Giving Grief Meaning: A Method for Transforming Deep Suffering into Healing and Positive Change
Giving Grief Meaning: A Method for Transforming Deep Suffering into Healing and Positive Change is a gem of a book. Lily Dulan’s debut book is part memoir, part self-help. She starts by telling the heart-wrenching of losing her two-month-old daughter, Kara, after a complicated pregnancy, after a long fertility journey. Dulan’s voice is raw and honest. She doesn’t gloss over the excruciating pain that comes with such a profound loss, the disorientation, or the lingering sadness. Dulan walks us through her specific circumstance in a way that make her experience universal. She touches on relatable themes like sobriety, marriage, bonding, friendship, and spirituality, to name a few.
Dulan comes to make sense of her loss initially by capturing Kara’s spirit through assigning concepts to each of the letters in her name. It’s a unique tool for enriching her daughter’s memory, but also discovering meaning her existence. Applied to suffering of any kind, The Name Method is a powerful way to process our pain and bring our darkness into the light. Dulan’s model can even be applied to our own self-realization.
She says, “The beautiful and challenging part of The Name Work is that exploring the qualities in the letters of your chosen name gives you the opportunity to discover parts of yourself that you normally don’t hold under a microscope. Working with the qualities you unearth is a good way to map out what you want for your life.”
The Name Work
I’ll show you how this works by applying The Name Method to the author’s name.
D—Deep.
Dulan doesn’t skim the surface. She goes to the depth of her existence, mining for meaning and nuggets of wisdom, which she then offers up to her readers.
U—Understanding.
She has a grasp on her subject matter. She’s well read, knowledgeable, and speaks with insight on the nature of her own humanity.
L—Loving.
Open-hearted and compassionate, she writes from a desire to be helpful and affirming to her readers.
A—Action.
She walks her talk. This isn’t a book of conceptual theories that go in one ear and out the other. Dulan offers actionable steps to lead you down your own personal healing road.
N—Normal.
Dulan is just like us. Rather than instructing from the front of the room, she sits alongside of us, wiping our noses, holding our hands, and holding space for finding our own meaning.
In addition to The Name Method, Dulan shares a curated list of specific healers, leaders, and teachers, to modalities, companies, and institutions. With this, Giving Grief Meaning is a treasure trove of supportive resources for your healing journey. Thoughtful, thorough, and inspiring, Dulan peppers her chapters with questions and prompts for reflection and exploration, perfect for journaling or meditation. Whether you receive her book as a compelling memoir, a way to recover from grief, or a method of self-discovery, Dulan delivers beautifully. The generosity with which she shares her inner world results in a level of intimacy not always found in the kind of book that offers a practical methodology for healing and transformation. In this way, and so many others, Lily Dulan and her book are quite special.
Zoë Kors is a writer, speaker, and coach. She is the founder of The Big Libido, Pussy Project, and other programs which cultivate a women’s rights, empowerment, and self-expression. Zoë is the former Senior Editor and Creative Director of LA Yoga Magazine and Origin Magazine. She is a certified Co-Active Coach and has a thriving private practice. Zoë’s work reflects her extensive study of Tantra, Zen Buddhism, meditation, yoga, breathwork, and other Eastern disciplines, which she blends with more process-oriented modalities of Western psychotherapy and Co-Active Coaching. http://www.zoekors.com