In my other blog, I wrote a couple of posts (here and here) as part of my processing the suicide of my friend’s brother. That this was the second suicide (and one other attempted suicide) did not help me try to put anything into focus. Probably because there are some things that will never be clear and all we are meant to do is try.
I started thinking about how writing brings healing. (That is, after all, the purpose of this blog, to explore the connections between wellness and writing.) The truth is, I have occasionally wondered why I journal every day. Do I really believe that blabbering endlessly about the minutiae of my life really makes a difference? Aren’t there times when writing about something that is hurting me doesn’t feel more painful than not writing anything at all? How do I know that my rehearsing my grieves isn’t just reinforcing them rather than healing them?
No matter how many times I ask myself these questions or variations on the themes they suggest, I still return to the page, trying to make sense of things that simply cannot make sense, no matter how many pages I fill.
So why do it at all? I know that, for myself, I often approach my writing with no hope of making sense of anything. However, I know that through the writing I come to recognize within myself a certain power. I become a wounded healer, drawing on my own words to help others when they are confronted with similar experiences. I move dynamically from sympathy to empathy. By becoming one with my own pain, I can more fully experience compassion when confronted by the suffering of another.
Whether the words I write ever find a more public home than my heart and my journal, I now that what I have written will touch others because I am here, reaching out.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
The Irony of Timing
I wrote the following on Saturday and set it up to automatically post one week later. In this post, I explore why I haven't felt free to blog about my health and make a commitment to work through the fear that caused me to hesitate. Of course, given yesterday's post, there doesn't seem to be a need to keep this post on hold any longer. May this be the beginning of good (or at least honest) things to come.
A few months ago, a well-meaning friend pointed out to me that employers now do searches online to see what online presence employment candidates have. This is not news, of course. Most people are aware the HR people are googling potential employees to see if there is any reason to say, “Thanks but no thanks.”
It is funny how a seed like that can grow. I found myself increasingly unable to write about certain things in my life. The fact that I have a chronic and incurable condition makes me a hiring risk and my writing publicly about my condition could very well hinder my being hired. Add to this the fact that my fiancé has recently been diagnosed with diabetes and the concern an employer might have must be increasing exponentially. After all, nobody can say whether or not Rob’s health will not degenerate. In fact, although we can and are doing everything we can to forestall any complications, there is no cure and complications are practically inevitable. How bad those complications may be is all that we can hope to control—if we do everything we can, the complications won’t be as bad.
Add to this that Rob and I had practically the worst Spring and Summer of our lives, at least of our lives together anyway, I just couldn’t find a way to break through this fear I had about posting anything honest. What if the person with whom I interviewed fund my blog? What if he/she read about my condition and Rob’s diabetes and had second thoughts? What if I gave voice to my grief and the potential employer decided that my depression. on top of everything else, was the final straw?
I just couldn’t risk it because I am trying to get a job and I simply didn’t know if someone out there might not find me here and change their minds about offering me a job.
Then it hit me: I don’t know.
I really and truly don’t know. And you know what? Whether or not an employer reads this and freaks out about offering me a job is beyond my control. Maybe it would be better for the interviewer to know my full story, to realize that there are things that make me a less than perfect candidate.
If you don’t think I can do a good job because I have problems with my balance then maybe my posting more often will reinforce the idea that I am fully capable of showing up, of doing some work. Don’t believe that this one blog is enough to prove that I am able to fulfill your expectations? Then perhaps you can subscribe to the newsletter I edit and send out every month. Or you can read one of my other blogs. Or you can check me out on facebook and see the links I share as part of my ongoing research.
Maybe I can tell you about how I am actively pursuing my writing career by submitting my short stories and revising a novel while also participating in an online poetry challenge. Or maybe I can invite you to join the writing group where we have monthly challenges that we strive to meet each and every month.
Still not convinced? Let me tell you about the exercising I do each and every day—my morning yoga, my daily walk, my 10 miles of biking.
Yes, I am capable and I can either choose to not say anything in my blog about what is really going on right now, isolating myself because I am too scared to risk shooting myself in the foot to take a bold and honest step forward, or I can take a chance and write honestly about what is going on with myself, in my life, and if that should result in my not getting a job then so be it. The truth of my life, of my condition, would come out anyway. And if I have to choose between taking care of myself in solitude or taking care of myself in community then I guess I’m going to choose the community over silence.
