Practices to Promote Meaning-Making at the End of Life

Meaning-making is a process we undertake throughout our entire lives. At the end of life, we especially need to intentionally reflect upon our lives to understand and create meaning for ourselves and our loved ones. There are many ways to approach meaning-making, several of which are covered by this “toolkit.” However, this is a process which is different for everyone, so every practice listed here can be adjusted to suit unique needs or circumstances.

This toolkit is organized by audience with practices written to suit the needs of these specific audiences, though as mentioned previously, they can be adapted to suit anyone.

You may notice the term “Collective Soul” as one of the audiences addressed in this toolkit. Dr. Marvin Delgado-Guay defines this term*, writing “the spirituality of each member of the palliative care team becomes a single collective spirituality or soul with common goals, values, and belonging, with a main goal of providing the best care for patients and caregivers in the alleviation of suffering.” So when a practice addresses the Collective Soul, this means that by having everyone partake in a certain practice, there is some synergistic result of meaning-making, which this part of the toolkit will address.