Embracing Death Positivity
What It Means and Why It Matters
Skull with roses as death-positive art
In recent years, the concept of death positivity has gained momentum as more people are looking to break the silence around death, dying, and grief. While the idea of openly discussing death might seem unusual, the death-positive movement promotes honest conversations about mortality to help people live more meaningful, fulfilling lives. Whether you’ve come across terms like "death doula" "death with dignity" or are simply “death-curious,” let’s dive into what it means to be death-positive and why this mindset matters.
What is Death Positivity?
Death positivity is an approach that encourages open, healthy conversations about death, viewing it as a natural part of life rather than a taboo subject. The death-positive movement was born out of a desire to shift perspectives on death from fear and avoidance to understanding and acceptance. Inspired by the work of death doulas, artists, and death-positive advocates, this movement emphasizes that exploring death doesn’t need to be dark or morbid; instead, it can be enlightening and empowering.
Being death-positive means allowing yourself and others to ask questions about death, explore mortality, and engage with concepts of loss and grief without fear or shame. Whether you’re listening to a death podcast, attending a death cafe, or reading death-positive quotes and books, the idea is to encourage curiosity about death in a supportive, open environment.
Why Death Positivity Matters
Reduces Death Anxiety: Many people have deep-seated fears around death, sometimes referred to as death anxiety. By confronting these fears and embracing death positivity, we can ease some of that anxiety, creating space to live more fully in the present.
Fosters Meaningful Conversations: Death positivity encourages discussions with friends, family, and community about topics like end-of-life planning and legacy. For example, conversations about death with dignity empower people to make informed choices that reflect their values and desires.
Supports Grieving and Healing: Grief is a natural response to loss, but many people struggle with it alone. The death-positive movement fosters environments—like death cafes, grief circles, and death podcasts—where individuals can express their feelings and find support. Death-positive communities often become spaces of shared understanding, offering a place for healing and acceptance.
Promotes Personal Growth: Accepting death’s inevitability helps many people live with greater purpose and authenticity. By confronting our own mortality, we’re often motivated to pursue passions, resolve conflicts, and strengthen our relationships. Death positivity empowers us to create a meaningful life and cherish every moment.
Normalizes Death Conversations: By normalizing discussions around death and dying, the death-positive movement aims to remove the stigma and discomfort often surrounding these topics. This makes it easier for people to plan for their own deaths or support loved ones at the end of life.
Jill McClennen wearing one of her death positive t-shirt “This is my one life and I am living it fully”
How to Be Death Positive
Being death-positive starts with small steps. Here are some ideas to embrace a death-positive mindset:
Listen to Death Positive Content: Podcasts about death and dying can be an excellent way to start. Whether you’re looking for a death doula podcast or a podcast that focuses on embracing death, there’s plenty of content exploring every aspect of death positivity. Check out my podcast Seeing Death Clearly on my website and on all major podcast platforms, where we have honest, meaningful discussions about death, dying, and grief, creating a supportive space to explore these important topics.
Wear Death Positive Apparel: Want to spark conversations about death in your community? Check out my collection of death-positive shirts! These shirts feature positive death quotes and empowering messages that invite others to ask questions, reflect, and perhaps even join the movement. You can find them in my store on my website, with designs that highlight the meaningful and uplifting aspects of embracing mortality.
Attend Death Cafes or Join Death-Positive Communities: Many communities hold death cafes—informal gatherings where people meet to talk about death, grief, and loss. These gatherings are part of a larger movement aiming to normalize death-related conversations and provide support. I even have a death-positive Facebook group End of Life Clarity Circle where you can be part of a death-positive conversation every day.
Engage with Death-Positive Art: Art often reflects life’s profound truths, and death-positive artists are creating works that explore mortality in beautiful, thought-provoking ways. Seek out death-positive artists and artwork that resonate with you, or consider creating your own art to express your views on life, death, and everything in between.
Explore More with the Seeing Death Clearly Podcast
If you're intrigued by these topics and want to dive deeper, I invite you to tune in to my podcast, Seeing Death Clearly. In each episode, we explore various aspects of death positivity, from personal stories and grief support to practical discussions on how to talk about death with friends and family. Whether you’re experiencing death anxiety or just death-curious, my goal is to provide a space for open, honest conversations that help you feel more comfortable with mortality.