It’s a risk I am willing to take and, hopefully, I can find a way to do this without shooting myself in the foot. It would even be better if I could figure out how to do this without putting my foot in my mouth but I think that may be more than even my best of intentions can manage.
A few months ago, a well-meaning friend pointed out to me that employers now do searches online to see what online presence employment candidates have. This is not news, of course. Most people are aware the HR people are googling potential employees to see if there is any reason to say, “Thanks but no thanks.”
It is funny how a seed like that can grow. I found myself increasingly unable to write about certain things in my life. The fact that I have a chronic and incurable condition makes me a hiring risk and my writing publicly about my condition could very well hinder my being hired. Add to this the fact that my fiancé has recently been diagnosed with diabetes and the concern an employer might have must be increasing exponentially. After all, nobody can say whether or not Rob’s health will not degenerate. In fact, although we can and are doing everything we can to forestall any complications, there is no cure and complications are practically inevitable. How bad those complications may be is all that we can hope to control—if we do everything we can, the complications won’t be as bad.
Add to this that Rob and I had practically the worst Spring and Summer of our lives, at least of our lives together anyway, I just couldn’t find a way to break through this fear I had about posting anything honest. What if the person with whom I interviewed fund my blog? What if he/she read about my condition and Rob’s diabetes and had second thoughts? What if I gave voice to my grief and the potential employer decided that my depression. on top of everything else, was the final straw?
I just couldn’t risk it because I am trying to get a job and I simply didn’t know if someone out there might not find me here and change their minds about offering me a job.
Then it hit me: I don’t know.
I really and truly don’t know. And you know what? Whether or not an employer reads this and freaks out about offering me a job is beyond my control. Maybe it would be better for the interviewer to know my full story, to realize that there are things that make me a less than perfect candidate.
If you don’t think I can do a good job because I have problems with my balance then maybe my posting more often will reinforce the idea that I am fully capable of showing up, of doing some work. Don’t believe that this one blog is enough to prove that I am able to fulfill your expectations? Then perhaps you can subscribe to the newsletter I edit and send out every month. Or you can read one of my other blogs. Or you can check me out on facebook and see the links I share as part of my ongoing research.
Maybe I can tell you about how I am actively pursuing my writing career by submitting my short stories and revising a novel while also participating in an online poetry challenge. Or maybe I can invite you to join the writing group where we have monthly challenges that we strive to meet each and every month.
Still not convinced? Let me tell you about the exercising I do each and every day—my morning yoga, my daily walk, my 10 miles of biking.
Yes, I am capable and I can either choose to not say anything in my blog about what is really going on right now, isolating myself because I am too scared to risk shooting myself in the foot to take a bold and honest step forward, or I can take a chance and write honestly about what is going on with myself, in my life, and if that should result in my not getting a job then so be it. The truth of my life, of my condition, would come out anyway. And if I have to choose between taking care of myself in solitude or taking care of myself in community then I guess I’m going to choose the community over silence.
It’s a risk I am willing to take and, hopefully, I can find a way to do this without shooting myself in the foot. It would even be better if I could figure out how to do this without putting my foot in my mouth but I think that may be more than even my best of intentions can manage.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Death and Loss and "Homecomings"
I met Pia long before she sat at the other end of the science table where the two of us soon became partners, doing the seventh grade experiments side-by-side. Like me, she was a reader but her ability to devour a book outmatched me. A book that would take me two to three days to finish reading (like Gone With the Wind) would take her one day. She was voracious and artistic and a lot of things I would never be.
Her mother had problems, deep-rooted and full of anger, mostly self-loathing that manifested in a beer infused alcoholism. Eventually she would die, living off social security for a disability she didn’t really have.
Her father lived a communal life in Philadelphia and eventually he would move to Africa, to reconnect with his ancestral roots, leaving Pia the townhouse in which he had lived for so many years.
Pia’s older brother, Dion, was a typical sibling who found the giggling and squeals that Pia and I shared annoying while also loving his sister so much he tolerated my presence without ever making me feel unwelcome.
