To Give, To Receive, Many Gifts: Your free ticket to the Healing Through Writing Festival!
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Dear Courageous One, Thank you for reading my last newsletter . . . I appreciated the responses, and the abiding silence. Abiding: when we know that a listener has heard or read our words. We, and our words, have been received. It's a very alive and juicy sensation. Call it what you will: the quantum field, telepathy, indigestion. I know you’re reading, at least sometimes, and I’m very grateful to be received. Lately I’ve been talking and thinking a lot about that feeling of being received, a notion that defined Carl Rogers’ Person-Centered Therapy. It is SO precious. Everyone I work with as a therapist requires it. As we all do. We all need to be received. Every single human. And most mammals, in their way. This is a basic, evolutionary requirement: empathic connection. Witnessing. To listen—to receive an Other—is a sacred act. The more I listen, the more sacred it becomes. (Or, rather, the more I perceive the sacredness that’s inherent--it is and always has been there, as every three year old, and dog, knows.) We feel it not only with those who listen to us; also, with nature [so faithfully and constantly receiving us, oh this lovely earth!], with our animals, and, well, when people read our letters . . . One of you, a Christian pastor, booked a call to allow me to be . . . held, to be received more personally in my hurt for the pain and violence that continues in Gaza. The witness, witnessed. That was a rare and kind of tremulous experience for me. Par contre, interestingly, a couple people also unsubscribed. That’s okay. Sometimes, reality is so complicated and terrifying, it wears us out. It’s natural, even healthy, when we cannot bear even one more drop of it in our inbox. As Rich’AR says in The Good Fight, “I will pray for them!” The Good Fight is a brilliant, funny, satirical yet oh-so-real T.V. series about the challenges of a Black law firm in Chicago during the Everlasting Trump years. [ a long pause ] I was about to write something about Trump and his latest ‘bloodbath’ rally, but you know what? NO! Instead, read on for some very some good news! And a big gift to share widely . . . I’m honoured to be one of twenty+ facilitators offering the FREE (!) FOUR DAY Healing Through Writing Festival. You will be received! (You and your peeps—feel free to forward this letter!) Over twenty gifted educators, body-workers, writers, community-oriented folks who work with writing and healing invite you to come and work, play, and learn. They’ll be leading workshops that will help us all to use creativity, movement and writing to feel BETTER, on and off the page. The Healing Through Writing Festival will offer a wide variety of modalities and practices . . . And Janelle Hardy, the AMAZING organizer, is leading workshop-goers through the event step by step. Sign-up links will take you to a carefully crafted and guided festival experience. . . . I’m helping a little by spreading the word and . . . I’ll be holding my own LIVE workshop You can learn somatic practices, memoir-writing techniques and 20+ skilled healers and writers. I’m going to be talking about one of my fave topics (drum roll .. . eye roll, you decide!) Writing Sex and Sensuality! That’s next Tuesday, March 26th. LIVE, at 4:30 EST. I’ll also share some nervous system regulation tips for when writing is challenging for any or all the reasons. I'll demonstrate a simple technique for calming down by working with your eyes. I know, it totally sounds like snake oil, but it's just very basic neuroscience. Many of the workshops are shorter (30 minutes) and recorded . . . I’m in fantastic company—here are some of the workshops I want to attend myself: Ally Fallon (she/her), Writing Coach & Author of Write Your Story: Write Your Story With the Villain in Mind Chelene Knight (she/her), Writer, Creative Balance Coach: Let It Go: Free Yourself From Old Beliefs and Find a New Path to Joy Stella Stathi (she/her), Jungian/Somatic Practitioner Embodied Depth Work for the Midlife Journey Dr. Stephen Aizenstat, Author, The Imagination Matrix: Dream Tending and Imagination Sumaya Usmani (she/her), Author, Mentor and Writer: Writing: Belonging and Healing Janelle Hardy, our intrepid leader, has a live workshop on MEMOIR as Personal Mythmaking, which comes out of her mentorship program. and, perhaps my favourite workshop title ever, Madison Nees: How to Fuck It Up (really well): a workshop on letting go of getting it “right” & embracing your creative troublemaker (LIVE) You can get all the details about the Healing Through Writing Festival over here. <<<This is the same link as above and below; it's a sign-up page. Here’s the quick overview: Healing Through Writing RUNS from March 26-29
There’s more I’d love to tell you about this festival, but I’ll let you check out all the details for yourself. Here's the sign-up link again: Get your free ticket for the Healing Through Writing Festival today! Bon Courage, Karen |