Writing for Growth - Starting Tonight!

I wanted to take a moment to talk about a class that Mark Rogers and I have put together. It's called Writing for Growth, and we are offering the class beginning tonight... Wednesday, August 17th.

• Are you a writer who's currently blocked or having trouble pushing through the next stage of your writing? 
• Have you ever been curious about taking your journal writing deeper, but not sure how or where to start? 
• Are you into personal growth and looking for a new and more effective way to grow?

Writing for Growth is an exciting prospect, full of possibilities. And to prove it to you, we are beginning this class with a freebie! Join us tonight, August 17th for a free class, to see what you think and see if the techniques provided will work for you.

Check out the three posts Mark has written about how Writing for Growth can help you. And, check out my posts about how passionate I am about this project, and what skills I bring to the table. 

Please go to the About page on the website to sign up. 

And of course, we have a Facebook page!

Just a note... If you aren't interested, or if you can't participate, but you know someone who would-- please do pass this message along!

Why Writing is So Important to Me

"Words are tears that have been written down. Tears are words that need to be shed. Without them, joy loses all its brilliance and sadness has no end. Thank you, then, for your tears." ~ Paulo Coelho

As an extrovert who posed as an introvert for most of my life, I think I have an interesting perspective on using writing as a way of expressing myself.

Growing up, I was overwhelmed with all the experiences I had in my day-to-day life. I went through all these things, but I didn’t seem to have a good way to process what I was going through.

As I mentioned before… I started writing. In fact, one of the first things I wrote in my very first journal at the age of 9 was this poem:

Some People

Some people are happy,

some people are sad,
some people are mad,
and some people just don't understand.

But most of all,

people are different and have different feelings.
So don't feel left out
just because you have different feelings,
because you can only be you,
and no one else.

Um, yeah. I was 9. I promise!

Writing began as my lifeline.

In college, I wrote a lot to counterbalance all of the pain my mind was opened up to, as I learned about the state of education and our schools around the country, as I learned more about politics, foreign nations, and the plight of third world countries. My world opened wide, my heart hurt for those I could not touch, and I needed an outlet.

And it was writing.

In those college years and shortly after… writing was sometimes the only thing that helped me maintain any semblance of sanity.

During my senior year in college, I took a non-credit class called Creative Inquiry. The facilitator helped us delve into what makes us creative individuals and why that makes us special. At the end of that class, the facilitator gave me a gift: Natalie Goldberg’s volume, Long Quiet Highway.

In that book, I read about Natalie starting a writing group. I instantly knew that I wanted to do the same.

In 2004, my journey as a writer took a new turn when I created that writing group. This wasn’t a typical critique group, though. Those are a dime a dozen, and available just about anywhere. This group was a writing practice group, where I created lessons including snippets from experienced writers, writing exercises, and then sharing those exercises.

It became a safe place for budding writers to dive deep into their potential, shake things up, and see what happened.

At the beginning of the four year stint that I facilitated the group, I started out completely unable to write fiction. I wrote angsty prose about my life that really wasn’t terribly interesting to read. I didn’t go very deep, I didn’t process much, and it felt… empty.

At the end of that four years, though, I was writing well-crafted fiction and personal stories that were interesting, and at times even deeply moving. I not only grew on a personal level, but my writing progressed exponentially because of the type of lessons we did during our meetings.

I am bringing some of the same exercises to Writing for Growth, and with Mark’s psychology background, we have created a really exciting class.

I think we are born with all the wisdom we really need. And as a wise man recently said… we’re born with all the genius we need, but during the violence of birth, we forget.

And we spend the rest of our lives trying to remember why we were placed here in the first place, and learning how to allow that person to be.

I have felt that journey very deeply over the last year of my life, as I have learned how to better express myself verbally as well as in writing.

And I’ve learned quite a bit in my journey.

I’ve seen how writing has helped me, at times, when nothing else could. I am positively passionate about writing, the impact that writing can have on your life, the way it can help shape you, and how it can help you grow.

And now, I have a whole new attitude towards expression, freedom, and writing, and I am excited to share it in Writing for Growth.