I believe that talking about death helps us all live with more intention and gratitude. For those of you who have been looking for a way to support the podcast and keep it ad-free, shopping in my store is a fantastic option. By purchasing a death-positive shirt or other items, you’re helping me keep these important conversations going long-term.
Discover the Death-Positive Apparel Collection
For those of us who are unafraid to spark conversations, my death-positive apparel collection is designed to bring awareness and openness to our communities. Each piece features a positive death quote or thoughtful design meant to inspire curiosity and encourage conversations. If you’re ready to embrace the death-positive movement in style, head over to my online store here to find the perfect shirt or gift for a friend.
Final Thoughts on the Death-Positive Movement
The death-positive movement is here to stay, offering a fresh perspective on one of life’s most misunderstood topics. By embracing death positivity, we allow ourselves to live more fully, connect more deeply, and find peace in our shared journey toward the end of life. Whether it’s through listening to a death talk podcast, sharing death-positive thoughts with friends, or even wearing a death-positive shirt, there are so many ways to get involved.
Thank you for joining me on this journey and for supporting a small business committed to changing the way we talk about death. Let’s continue to learn, grow, and embrace the positive aspects of mortality together.
Glossary of Death-Positive Terms
Death Positivity: A cultural movement that encourages open, honest conversations about death and dying, aiming to remove the stigma around discussing mortality. Death positivity seeks to foster acceptance of death as a natural part of life.
Death Doula: Also known as an end-of-life doula, a death doula provides emotional, physical, and logistical support to people nearing the end of life and their families. Death doulas help make the dying process less isolating by offering companionship, guidance, and end-of-life planning support.
Death Anxiety: The fear or anxiety surrounding thoughts of death, either one’s own or others'. Death positivity often seeks to ease death anxiety by promoting acceptance and understanding.
Death Cafe: An informal gathering where people come together to discuss death in a safe, respectful, and supportive space. Death cafes aim to increase awareness of death to help people make the most of their lives.
Death Positive Art: Art created to explore and express ideas about death, dying, and mortality. Death-positive art may use various mediums to help people understand, process, and engage with death more meaningfully.
Death Podcast: A podcast dedicated to discussing topics around death, grief, end-of-life care, and mortality. Many death podcasts are part of the death-positive movement, offering listeners a way to explore these subjects from various perspectives.
Grief: A natural response to loss, especially the death of a loved one. Grief encompasses a wide range of emotions, from sadness and anger to confusion and relief. Death positivity encourages healthy grieving by normalizing open expressions of these feelings.
End-of-Life Planning: The process of making decisions about one’s own death, including medical care, legal matters, funeral arrangements, and how one wishes to be remembered. Planning for the end of life is an essential aspect of death positivity, helping individuals and families face death with clarity and control.
Death with Dignity: A philosophy or practice that supports a person’s right to make choices about their end-of-life care, including the right to die on their own terms. Death with dignity legislation in some areas allows terminally ill individuals to seek physician-assisted dying under certain conditions.
Legacy: The lasting impact or memory someone leaves behind after they die. Legacy planning, an important aspect of end-of-life care, helps people reflect on how they want to be remembered and what values they wish to pass down to loved ones.
Mortality: The state of being subject to death. Recognizing and accepting our mortality is a central theme in death positivity, which encourages people to live more fully by acknowledging life’s impermanence.
Memento Mori: A Latin phrase meaning “Remember you must die.” It refers to a symbolic reminder of mortality, often used in art and literature to inspire people to live meaningful, purposeful lives by remembering that life is finite.
Death Positive Movement: A social and cultural movement encouraging people to engage with death and dying openly, challenging taboos, reducing death anxiety, and promoting awareness around end-of-life issues.
Positive Death Quotes: Inspirational or thought-provoking quotes about death that offer comfort, promote acceptance, or encourage meaningful conversations about mortality. Many death-positive individuals use such quotes to help themselves and others reflect on life and death with a healthy perspective.
