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.

Program 2009 Wellness & Writing Connections Conference
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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Because you had no
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

Writing for Wellness Chapter One

I wrote the following in response to the exercise in Chapter One of Writing for Wellness by Julie Davey. This is a very rough draft (very very even) and I suppose I ought to apologize for the American haiku when it would be better for me to try to create one more traditional. I will try to do so when I revise. In the meantime, the rough draft in all its rough glory.

* * * * *

These apron ties that bind us grow stronger as life and experience continues. Now a new thread connects us. Two conditions. Similar experiences. We know the exhaustion of mindfulness as we measure each move we make, look to the horizon to assess the weather dreading anything inclement. We know the cost of going through the motions while weighed down with something incurable. Her neuropathy. My vertigo. Across the telephone we agree, say in empathy, “I know. I know. I know.”

* * *

these things that hold us
together are not
as lasting as love

* * *

could it be the times
I had benign lumps
my love went too far?

* * *

some things are unchanged
like how my hand in yours still
feels so much smaller

too small to hold on
when letting go becomes so
inevitable

What A Difference Two Years Make

Today I did a lovely walking meditation. I first spent 10 minutes in seated meditation and then followed that with 20 minutes of walking meditation, basically pacing, very slowly, the span of the great room. Romanov watched me for a while but then decided it was entirely too boring and moved to lie in the kitchen.

Contrary to some assumptions, walking slowly requires much more balance than walking naturally. In other words, my choosing to do this is a triumph over the vertigo. It takes concentration and mindfulness.

This is how I live even when I move “naturally,” always aware of the slight shifts in my balance and making adjustments accordingly. I used a cd that came along with a book I have on walking meditation. Two years ago when I received this book/dvd/cd combination, I read the book (devoured it, really) and watched the dvd. I listened to the cd but I did all of these things in my bed, unable to participate in it actively. Instead, I visualized myself, focused my intention upon the day when I would do the meditation as it is presented.

And today I listened to the seated meditation practice and then allowed myself to explore the first walking meditation. Listening to Anh-Huong Nguyen soft voice reminded me very much of the first time I heard Thich Nhat Hanh speak. The only word I could come up with to describe it was/is Peace. I followed her delicate guidance throughout the thirty minutes and when the time was done, I just let the silence, disturbed only by the sound of my various wind chimes, embrace me.

It is a lovely day for me. A gracious and gentle day. I feel so wonderful for doing something today that was impossible for me two years ago.

Below is a portion of the video included in the book—Thich Nhat Hanh leading a discussion on walking meditation. The dvd that comes with the book is longer but this will give you an idea of what it is I am describing.

The Power of Self-Talk

Today I looked at my resume again and noticed a mistake. I sat there, my jaw literally dropped. About once a month I update my resume in some manner—usually changing a few words here and there. I do the same thing with my cover letter and less than two weeks ago I was horrified to realize that there was an incomplete sentence in my cover letter.

Naturally, seeing this glaring error in my resume caused a flurry of fearful thoughts. How many jobs received this horrible resume from me? Why did I not notice this mistake previously? Should I reapply to those positions or just move forward with my now corrected resume and consider the previous jobs to which I applied a hopeless and lost cause?

Then came the more self-abusive questions. What is wrong with me? How could I not notice this mistake before? And after I already sent out that messed up cover letter, why am I continuing to sabotage myself? How could I be so stupid? So careless? How do I expect to get a job when I can’t even be professional enough to write something that isn’t a riddled with mistakes?

I didn’t indulge in this for more than a few instants.
I stopped. I breathed deeply. Then I replaced the thoughts with more gentle and compassionate words.

You are imperfect and made a mistake. That's okay. You are now aware of the mistakes and have already corrected them. You can update your resume on the various job search sites and do the same with your cover letter. There are other
jobs to which you can apply. Move forward. If you have the time, you can always go and reapply to the previous positions with the corrected copy of your resume and cover letter. The people who saw the incorrect ones would not recognize you if they passed you on the street so it won’t have far-reaching repercussions. Life goes on. So shall you.

I made a conscientious effort to say more positive things than I had negative. I chose to replace the self-abusive thoughts with more loving encouraging words. In essence, I said what I would to my children, reassuring them in the face of a seeming disaster in hopes of empowering them to move on.

No matter how often I remind myself to do so, I still need to be reminded to be as gentle with myself as I try to be with others. It’s good to see, I’m still open to learning and trying to learn from my mistakes.