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Our culture oftentimes treats grief as shameful or contagious, but it is a universal human experience.

Writing and other forms of creative expression can help the bereaved feel less alone.

Rather than feeling intimidated about what to say to the grieving, try giving space to their experiences.

Grief is not a journey with an end point but rather morphs and changes over time.

Grief is a universal human experience, yet it continues to make many people uncomfortable. We may repress its expression in ourselves for fear of being too messy; we may avoid discussing other people’s losses because we “don’t know what to say.” Writing can be a powerful tool when it comes to articulating and processing painful emotions, and reading stories that deal with taboo subjects openly can increase our empathy for and comfort with difficult topics.

New York Times bestselling author Emily Rapp Black describes her new book on grief and creativity, I Would Die If I Were You: Notes on Art and Truth Telling, as a “book for sad, funny people.” The title refers to the fact that Rapp Black, who grew up with a prosthetic leg and whose young son died from Tay-Sachs in 2014, is often faced with people who, instead of sitting with their own unease that loss, grief, and disabilities happen to most of us in time, can fall into “othering” her by casting her as a tragic figure distant from their own lives.

Rapp Black, 51, a professor, avid traveler, and mom of a 12-year-old daughter, rejects such a reductive lens, instead celebrating the power of storytelling and true empathy. Turning to everything from philosophy to the Bible to popular culture in her new........

© Psychology Today