Entering your grief is painful: true. And writing your pain, diving into it with respect and gentleness, changes the pain in some ways. Here’s what one participant wants you to know: “When given the privilege of bearing witness to other’s grief and pain, your own pain gradually loses its power over you. It doesn’t disappear, but rather than bearing down on you, it begins to stand next to you. The prompts urged me to explore my pain, and it sometimes felt very crappy… but at the end of the day (when I chose to write), I knew I would not be in my pain alone. I was sharing it with others that knew of what I spoke. I didn’t have to make excuses, I was given permission to feel and write whatever I wanted to. And when my last word was typed, I simply felt “better.” Simply, what I learned: my pain did not have to control me, I could have some control over it.”