Pia’s mother was actually friends with Love’s mother when we were all infants but it was not until Pia and I reconnected in junior high school that our friendship was forever and permanently established. We hung out together almost constantly, created fantasies that filled our lunchtime, hung out either in her large Central Park West apartment or in my smaller west 79th street and later east 96th street apartment.
It was Pia who joined me in playing an April Fool’s joke on my mother when we rearranged the entire living room while my mother was downstairs doing the laundry. It was with Pia I explored the aisles of Woolworths and took my one and only gymnastics class. It was through Pia I learned I could skip school and hang out at museums instead.
We sang and danced and shared everything. So much so that my mother later told me she thought we were lovers. I suppose we could have been, had either one of us thought about it but we never did.
Then she moved to Philadelphia and I got married, had children, and our lives just sort of drifted apart. When she was married, I was there, one of her three bridesmaids, but we only talked on birthdays and around Christmas. She eventually had a son and went on to get her masters degree while my marriage fell apart and I struggled to finish my bachelors degree in the midst of the chaos that followed. Then the phone call stops. I would still reach out to her on her birthday but we never talked long and she would promise to call me back but wouldn’t. I stopped calling but kept sending her cards, always wondering if I should call her.
My cell phone died, eating up all of my contacts which decided things for me. I couldn’t call her because I didn’t have her phone number. I didn’t even have her address any longer.
At least, not until yesterday. I was cleaning a box out and found a sheet of paper with a bunch of addresses I didn’t recognize. Confused, I skimmed it over and stopped when I saw Pia’s name and her address. I took the sheet and dropped it onto my desk and, to be honest, I didn’t really think about it again. I already knew I would debate writing to her, wondering what I could possibly say to her after so long. A part of me would want to tell her I miss her. Another part would want to know why she didn’t care enough about our friendship to even send me a Christmas card. Still another part of me wondered if I wanted to be vulnerable with her, to tell her how I needed her friendship more than anyone else’s because I felt like, even if we had grown apart, she was perhaps the most shining example of unconditional love I had outside of my immediate family.
I knew that weeks from now I would still have this sheet of paper, maybe I would have made some attempts at writing to her, deleting as I went along until I ended up writing nothing.
Then this morning I get an email from Pia saying that Dion committed suicide.
No. That’s not right. First she apologized for the years of silence, saying she has wanted to write me for so long, has been struggling with depression. And that her brother, who had struggled for so long with drug addiction, had killed himself.
Do I even need to say that I immediately emailed her with a demand (not a request) for her to call me? I gave her my telephone number and then reiterated that she must call me.
I then stopped to breathe, to let go of the tears coming to my eyes, to fall into Rob’s arms and let him hold me for a few minutes.
I reached out to one of my friends who I hoped would be up so early on a Sunday morning.
I emailed Pia again, telling her that if she didn’t call me, I would just be forced to email her, to tell her about everything in various emails, that I would send her my stories and chapbooks, and I would just keep reaching out to her until she finally called me to shut me up.
And now I am writing this because I need to put something into words. I’m tired and it is not yet 9:30am. I am waiting. Waiting for my phone to light up with an incoming call. I am praying that she will call me and not let even one more day go by.
Her mother had problems, deep-rooted and full of anger, mostly self-loathing that manifested in a beer infused alcoholism. Eventually she would die, living off social security for a disability she didn’t really have.
Her father lived a communal life in Philadelphia and eventually he would move to Africa, to reconnect with his ancestral roots, leaving Pia the townhouse in which he had lived for so many years.
Pia’s older brother, Dion, was a typical sibling who found the giggling and squeals that Pia and I shared annoying while also loving his sister so much he tolerated my presence without ever making me feel unwelcome.
Pia’s mother was actually friends with Love’s mother when we were all infants but it was not until Pia and I reconnected in junior high school that our friendship was forever and permanently established. We hung out together almost constantly, created fantasies that filled our lunchtime, hung out either in her large Central Park West apartment or in my smaller west 79th street and later east 96th street apartment.
It was Pia who joined me in playing an April Fool’s joke on my mother when we rearranged the entire living room while my mother was downstairs doing the laundry. It was with Pia I explored the aisles of Woolworths and took my one and only gymnastics class. It was through Pia I learned I could skip school and hang out at museums instead.
