“If you’ve never heard of ‘Continuing Bonds,’ you’re not alone. This concept emerged from grief literature which, let’s be honest, most people haven’t read…
“It supports the idea that we, as bereaved people, remain connected with our loved ones, often for our entire lives. We don’t detach from them or leave them behind, we carry them with us…So today I want to make a case for why, if you care about one grief concept and one grief concept only, it should be continuing bonds.” (Haley, 2021)
Continuing Bonds is a well-researched and compelling (but little known) approach to end-of-life accompaniment, death care and bereavement. My goal is to rekindle and revitalize conversations about this research that I give a slightly longer name: Continuing LOVING Bonds. I invite you to join me.
My name is Linda Hill. Here I am with my beloved spouse, John Scull. Because my life’s work has been in psychology, research and education, I did read the grief literature after John died. Although their scholarly 1996 textbook is not written in plain and simple language, I immediately recognized and appreciated the importance of their research. In Continuing Bonds: New Understandings of Grief. Professors Dennis Klass, Phyllis Silverman and Steven Nickman present extensive evidence that maintaining and strengthening our loving connections with our loved ones who have died helps resolve grief and bring our lives back into balance.
My memoir Together Still: Love Beyond Death has emerged from what has been almost five years of experiencing, researching, studying and heart-to-heart sharing about continuing my loving bonds with John. (Read more)
I am now travelling the world (virtually and physically) facilitating presentations, heart-to-heart sharing circles, collaborative research projects and experiential education activities focused on learning with and from each other about Continuing Loving Bonds. (Read more)
Your message has been sent
What is Continuing Loving Bonds?
The transition from being human to being spirit may be short and devastating (as with an accident, suicide or violent death), painfully drawn out and exhausting (as with a terminal illness such as cancer or dementia) or something else entirely. Whatever the circumstances, those of us who love that irreplaceable human being embark on our own transition from the life we shared to a very different life without the physical presence of our loved one.
Although each person goes on their own journey through end-of-life, death-care and grief, our reactions and responses parallel our journeys through all of life. As with every aspect of living, how we go about grieving is an on-going series of choices between mindlessly running on instinct or mindfully developing awareness and practicing skills. Reacting to grief instinctively drives us to fear and deny death, bargain with death, rage at death, and fall into depression before eventually finding acceptance (Kubler-Ross, 1969). Alternatively, if we are open to responding to grief by developing our awareness and by learning and practicing mindful skills, our grief journeys will have many more choices. One of these choices is to continue our loving bonds beyond death.
Although the death of someone we love changes everything (absolutely everything), loving relationships do not need to end (and in fact do not end) when a loved-one physically dies. When a beloved spouse or intimate partner dies, the love story the couple have been living can continue to thrive. Parents can continue their loving bonds with children who have died. Children can continue their loving bonds with parents, grandparents and other family members who have died. Relationships between best friends can continue, as well as love between people and their pets. The loving bonds between people and birthplaces, land we have cared for, sacred places we cherish, and all of nature can also continue despite the destruction and other changes caused by industrialization of our precious planet.
Continuing our loving bonds is possible because unconditional love is the most powerful force in the universe. Satish Kumar, author of a wonderful book about continuing loving bonds called Radical Love writes, “Gravity is to the body what love is to the heart, soul and consciousness. Gravity relates to what can be measured, while love relates to what can be imagined. Gravity sustains matter; love gives it meaning. In the end, everything is held together by love.” (Kumar 2023)
Because love continues, our loving bonds can also continue. The essence that goes by many names such as soul, consciousness, spirit, light, or pure love not only goes on to the next world, but is somehow able to stay connected to the people, places and other sentient beings through their love.
Our loved ones who have died can reach out to us through:
- spiritual communication
- messages in nature
- changes in energy (feelings, sensations, temperature, electricity, light, sound, movement and more)
- uncanny coincidences
- visions, visitations and dreams
- coming into our thoughts
We can communicate with our loved ones through:
- sensing, acknowledging, accepting and responding to their presence
- noticing, listening to, considering and acting upon their messages,
- practicing mindfulness through meditation, contemplation, praying, and many more practices
- imagining, remembering, conversing and dreaming
- creative witnessing through art, music, journaling, legacy projects, memorial events and joy
The many facets of Continuing Loving Bonds include:
- Celebrating our love stories
- Responding to life’s circumstances by developing resilience
- Seeking, receiving and giving human and spiritual guidance
- Accompanying loved ones during the great transition from life to death
- Visions, dreams, visitations and other spiritual Shared Death Experiences
- Sending and receiving spiritual messages (also known as After Death Communication)
- Learning to hardwire happiness into your brain and your daily lifestyle
- Holding grief in the light
- Re-orbiting around love and joy
- Continuing Loving Bonds with beloved pets, wildlife, nature, and places we love as well as with the people we love
- Cultivating unconditional love with family and friends as we accompany each other through our lives
- Appreciating end-of-life accompaniment, death care and bereavement as the heroic odysseys these experiences are
- Helping our loved ones live on by carrying on their loving legacies
The outcomes of continuing our loving bonds during end-of-life accompaniment, death care and after death include spiritual growth, comfort, resilience, unconditional love, strength, forgiveness, and eventual transformation of grief and suffering into joy and peace.
If you want to learn more about Continuing Loving Bonds you could:
- explore the rest of this Continuing Loving Bonds website (Go to the menu)
- read my memoir: Together Still: Love Beyond Death (Read more)
- participate in my heart to heart story sharing circles (Read more)
- study other resources on topics such as Continuing Bonds, Shared Death Experiences, After Death Communication, Death Awareness, End-of-life Accompaniment, Death Care, and Hospice (Read more)
CONTINUING LOVING BONDS 