Giving Grief Meaning: A Method for Transforming Deep Suffering into Healing and Positive Change (Death and Bereavement, Spiritual Healing, Grief Gift)

"Such a wise, gentle book, born of great loss, on healing, grief and transformation."─Anne Lamott, American novelist and non-fiction writer

Finalist 2020 Indie Book Award for Mind, Body and Spirit

How inspired qualities and affirmations helped one mother honor her loved one, cope with grief, and give grief meaning.

Help through the mourning process using self-healing methods. How do you make sense of loss and tragedy? After the sudden and devastating loss of her infant daughter, Lily Dulan (a marriage and family therapist, psychotherapist and certified yoga teacher) meditated, prayed, and ruminated on the only thing she had left–her baby girl’s name. In Lily’s courage to address and move through her pain, she developed a cross pollination of proven psychological modalities, 12-step wellness tools, spiritual healing applications, meditations, and ancient yoga. She calls this self-help process “The Name Work”. In her heartfelt memoir, Lily shares her healing journey and her method for unleashing the power in names and giving them special meaning to help move through the grief process in a thoughtful and transformative way.

What’s in a name? Meanings! The Name Work method teaches you how to assign special meaning and qualities to the letters in names–a deceased loved one’s or your own–and how to create positive affirmations for each letter’s attribute. It is a tangible and personal self-healing method for whatever obstacles arise; a unique, new wellness tool for healing and self-discovery.

The Name Work also includes:

• Affirmations, self-guided questions, meditations, and practices
• An A-Z dictionary of qualities to help create your own affirmations
• Life hacks for addictive behaviors and moving though trauma and loss
• A first-hand account of the author’s personal healing journey

If you benefited from books like Finding Meaning, It’s OK That You’re Not OK, or Healing After Loss, then you’ll be inspired by Giving Grief Meaning.

Lily Dulan is an MFT Psychotherapist with a master's degree in Psychology and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Antioch University, Los Angeles. She played an instrumental role in starting the LGBTQ Affirmative Psychology specialization at Antioch University. Ms. Dulan holds a Master of Arts Degree in Teaching from Simmons College in Boston, Massachusetts and she is a certified Heart of Yoga Teacher. She studied Spiritual Coursework at Agape International Spiritual Center under the tutelage of Reverend Michael Bernard Beckwith.

Lily drew on her studies of both Eastern and Western disciplines to create a heart-centered system of healing and moving through trauma that she calls The Name Work(R). After her first daughter, Kara Meyer Dulan, died at home from SIDS at two months old, Lily started a foundation in her child's memory called The Kara Love Project. The Kara Love Project has teamed with local, national and international organizations such as the Unatti Foundation in Nepal, Venice Arts in Los Angeles and Foster Nation to serve marginalized youth. It has also developed and supported programming to benefit the mental and physical wellbeing of seniors in Los Angeles county.

Ms. Dulan facilitates The Name Work workshops and educational events in the greater Los Angeles area for universities, organizations, corporations, and small private groups. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two daughters.

In 1986, Michael Bernard Beckwith founded the Agape International Spiritual Center, a trans-denominational community of thousands of local members and global live streamers. Highly regarded for its cultural, racial, and spiritual diversity, the late Coretta Scott King wrote to Beckwith, "I greatly admire what you are doing to bring about the Beloved Community, which is certainly what my dear husband worked for and ultimately gave his life."

Agape's local community outreach programs feed the homeless, serve incarcerated individuals and their families, partnership with community service organizations active in children's schools and homes for youth at risk, support the arts, and advocate the preservation of our planet's environmental resources.  Agape's global humanitarian programs provide food programs, retraining programs, schools, libraries, orphanages, hospitals, clinics, homes for unwed mothers, micro-loans, financial support during natural disasters, and human advocacy.  Locations range from 8 African countries to Afghanistan, Bosnia, Colombia, Ecuador, India, Iraq, Kosovo, and Sri Lanka.

An eminent representative within diverse religious traditions and harbingers of world peace, in February 2012 Dr. Beckwith addressed the United Nations General Assembly as part of its annual World Interfaith Harmony Week. As co-founder and president of the Association for Global New Thought, he had the distinguished honor of presenting to Nelson Mandela the Gandhi King Award. Beckwith is also an international co-chair of the Gandhi King Season for Nonviolence which was launched at the United Nations in 1998 and is active in 900 international cities and 67 countries.  About its mission His Holiness the Dalai Lama has said:  "Both Gandhi and Martin Luther King are inspiring examples of the power and truth of nonviolence and the actions that arise from them. The Season for Nonviolence is a very good tool to remind us of their witness, and also the large unfinished work we have together in transforming awareness on our planet."  Beckwith served as co-chair of the Synthesis Dialogues 1, 11, and 111, which were attended by the Dali Lama.

Dr. Beckwith is a sought after meditation teacher, conference speaker, and seminar leader on the Life Visioning Process, which he originated.  Three of his most recent books-Life Visioning, Spiritual Liberation, and TranscenDance Expanded are recipients of the prestigious Nautilus Award. He has appeared on Dr. Oz, The Oprah Winfrey Show, OWN Help Desk, Larry King Live, Tavis Smiley, and in his own PBS Special, The Answer Is You. Every Friday at 1 pm PST, thousands tune into his radio show on KPFK, Wake up: The Sound of Transformation.