We sang and danced and shared everything. So much so that my mother later told me she thought we were lovers. I suppose we could have been, had either one of us thought about it but we never did.
Then she moved to Philadelphia and I got married, had children, and our lives just sort of drifted apart. When she was married, I was there, one of her three bridesmaids, but we only talked on birthdays and around Christmas. She eventually had a son and went on to get her masters degree while my marriage fell apart and I struggled to finish my bachelors degree in the midst of the chaos that followed. Then the phone call stops. I would still reach out to her on her birthday but we never talked long and she would promise to call me back but wouldn’t. I stopped calling but kept sending her cards, always wondering if I should call her.
My cell phone died, eating up all of my contacts which decided things for me. I couldn’t call her because I didn’t have her phone number. I didn’t even have her address any longer.
At least, not until yesterday. I was cleaning a box out and found a sheet of paper with a bunch of addresses I didn’t recognize. Confused, I skimmed it over and stopped when I saw Pia’s name and her address. I took the sheet and dropped it onto my desk and, to be honest, I didn’t really think about it again. I already knew I would debate writing to her, wondering what I could possibly say to her after so long. A part of me would want to tell her I miss her. Another part would want to know why she didn’t care enough about our friendship to even send me a Christmas card. Still another part of me wondered if I wanted to be vulnerable with her, to tell her how I needed her friendship more than anyone else’s because I felt like, even if we had grown apart, she was perhaps the most shining example of unconditional love I had outside of my immediate family.
I knew that weeks from now I would still have this sheet of paper, maybe I would have made some attempts at writing to her, deleting as I went along until I ended up writing nothing.
Then this morning I get an email from Pia saying that Dion committed suicide.
No. That’s not right. First she apologized for the years of silence, saying she has wanted to write me for so long, has been struggling with depression. And that her brother, who had struggled for so long with drug addiction, had killed himself.
Do I even need to say that I immediately emailed her with a demand (not a request) for her to call me? I gave her my telephone number and then reiterated that she must call me.
I then stopped to breathe, to let go of the tears coming to my eyes, to fall into Rob’s arms and let him hold me for a few minutes.
I reached out to one of my friends who I hoped would be up so early on a Sunday morning.
I emailed Pia again, telling her that if she didn’t call me, I would just be forced to email her, to tell her about everything in various emails, that I would send her my stories and chapbooks, and I would just keep reaching out to her until she finally called me to shut me up.
And now I am writing this because I need to put something into words. I’m tired and it is not yet 9:30am. I am waiting. Waiting for my phone to light up with an incoming call. I am praying that she will call me and not let even one more day go by.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Wellness & Writing Connections Conference 2009 Program
This is the program for the Wellness & Writing Connections Conference as it currently stands. Odds are, there will be some changes. In a separate post, I will include some information about the different presenters.
201 Happy In Its Own Time: How the Muse Collaborates with the Spirit When Given the Chance - The Ninth Muse Writing Group (Franklin Abbott, LCSW, LaDonna Benedict, LPC, Jill Knueppel, LMT, Barbara Locascio, LCSW, Emily Simerly, Ph.D., Pat (“Wren”) Wells, LPC)
The Ninth Muse is a long-standing group of health care professionals anchoring each other to writing. We will share our history of forming, evolving and structuring our monthly meetings and in-between writing. We will offer suggestions for starting a writing group or working collaboratively with other writers, sharing some of our collective efforts.
202 The Healing Notebook - Diana M. Raab, M.F.A., R.N.
This workshop will focus on the benefits of keeping a notebook as a place to capture feelings, musings and sentiments before they vanish. The workshop will be useful for the writer, therapist and the patient. Journal-keeping as a healing art will be discussed, as well as the different types of journals that may be kept. Writing exercises and journaling tips will also be shared. Bring a notebook or journal.
