Write Yourself Free

Six Week Creative Processing Group Begins April 6th: Sign Up Now

Dear Readers,

This year I have wanted to emphasize the importance of being in person, putting my phone down, and doing the hard work of sitting face to face. I long to be with bodies in a room and feel the joy and the friction of being in relationship, even when it’s not convenient, even when I don’t want to leave my bathtub. It has been my life’s work to gather people together with a shared purpose. In 2005 I started running a restaurant that became an impromptu gathering place for painters, musicians, writers, graffiti artists, single parents, sculptures, graphic novelists, people exploring edges of all kinds. Love Hive Yoga became an extension of that work, and as I have moved into being a therapist over the last five years, I feel somewhat isolated. Therapy is no longer in person so much as it is online, and I have felt called—again—to create places for us to gather, to exchange energy, ideas, stories, and feelings. Most particularly, our stories. Your stories.

In my writing practice, I find myself confronting what is true, versus what might be the more palatable performance of truth. The question: am I really allowed to say this? comes up all the time. Writing pushes me to wonder about who’s voice is telling me I’m not. Who is that voice protecting and why? And, when I am brave enough to say the thing, to write what’s real, I set myself free.

         “Writing is a form of freedom more accessible than many and there are forces at  
          work that would like to withhold it from those whose stories most threaten the
          regimes that govern this society. Fuck them. Write your life. 
         ― Melissa Febos, Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative

There has been no meditation or compassion practice more potent than writing the most awful, awkward, and wonderful truths. I learn by writing. I use my secrets to make something beautiful.

I create a home for myself through writing. I see my own patterns and judgement rise up again and again so that I can place my flawed humanity in the family of things and call myself whole. I watch as the way in which I tell the story ebbs and flows like an ocean, opening my heart and mind to something that simply wasn’t there before—something new. Writing is a place where what lies below the surface of awareness can emerge as insight and meaningful change. I often wonder what my mind would be like without writing.

There is no more potent—or accessible—medium through which to meet each other. Let’s write together as a form of resistance, as an act of courage, as alchemy, and as a way to practice listening and being witnessed.

The two groups I will be facilitating are open to 10 women/nonbinary identifying folks. We will use the six weeks to read, to imagine, to write, to share, and to practice telling the truth. You will be invited to create a daily writing ritual to support the group work. You will write, and wake up your inner artist, and bear witness to others doing the same. In this group we will focus on creative personal narrative and poetry.

No writing experience necessary. No compulsory sharing.

There will be one in person group, and one online group. Please register here.

The groups begin the first week of April. I am looking forward to seeing you there.

I really like this talk about the healing potential of writing with Cheryl Strayed and Thomas Hübl that came out last week. Very timely with all the things I have been dreaming up for this group. Maybe it will inspire you to join.

Big love,

Audra