Won’t you join us? 

(And please... like us on Facebook?)

Why Write?

If you’re an extrovert, it’s easy to “tell your stories” isn’t it? If your friends let you off the hook, you never get to dig deeper to gain understanding, knowledge, or growth from experiences—you get to stay in story land indefinitely. And sometimes, it feels like you’re on a ferry, shuffling back and forth between “here” and “there”. It feels like you're not really growing, or progressing.

And sometimes, it’s worse than that. You process all your “stuff” with your friends or family. But if your friends/family (or the appropriate friends/family) aren’t available, you do it with whoever’s available.

Can you say… drama? And how much does that really help you, anyway?

What if you could find a way to process in a healthy way, a different way, a better way?

It’s not about reading yet another self-help book. It’s not about reading another book at all, actually.

"Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things aren't. I'm not surprised some people prefer books. Books make sense of life. The only problem is that the lives they make sense of are other people's lives, never your own." – Flaubert’s Parrot, by Julian Barnes

What if you could find a way to make sense of your own stories… your own life? What if you could quiet the compulsion to read every self-help book with an English translation?

What Pathways and other experience-based training courses do within the training is amazing—especially for extroverts. We get to open up wide and process, right there in front of everyone. And we get help to do it, too.

But what about after the training is over? Do you ever find yourself wanting to call up your small group and get in a circle, chair legs touching, so you can really get to the bottom of things?

Well, good—you’ve acknowledged that you need help to understand what’s going on in your heart. But real life doesn’t quite work like a small group, does it?

What’s even more powerful, though—is learning how to get those earth-shattering realizations, light bulb moments, epiphanies—by doing powerful processing—all by yourself.

How?

Well, allow me offer my own perspective…

I am a writer, first and foremost. I’ve been writing since I was old enough to hold a crayon. I couldn’t wait to learn how to write my name, and then—what else could I write? Well, my family’s names, of course. Jill. David. Wendy. Paula. It kind of exploded from there. 

And then, there was that day when my friend Amanda Baker gave me a journal when I was 9 years old.

It was a spare, she said.
She didn’t need it, she said.

It’s telling that that was the start of it all for me. I wrote stories, I wrote out my angst, my worries (I had so many back then), and it was the very beginning of my life long healing process.

You never know what small and seemingly insignificant acts of kindness can do for someone. I’m sure Amanda never expected me to start writing—and never stop. I didn’t expect it either. All I knew was that I had a lot to say, and no one to talk to.

No one, except my diary.

Even writing blog posts helps me grow. The experiences I have with life, with day-to-day living—they soak into my psyche, and I have to do something to work through whatever is troubling my heart. Writing is one of my best tools for that, and when I write, I am able to turn off the noise in my brain to the point where my hand moving across the page essentially translates what’s coming straight from my heart.

I process it. I think about it. I realize things… and then, I find a way to incorporate what I’ve learned into the next set of choices I make—while also letting go of the pain I felt during the experience.

And, in my day-to-day writing (which—I feel it’s important for you to know—I journal by hand every day), I realize things. I get those light-bulb moments because I am well-practiced at it.

And now, I’m ready to help others who want to try this writing thing out as a way of growing on a deeply personal level. 

I’m so excited for our Writing for Growth class to begin. I have a nearly endless repertoire of techniques, exercises, and insight to offer so that you can use one of man’s greatest tools—writing—to grow yourself.

And the added bonus is—we’ll meet in a small group format. So you’ll also have a chance to connect in a meaningful way with other like-minded folks, each on his or her own journey.

Mark has the psychology background, and he has many years of experience helping people grow. He has eloquently described what it’s like for introverts in the training. Check out his three recent posts.

And regardless of whether you have or haven’t been through Pathways, or Zac’s, or Discovery, or any other experience-based training, Writing for Growth may be just the thing that helps you get to the next level. It may lead you on a journey you never knew you could take.

If you've been curious to try writing, in any capacity, then please...

Join us, won’t you?

(We start August 10th. All details at the website! You can also "Like" us on Facebook!)