203 Writing into Healing - Leatha Kendrick, M.A., M.F.A,
When we write, we can learn (again) to trust the voice that is great within us - our true speaking voice, not that voice that seems small, fearful, judgmental, smothered. In creating concrete, coherent narratives of what has befallen us, we can recover -- recover from illness, from crisis and trauma, from the years of living in fear and with self-condemnation. This workshop allows us to write together and experience what constitutes a healing narrative. The theoretical underpinnings arise from writings by James Pennebaker, Arthur Frank, and Louise DeSalvo.
204 A Spirit Laid Down in Chapters: Telling Your Story With Personal Essay - Emily Simerly, Ph.D.
There is something about a person's spirit that wants expression, wants to tell the world its story. This workshop will offer readings and examples of personal essay that mark primary passages through life. A structure will be offered to generate six "starter" chapters of a personal narrative for you to use as a memoir in the continuing adaptation to life. Whether you are 90 or 20, your spirit and truth will find welcome and healing here.
205 How Writing Heals: The Biological Underpinnings of Writing for Health - Brenda Stockdale, Ph.D.
Linking recent evidence of writing's role in health and wellness is a brief overview of psychoneuroimmunology and the newest player on the block, epigenetics. Recent findings in epidemiology pinpoint risk factors greater than obesity, cholesterol and even smoking history lie behind the biggest killers of our day: heart disease, cancer, autoimmunity and diabetes. This new understanding affects how we approach almost any illness or condition and highlights the need for effective behavioral medicine strategies in medical settings.
301 Blogging to Heal - Susan Bernard, M.A.
In this hands-on workshop, participants will learn the following: How to set up a blog even if you’re technology-challenged;How photographs and graphics can enhance self-expression;The different types of expressive writing that can be used when blogging to heal;How bloggers and/or blogger-clients can develop virtual support groups; and The do’s and don’ts of blogging to heal. Each participant will receive a Blogging to Heal brochure with a list of helpful resources.
302 Creating a Healing Writing Workshop in a Medical Facility: The Woven Dialog© Workshop, Sara Baker, M.A.
This workshop will introduce the theory and practice of offering a writing workshop for patients in a medical facility. It will introduce the participants to the challenges particular to the healthcare setting, including understanding where patients are in their treatment as well as where they are in their healing narrative, and it will offer practical techniques for providing safety and avoiding retraumatization.
303 Training Counselors to Use Writing as a Therapeutic Intervention - Noreen Lape, Ph.D. and Ric Long, Ph.D.
We will explain how we introduced graduate students in a counseling skills course – half of whom were military chaplains just home from Iraq -- to the therapeutic benefits of writing. Using examples of client writing and a method of close reading, we will discuss the characteristics of healing, depressed, and traumatized writing, and the clients who benefit most from a writing intervention. We will suggest strategies for responding to a client’s writing. We will also share a videotape of our follow-up conversation with the chaplains in which they talk about their use of writing with clients and as a form of self-care.
304 Writing Stories of Illness and Healing – Debbie McCulliss, R.N. M.A.
Stories of illness cannot be fragmented away from the deeper stories of our lives. This interactive workshop will give writers of all levels of experience an introduction to narrative medicine. Through facilitated dialogue, participants will respond to an illness narrative through examination of literary craft, expressive writing, and reflection and then write the beginnings of a story or poem about illness or care-giving that can serve as a catalyst for healing and wellness.
305 Setting up a Writing for Wellness Program within Your Church Community – Kathy Vayder, B.A.
Are you a part of a church or spiritual community? If so, consider setting up a wellness writing program within your community. Many churches have programs for those in immediate need, but how responsive is your church for ongoing care of its members? Workshop topics: Overcoming the obstacles of setting up a wellness writing program within a church setting; Benefits of a writing program within your church setting; Designing a specific curriculum and getting the word out; Excerpts from former class participants will also be shared.
Program 2009 Wellness & Writing Connections Conference
Check-in and Late Registration: Angela Bailey
Open Book Exhibit: Jennifer Tomas
Welcome: John Evans
Check-in and Late Registration: Angela Bailey
Open Book Exhibit: Jennifer Tomas
Welcome: John Evans
Keynote address: Julie Davey - Author of the recent book, Writing for Wellness: A Prescription for Healing, will explain the unique, focused and directed writing techniques she has developed and uses in her Writing for Wellness classes at City of Hope National Cancer Center in California. Ms. Davey, a college writing professor and two-time cancer survivor will then lead conference attendees in a hands-on writing session to demonstrate how the process helps healing.
