How to Deal with Grief with Stitch
Making Sense of Everything
" Grandma how do you deal with pain?"
" With your hands, dear. When you do it with your mind, the pain hardens even more."
“With your hands, grandma?"
" Yes, yes. Our hands are the antennas of our soul. When you move them by sewing, cooking, painting, touching the earth or sinking it into the earth, they send signals of caring to the deepest part of you and your soul calms down.
This way she doesn't have to send pain anymore to show it.
" Are hands really that important?"
" Yes my girl. Thinking of babies: they get to know the world thanks to their touches.
When you look at the hands of older people, they tell more about their lives than any other part of the body. Everything that is made by hand, so is said, is made with the heart because it really is like this: hands and heart are connected. Masseuses know this: When they touch another person's body with their hands, they create a deep connection. Thinking of lovers: When their hands touch, they love each other in the most sublime way."
" My hands grandma... how long haven't I used them like that!"
" Move them my girl, start creating with them and everything in you will move. The pain will not pass away. But it will be the best masterpiece. And it won't hurt anymore. Because you managed to embroider your essence."
Elena Barnabé
In July 2020, I wrote how I was trying to deal with what was going on. It’s easy to say, “hey, everyone’s going through the same thing”, but look, everyone’s different!
Stitch meditation / slow stitch helped me in so many ways to deal with it. I went online to see what it was I was going through, and I found it. It is called grief. It’s an overwhelming emotional response to loss, and for me it was the loss of normalcy. Looking back, I went through denial and anger, but in order to move forward I had to accept that these global events could not be changed.
The New Normal
As cliché as the phrase “the new normal” may sound, I needed to accept that the present situation is the new norm. I had to let go of things I couldn’t control - the pandemic, other people’s response, lockdowns etc. What I can control is how to spend each day - I decided to take little steps through stitch meditation or slow stitch.
Note: I am not a professional mental health expert. The points above are solely what I experienced and are for your reference only. Please seek professional help if you continue to feel unwell.
Flow - In the Zone
It took me a while to work start the stitch meditation. Although Singapore was in lockdown in April 2020, I didn’t commence until October - when I realised that normal was not coming back.
Why stitch meditation? Firstly, I didn’t want to be constrained by rules which would make me anxious, and secondly I didn’t want to focus on the end product. The only guidelines I had were:
Stitch a 3 x 3 inch square a day for 2 months.
It’s okay if I skipped a day due to personal reasons - that’s right, I actually had a few days that were missing from my stack of stitched squares! But it’s ok.
Don’t worry about the look of the stitches - focus on the needle and thread moving through the square.
But my third and last point as to why stitch meditation is also important, is flow - the period when you are in the zone, time slows down and your mind becomes fully absorbed in the activity, aka ‘being in the zone’
“The best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times… The best moments usually occur if a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.” ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Flow is one of the keys to happiness. It may seem strange to associate flow with dealing with grief, but one of the benefits of flow is that it helps reduce stress. Have you noticed how sometimes you feel a sense of relief and euphoria when you are working on a creative project, or dancing to your favourite music? I know I do! All my troubles just seem to melt away. When you’re in the zone, you:
forget about the world around you and lose track of time
feel happy and in control
become creative and productive
My Security Blanket, 2020
My Security Blanket
In the end, I made 61 stitched squares and stabbed the fabric over 23,000 times. Wait, what? Stabs? Yes, as I am reconciling with what's going on in the world, I am "taking" all the problems I see and stabbing it though the fabric patch, a repair patch. But as I slowly pull the needle and thread through the square after each stab, there is reflection, healing and understanding.
You may be wondering, what I did with all these patches. I decided to combine the squares together to form a blanket, an item that provides comfort and safety.
Looking to the Future
This two month process has made me realise how people have responded differently to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some have taken it in their stride, others have used it as a challenge and come out stronger, while others have struggled and don’t know what to do. When I started this process, I also happened to be collaborating with two artists who are also part of Fertile Art Refinery - Chen Ziwei and Xin Xiaochang. One of them said that she felt that things would not get better - I think that’s how I felt in May 2020.
But looking at our works in our collaboration A Period of Incubation (exhibited at The Substation in Dec 2020 as part of the Associate Artist Programme), which were in response to COVID-19, perhaps we were all at different stages of grieving:
Historical - “Talking Cock in the New Normal”, Chen Ziwei. Taking a look at a past pandemic event and drawing parallels to today’s situation with COVID
Present - “2020”, Xin Xiaochang. A data-driven approach to illustrate the COVID situation in Singapore over 2020
Future - “Security Blanket”, Agatha Lee “Agy”. A process-based piece looking at the artist’s response to reconciling with the new norm.
What do you think?
I think this whole process of daily stitch meditation to producing The Security Blanket and encouraged me to move beyond grief and towards acceptance. This may not be the process for you, but doing something creative each day will definitely help towards helping us overcome the present situation, and get us to move forward.