards as they are backwards. So 151, 242,
848, 48 or something like that. And I felt like as I kind of lived my life and popped around the city,
I was being haunted by palindromes. They were just everywhere. And after doing some googling,
I did like spiritual meaning of palindromes I learned that palindromes can be a message from a parent
from the afterlife because M-O-M and D-A-D are also palindromes. They're the same forwards as they
are backwards. And so now I have palindrome numbers listed under sites that remind me of my mom. I
have added it to my signs and symbols library. Other things I've included for my mom surprisingly
had been spiders. She did not like spiders in life but I saw a lot of spiders after her death.
And they I've learned are symbols of feminine creativity and my mom was a very creative woman.
Also African violets, the little potted blooming flowers, and any book or piece of art by the author
Sark. She is a very like child I can call her full artist and I think my mom would have just really
liked her art and I see her in a lot of places. And it just reminds me of my mom. And so I've had the
opportunity in feeling like there is an afterlife and my mom is sending me things and kind of like my
mom has a sort of input on what gets added to the list. I have expanded the signs and symbols library.
We've added some additions onto the library and so it's gotten bigger. As my relationship with her
she's been dead will be 12 years now in December over time. And this is something that can happen
for you too. I also okay I'm pivoting to the other corner of folks here. What if I don't believe in
an afterlife? That is okay. Some of my clients and students in life after the last academy believe
that nothing happens when we die and that is completely valid. I am not here to take that belief away
from you or force my beliefs upon you. Remembering your loved one and I want you to hear this does
not require a belief in the mystical or the spiritual. So even without believing that your loved one
is out there somewhere or like still connected to you somehow you can use a science and symbols library
to bring more intentional remembrance of them into your life. This comfort, this flavor of comfort
does not have to come from the idea that they're like watching over you. You see you when you're sleeping
kind of greeping is. It can come from the ritual of remembering them on purpose. I once had a client
from Australia who was grieving the death of an ex-boyfriend and it was an especially heavy and
and sort of stigmatized grief for her because of their breakup, their mutual service in the military
and the way in which he died and she was struggling to feel connected to him especially because people
who might want to remember him with her seem to have already moved on because they found out about
his death when it happened two or three years ago their grief was not as fresh. And so I was one of
the few people that she was able to remember him with and together we created a science and symbols
library for her that included some of the clothing he commonly wore animals that she remembered him
loving and songs that she remembered him singing and she didn't necessarily believe in an afterlife
but she began forming a positive association with these objects, these senses that she listed
and would practice saying things like I see a cockatoo and I think of how John loved their silly yellow
mohawk feathers. If you're watching this on YouTube I'm wearing yellow and I have my mohawk up
today in honor of this story. So suddenly cockatooes were no longer just birds that existed in Australia.
They were opportunities to remember her ex in a way that felt comforting and affirming
and a way to keep him close in her mind. So she didn't necessarily see this bird and say hello John
she didn't believe it was him or a sign from him but it was I see a cockatoo and think of how John
loved them and that is a way to connect the signs and symbols together to him in her mind. So the
signs and symbols library does not have to be about magical thinking or thinking your person is
still here in the ether or in the mist somehow. It's just about creating deliberate connection
to someone who has died. This is your permission slip I'm handing this to you now to create a sacred
space for memory not because your loved one is speaking from beyond necessarily although if you
believe that more power to you but because they mattered and you want to keep them with you.
And while you may not have had the power to bring them back to life none of us has that power.
You can draw them closer to you through objects and sights and sense and food and drink.
I want to address a really common question now that I get about this tool specifically and that
is what if I didn't get to meet the person who died. Signs and symbols how do I do them for
miscarriage stillbirth, a strangement adoption or ancestral loss instances where for whatever reason
it may have been the circumstances of the loss or the circumstances of when I was born or got
to this family or whatever the case may be I didn't get to meet the person who died. I don't have a lot
of sense memories tied to them. So it gets a little more abstract here. You got to lose a little
more imagination for creating this kind of science and symbols library. So for miscarriage and stillbirth
consider choosing a color or a flower or a quote or an animal to represent a life that didn't
get to unfold. If you are estranged from family or are part of an adoptive family or have distant
family or ancestral relationships people that you didn't get to meet for whatever reason you might
use photos or secondhand stories or objects to kind of build kind of a rickety connection where direct
memory may not exist. You could sort of pull upon the stories or the experiences of other people
to tell you what sense memories can connect you to this person who you didn't get to meet potentially
or didn't get to spend a lot of time with in real life because even if you didn't get to know the
person who died on a physical or a mental or an emotional or a spiritual level you do get to decide
how you relate to them now in this moment at this time in your life. I want to get to another
question that I get from people when doing this exercise and it's kind of um it's always funny to
me because it's said usually so directly and it's just like shall we this feels fake. I feel like
I am just making a list of all the ways I can see them and like forcing my connection to my person
into my life. This just feels not real. This feels fake or forced to look for signs kind of playing
I spy instead of just waiting for my person to appear. If my person wanted to they would just appear
to me. A lot of grieving people feel understandably like it's cheating to assign meaning to a number
or a flower or a bird or piece of clothing and and they worry that unless a sign shows up of its own
free will and volition that it doesn't count as like a real sign from their person who died.