Breakout sessions:
101 Expressive Writing as a Therapeutic Tool: Working with Groups, Couples and Individuals, Angela Buttimer, MS, RYT, LPC and Dennis Buttimer, MEd, RYT, CEAP
In this workshop, counselors, coaches, and facilitators Angela Buttimer, MS, RYT, LPC and Dennis Buttimer, MEd, RYT, CEAP describe how writing can be used as a powerful tool for “drilling deeper”, helping clients get to the heart of the matter and express their deeper truths. Specific examples and methods used in each of these settings will be shared and practiced experientially. Angela and Dennis Buttimer have been using writing as a therapeutic tool with clients for many years. Currently in their work at Cancer Wellness at Piedmont, a center for integrative healing for cancer patients, they use writing in various groups with cancer patients, survivors, and their loved ones. Angela facilitates Writing for Recovery, a program that specifically focuses on the transformative power of writing and sharing that writing with others in a sacred circle. Angela presented her work on Writing for Recovery in the 2008 conference. Angela and Dennis facilitate other groups and workshops at Cancer Wellness where writing is utilized including Mindfulness, Humor, Yoga, Chakras, and Support Groups. In addition, Angela and Dennis often use writing in private practice with both couples and individuals. Clients sometimes are not aware of how they feel and think about an issue until they have written about it. Frequently clients need to write before they can speak to help form, articulate, and clarify what is happening on the inside. The surprising insights that evolve from putting pen to paper consistently deepens the work a client is doing in session. Writing between sessions also assists in enhancing the work of therapy.
102 Me, Myself and I – The Healing Power of Dialogue - Susan Borkin, M.A.
The venerable dialogue, when written is not just a conversation but also a powerful tool for healing and personal growth. We’ll explore its use in healing trauma, as an aide in clarifying difficult decisions and as a resource for getting unstuck and moving forward. Focus will be on practical application and simple steps to create, deepen and sustain a dialogue. In this highly experiential workshop, participants will leave with a richly felt sense of the surprising power of the dialogue to serve as a catalyst for healing and transformation.
103 Using Yoga, Meditation, & Writing to Reduce Anxiety in First-year College Students - Lezlie Laws, Ph.D.
I will describe a first-year seminar at Rollins College designed to introduce students to the eight limbs of Ashtanga Yoga. Students practice yoga asanas, meditation, and respond to writing prompts designed to help them discern ways they view themselves or their experiences inaccurately and thus cause themselves anxiety. Participants will be shown how the ashtanga methodology addresses issues of mind, body, and spirit and leads to productive self-exploration and greater self-understanding.
104 Writing Memoir as a Journey Toward Healing - Megan Cutter, B.A.
What’s your story? We all go through challenging times or events in our lives that profoundly shift our perspectives in life. Journaling is one way to begin the healing, and writing your memoir is about creating the space to process you life’s journey. In this presentation, Megan Cutter will share her experiences in writing memoir, facilitating journaling groups and explore writing techniques that will help you on your own journey to healing.
105 Restoring the Self through Language—and Image, and music, and…. - Rebecca Dierking, M.A. and Roy Fox Ph.D.
In this session, Rebecca Dierking will first review how “other” symbol systems, not just language, accomplish the work of “healing” physical and psychological dilemmas, focusing on their major similarities and differences. Next, Roy Fox will demonstrate how words, when integrated with imagery, can extend and deepen the positive effects of expression. He will also report on his current research into how mental imagery affects the language and thinking of literacy experts who themselves employ writing as healing. Participants will write, critique writing/healing prompts, and speculate how and why the writers in this study make critical decisions.
201 Happy In Its Own Time: How the Muse Collaborates with the Spirit When Given the Chance - The Ninth Muse Writing Group (Franklin Abbott, LCSW, LaDonna Benedict, LPC, Jill Knueppel, LMT, Barbara Locascio, LCSW, Emily Simerly, Ph.D., Pat (“Wren”) Wells, LPC)
The Ninth Muse is a long-standing group of health care professionals anchoring each other to writing. We will share our history of forming, evolving and structuring our monthly meetings and in-between writing. We will offer suggestions for starting a writing group or working collaboratively with other writers, sharing some of our collective efforts.
