Elaine Mansfield’s memoir, Leaning into Love: A Spiritual Journey Through Grief, won the Gold Medal 2015 IPPY (Independent Publisher’s Book Award) Award Winner for Aging/Death & Dying. Leaning into Love captures the heart—from the extraordinary closeness of Elaine’s marriage to how she and her husband Vic transform their struggle with cancer and despair into a conscious relationship with mortality. After Vic’s death, Elaine leans into her ongoing love as grief leads her through emotional and spiritual depths on a journey into her new life.

Elaine writes with an intimate connection to nature and a spiritual perspective that reflects over forty years as a student of philosophy, psychology, mythology, and meditation. Leaning into Love includes sections about creating rituals to soothe grief, finding comfort in nature, finding support during the hardest times, and the power of facing grief and learning life lessons from it. She and her husband, Vic, became students of the Dalai Lama on his first US visit in 1979. Six weeks before his death, Vic taught with the Dalai Lama in a science and religion colloquium. Elaine facilitates bereavement support groups at Hospicare and Palliative Care Services in Ithaca, NY.

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Elaine Mansfield’s memoir ‘Leaning into Love: A Spiritual Journey through Grief’ (2014) won the 2015 Gold Medal IPPY Award (Independent Publisher’s Book Awards) in the category Aging, Death, and Dying. Elaine gave a well-received TEDx talk called “Good Grief! What I Learned from Loss.” The talk is available under her name at Youtube.com. She has also read excerpts from her book on NPR’s Author’s Corner. Elaine writes for hospice, facilitates bereavement support groups, and gives workshops and presentations in many locations. She writes with a perspective that reflects her hospice training as well as 40 years as a student of philosophy, psychology, mythology, and meditation. She also writes a weekly blog (http://elainemansfield.com/blog/) about the adventures and lessons of life and loss. To learn more about Elaine’s work, please visit her website at http://elainemansfield.com.