But what I want to tell you is what I've seen over and over and over again in life after loss academy
is that whether a sign or symbol is when you choose or one that surprises you the effect of it is
the same. It fosters connection and closeness to the person who died and that is the ultimate goal at
least for me is a grief coach for you into creating loss into your life. You say you want to feel
closer to your person who died. This is the way to do it. And creating a library of signs and symbols
doesn't cancel out your ability to receive spontaneous signs and symbols. You can absolutely still
receive them. I had my whole library of hymns and songbirds and pennies on the ground and my mom was
like numbers spiders. The artist's sarc okay absolutely at that to the library creating intentionally
a library of signs and symbols can actually make you more receptive to the weird or the unexpected
things the ways that they may be trying to communicate with you or the things that may remind you of
them without you even consciously being aware of them. The act of choosing to see your person
in the everyday is not something that's forced. It is this exercise this tool is an intentional
sort of space making for your person's presence. It is one of dozens hundreds thousands of ways
that you can demonstrate that you continue to love them and so you continue to open up space for them
in your life. The thing I want to leave you with as we close out this episode today is that you
get to decide you choose how you maintain your connection with someone who has died. There are
many many things that loss takes away from us but one thing it cannot take is how we choose to remember
them and one really helpful tool for keeping them close is my signs and symbols library tool.
Having this collection that you have built personalize to you, customize to your relationship to
your person of sensory memories that connects you to them. Prevents you from A just relying on one
sign or symbol to remember them and B opens you up to all the possible ways that they can be carried
forward with you as you move forward after loss. So create this library today but also give yourself
permission to let it evolve with you as you grow through grief years and decades later. And no
matter whether you see these signs of sacred messages from beyond or simply as ways to surround
yourself with memory and meaning, your desire to stay connected to your person is a beautiful and
human and normal thing to want to have. You can use this list to say I always think of my mom when I
drink green tea and so you start buying green tea for your house or I always think of my best friend
when I see the morning skyline of Chicago over the lake front and so you get a framed photo of that
and bring it into your house. You can use these lists to draw them closer to you in in tons and tons
of ways and so you create a life that is literally surrounded by their presence but one where you
are the one moving forward. You are just choosing how they come with you and then as you go out into
the world as you go out in nature as you spend time with friends and family as you go to work or
school or parent children or take care of pets or other family members. You open up
tons and tons and tons of other opportunities to see memories and reminders of them from your
signs and symbols library. You can see green tea at a coffee shop. You might see green tea on vacation
in Japan. You might see somebody who crocheted a cute green tea bag that's riding the train to work.
There are so many different ways that they suddenly appear when you say hey this is how I will notice
and remember you. If you would like help building your signs and symbols library or if you would like
to explore the more than 50 other tools I have created just like this one to help you fold
losses and loved ones into your life instead of being forced to forget them and move on and get over it
like society tells you to. I hope you will join us inside life after a loss academy. Once again module
three which is called integrate is all about the many many ways we weave our memories, our struggles
and our loved ones into the fabric of our lives so they get to come with us as we rebuild life after
loss and that is one of the greatest and frankly easiest gifts you can give yourself after something
devastating has happened. That's all for this episode of grief grower. Thank you so very much for
joining me today. If you're looking for grief support beyond the show you can find free workshops,
blog articles and my quiz. What's your grief support style? At shall be for sithia.com/links
and if you'd like to get support from me for your unique loss experience please join us in life
after loss academy, my online course and community for grievers. As a student I'll walk you through my
five step grief framework for rebuilding life after loss and you can get live coaching from me every
single week to answer your questions and help you brainstorm ideas for how you'd like to move forward.
Replays are always available if you can to 10 live and it's just $33 a month to join or $22 a month
if you are marginalized or financially stressed griver. Now through August 31st you can try one month
of life after loss academy free with the code grief grower. Yep the name of this podcast you can find
a link to that in the show notes. Grief grower is hosted by yours truly. She'll be for sithia and
our theme music is composed by the great Eddie Goldstein. Until next time grief growers I see you.
I am so proud of you and the work that you're doing in the world and I love you because even through
grief we are growing.