202 The Healing Notebook - Diana M. Raab, M.F.A., R.N.
This workshop will focus on the benefits of keeping a notebook as a place to capture feelings, musings and sentiments before they vanish. The workshop will be useful for the writer, therapist and the patient. Journal-keeping as a healing art will be discussed, as well as the different types of journals that may be kept. Writing exercises and journaling tips will also be shared. Bring a notebook or journal.
203 Writing into Healing - Leatha Kendrick, M.A., M.F.A,
When we write, we can learn (again) to trust the voice that is great within us - our true speaking voice, not that voice that seems small, fearful, judgmental, smothered. In creating concrete, coherent narratives of what has befallen us, we can recover -- recover from illness, from crisis and trauma, from the years of living in fear and with self-condemnation. This workshop allows us to write together and experience what constitutes a healing narrative. The theoretical underpinnings arise from writings by James Pennebaker, Arthur Frank, and Louise DeSalvo.
204 A Spirit Laid Down in Chapters: Telling Your Story With Personal Essay - Emily Simerly, Ph.D.
There is something about a person's spirit that wants expression, wants to tell the world its story. This workshop will offer readings and examples of personal essay that mark primary passages through life. A structure will be offered to generate six "starter" chapters of a personal narrative for you to use as a memoir in the continuing adaptation to life. Whether you are 90 or 20, your spirit and truth will find welcome and healing here.
205 How Writing Heals: The Biological Underpinnings of Writing for Health - Brenda Stockdale, Ph.D.
Linking recent evidence of writing's role in health and wellness is a brief overview of psychoneuroimmunology and the newest player on the block, epigenetics. Recent findings in epidemiology pinpoint risk factors greater than obesity, cholesterol and even smoking history lie behind the biggest killers of our day: heart disease, cancer, autoimmunity and diabetes. This new understanding affects how we approach almost any illness or condition and highlights the need for effective behavioral medicine strategies in medical settings.
301 Blogging to Heal - Susan Bernard, M.A.
In this hands-on workshop, participants will learn the following: How to set up a blog even if you’re technology-challenged;How photographs and graphics can enhance self-expression;The different types of expressive writing that can be used when blogging to heal;How bloggers and/or blogger-clients can develop virtual support groups; and The do’s and don’ts of blogging to heal. Each participant will receive a Blogging to Heal brochure with a list of helpful resources.
302 Creating a Healing Writing Workshop in a Medical Facility: The Woven Dialog© Workshop, Sara Baker, M.A.
This workshop will introduce the theory and practice of offering a writing workshop for patients in a medical facility. It will introduce the participants to the challenges particular to the healthcare setting, including understanding where patients are in their treatment as well as where they are in their healing narrative, and it will offer practical techniques for providing safety and avoiding retraumatization.
303 Training Counselors to Use Writing as a Therapeutic Intervention - Noreen Lape, Ph.D. and Ric Long, Ph.D.
We will explain how we introduced graduate students in a counseling skills course – half of whom were military chaplains just home from Iraq -- to the therapeutic benefits of writing. Using examples of client writing and a method of close reading, we will discuss the characteristics of healing, depressed, and traumatized writing, and the clients who benefit most from a writing intervention. We will suggest strategies for responding to a client’s writing. We will also share a videotape of our follow-up conversation with the chaplains in which they talk about their use of writing with clients and as a form of self-care.
304 Writing Stories of Illness and Healing – Debbie McCulliss, R.N. M.A.
Stories of illness cannot be fragmented away from the deeper stories of our lives. This interactive workshop will give writers of all levels of experience an introduction to narrative medicine. Through facilitated dialogue, participants will respond to an illness narrative through examination of literary craft, expressive writing, and reflection and then write the beginnings of a story or poem about illness or care-giving that can serve as a catalyst for healing and wellness.
