Coping with Grief and Loss: Podcasts and Books

Podcasts and books can provide excellent resources and information to help us cope with and relate to our grief. The following lists are great places to start learning more about what you are experiencing and to learn techniques to help you manage your feelings and emotions.

Podcasts

All podcasts can be accessed through Spotify, the Podcast app on iPhones, or Google Podcasts for Android users. They provide short, informative pieces of information on all topics- these focus on grief and loss specifically.

• Griefcast: This British podcast is written and recorded by comedians featuring people who have experienced the loss of a loved one or friend. It can also be accessed here: https://player.fm/series/2509019
• Terrible, Thanks for Asking: Author Nora McInerny’s podcast Terrible, Thanks for Asking provides valuable information on how to actually process feelings of grief. That way, when someone asks how you’re doing, you don’t have to just say “I’m fine.”
• Where’s the Grief?: Can there be humor in grief? It may not be obvious, but it can be a useful way to cope for many people, including comedian Jordan Ferber, who lost his 21-year-old brother. And that’s the idea behind his Where’s the Grief? podcast. In each episode, Ferber discusses mourning and even the weirdest parts of grief with other comedians and performers who’ve been through it too.
• What’s Your Grief: Hosted by mental health professionals, Eleanor Haley and Litsa Williams, the What’s Your Grief podcast demystifies the complicated grieving process. Covering topics ranging from grief theory to expectations, to coping strategies, the podcast can be useful for the bereaved as well as those who work with or love them.
• Grief Out Loud: Grief Out Loud seeks to ice-break this conversation-stopper of a subject. Grief is tough enough without having to deal with it alone. Listen in for personal stories and advice for grieving children and teens from bereavement experts. The producers – Oregon’s Dougy Center for Grieving Children and Families – know their stuff and leave the clichés at the door.
• Coming Back: Conversations on Life After Loss: There’s loss, grief, echoes, and reminders. But what actually happens when you get home from the funeral or dreaded hospital visit? Loss affects everything. It can impact who you are and how you live. Join grief guide Shelby to explore the stories and ideas that can help you learn to live again following traumas like death, divorce, and illness.
• Good Mourning: Aims to provide comfort to those who have experienced loss and to be a helpful resource for supporting others going through difficult times. Also available on Instagram.

Books

• It’s Okay That You’re Not Okay: Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture that Doesn’t Understand by Megan Devine: When a painful loss or life-shattering event upends your world, here is the first thing to know: there is nothing wrong with grief. In It’s OK That You’re Not OK, Megan Devine offers a profound new approach to both the experience of grief and the way we try to help others who have endured tragedy. She debunks the culturally prescribed goal of returning to a normal, "happy" life, replacing it with a far healthier middle path, one that invites us to build a life alongside grief rather than seeking to overcome it.
• How to Go on Living When Someone You Love Dies by Teresa Rando: Mourning the death of a loved one is a process all of us will go through at one time or another. But wherever the death is sudden or anticipated, few of us are prepared for it or for the grief it brings. There is no right or wrong way to grieve; each person's response to loss will be different. Now, in this compassionate, comprehensive guide, Therese A. Rando, Ph.D., bereavement specialist, leads you gently through the painful but necessary process of grieving and helps you find the best way for yourself.
• The Other Side of Sadness by George Bonanno: this book focuses on the resilience of people experiencing grief, and normalizes the grief experience for many.
• Bearing the Unbearable by Joanne Cacciatore: Bearing the Unbearable reveals how grief can open our hearts to connection, compassion, and the very essence of our shared humanity. Dr. Joanne Cacciatore accompanies us along the heartbreaking path of love, loss, and grief. Cacciatore opens a space to process, integrate, and deeply honor our grief.
• The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion: this book details the author’s experience of suddenly losing her husband and the compounding grief she faced after the fact. She shares her experience of coping with change and incorporating grief into her daily life.