305 Setting up a Writing for Wellness Program within Your Church Community – Kathy Vayder, B.A.
Are you a part of a church or spiritual community? If so, consider setting up a wellness writing program within your community. Many churches have programs for those in immediate need, but how responsive is your church for ongoing care of its members? Workshop topics: Overcoming the obstacles of setting up a wellness writing program within a church setting; Benefits of a writing program within your church setting; Designing a specific curriculum and getting the word out; Excerpts from former class participants will also be shared.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Dr John Evans
The following is an announcement Dr. John Evans is making about a book he is putting together.
My passion for and my personal experience with writing and healing convinced me to establish a conference that would attract people who see therapeutic value in writing memoirs, essays, fiction, poetry and drama. I wished to provide a lively resource for these like-minded people who write and for those working in the healthcare and counseling professions who wish to include writing as part of their practice. The culmination of my conviction that writing can be good for those who write is the Wellness & Writing Connections Conference series, this newsletter and a forthcoming book length collection of essays to be published Fall 2009 by Idyll Arbor, Inc.
This collection offers a representative sampling of keynote address speakers, presenters, and workshop leaders from the 2007 and 2008 conferences. The essay writers come from many parts of the United States and from many professions, including therapists, psychologists, counselors, nurses, poets, novelists, teachers, and researchers. All of the contributors write from the personal conviction that writing has served them and others in healthful ways they wish to share with you.
This collection offers a representative sampling of keynote address speakers, presenters, and workshop leaders from the 2007 and 2008 conferences. The essay writers come from many parts of the United States and from many professions, including therapists, psychologists, counselors, nurses, poets, novelists, teachers, and researchers. All of the contributors write from the personal conviction that writing has served them and others in healthful ways they wish to share with you.The essays are divided into four parts. The first part of the collection includes Pennebaker's and L'Abate's keynote addresses and McCulliss's essay about the theory and practice of poetry therapy. The second part of the collection includes essays about the uses of specific writing genres, from poetry to the braided essay, from workshop writing to writing in an academic setting. The third part of the collection includes essays that describe writing-to-heal workshops and programs. To conclude the collection is a bibliography of recent scholarly activity that I hope you will find useful in your further study.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Introducing Keynote Speaker for 2009 Conference
Today I learned that Julie Davey will be the keynote speaker for the 2009 Wellness & Writing Connections Conference. I could not be more thrilled. At least year's conference, I had the honor to particpate in her workshop and, later, the two of us were paired off during another workshop where we shared our sacred space. I still recall the chills I experienced when she told me about her husband, the love she expressed is an inspiration.I had been sharing my responses to the writing exercises in her book, Writing for Wellness. Life, however, got in my way and I stopped typing out my responses. Now I have more reason to return to those exercises and share my responses with all of you. In the meantime, I hope everyone will seek out a copy of the book for themselves and, if you do, please share with me what you write, if you are so inclined.
Also, consider subscribing to the Wellness & Writing Connections newsletter. You can do so easily by following this link. Look to the upper right hand corner and simply input your email.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Writing for Wellness Chapter Two
I'm glad I'm prefacing these with a note that these are rough drafts. This haibun is too vague and the haiku are not very good. But rough drafts are not about perfection and this is a good point of reference for future revision.
Without you, I would not understand the implication nor the full meanings of sacrifice and forgiveness. That which preachers propagate from the pulpit becomes words withered into meaningless metaphor when measured in stretch marks. After all, aren’t the gods supposed to lead by example, sacrifice and forgive to show us the way, their way? But you—you are merely human and no matter how deeply I cut my teeth into your heart with my selfish and foolish beliefs, you turned to me with compassion.
For Christmas you filled
My tights and life with lavish
Generosity
Even when I fought
To pull away, you promised
Not to turn from me
Without you, I would not understand the implication nor the full meanings of sacrifice and forgiveness. That which preachers propagate from the pulpit becomes words withered into meaningless metaphor when measured in stretch marks. After all, aren’t the gods supposed to lead by example, sacrifice and forgive to show us the way, their way? But you—you are merely human and no matter how deeply I cut my teeth into your heart with my selfish and foolish beliefs, you turned to me with compassion.
Because you had no
Insurance, you had your teeth
Pulled out one by one
Insurance, you had your teeth
Pulled out one by one
* * *
For Christmas you filled
My tights and life with lavish
Generosity
* * *
Even when I fought
To pull away, you promised
Not to turn from me
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