june writing prompts + the courage to worry

plus a new book giveaway + june workshop offerings

Thank you for being here! A quick reminder before today’s post. There are four spots left in this summer’s Creative Courage Writing Intensive. More details on that below.

write with us

Hi everyone. How are you, really and actually? Below I’m sharing a mental health update of sorts, how anxiety and worry has been affecting me lately.

My creative practice is a necessity, a valued coping mechanism that transmutes my nervous energy. Part of my practice is sharing these prompt lists and offering a free writing workshop for my subscribers on the first Friday of each month.

If you’re new here, I provide these lists to spark an idea or train of thought that gets you writing. When you read the prompt, what memories, images, feelings, or thoughts come to mind? Using these prompts as writing triggers, you can explore your voice and creative impulses in a playful, no-stress way.

To write with us in community, you can join us for the Writing the Layers free monthly workshop, a virtual safe space for adult writers — from beginners to seasoned hobbyists to professionals — to nurture their writing practice and connect with other writers. We use the prompt list to do freewrites, and participants have the opportunity to share, listen, discuss, and come away feeling inspired and replenished.

Our next one is this Friday, June 7 from 7 - 8 pm et on Zoom. You can RSVP to join us here. New faces are always welcome.

add this to your summer TBR list and grab a copy here

author visit (open to all subscribers) and book giveaway

Starting in June, our monthly author visits will be open to all subscribers, however, the archived videos will only be available to Inner Story members.

Our June author chat will be with the lovely

Ashley M. Coleman

, a writer, author, music industry executive, and community builder. She is also the founder of Permission to Write, a membership for writers that believes in community and accountability over competition. 

She has been a dear friend since my blogging days, and a source of collaboration and inspiration along the way.

Her first traditionally published book, Good Morning, Love, is a contemporary romance novel that examines the uncertainty of being a new professional in the music industry looking to chase a dream while also trying to survive in a world that’s not always kind to ambitious women.

We are going to help Ashley celebrate the two-year anniversary of Good Morning, Love. We will chat about the book, her writing journey, and her creative process.

Our chat will take place on Saturday, June 22 from 11 am - 12 pm et. You can RSVP here.

As for the giveaways, there will be two of them: one on Instagram (details coming soon) and one open to those who attend the author chat. You can purchase a copy of Good Morning, Love here.

anxiety coping mechanism: thrift store book shopping

the courage to worry

The first thing my therapist, let’s call her Andrea, always asks in our weekly sessions is, “How are you feeling?”

In last week’s session, I responded by repeating her question. “How am I feeling? Worried.”

I notice my body language on the Zoom screen. My arms are crossed against my chest, my hands rubbing my shoulders, self-soothing.

Andrea responds, “What are you worried about?”

I say, “What am I not worried about.” Seems like an easier question to answer.

She says, “Okay. Tell me what’s going on.”

I start airing it all out. I tell her that my worry is a parasite attaching itself to whatever comes to mind, whatever crosses my line of vision, whatever enters my field of awareness. I zoom into the intimate world of my family and loved ones and I worry. I zoom out to the state of the world and I worry. Life is fragile. Pain is everywhere. What’s next?

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I’ve lived with varying degrees of anxiety throughout my adult life, white-knuckling and self-medicating through the years. As a young adult trying to prove myself, I figured that everyone worries and struggles with anxiety to some extent. Diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder in 2018, I learned the difference between occasional or situational anxiety and the spectrum of anxiety disorders that cause pervasive, often irrational fear that many of us experience daily, affecting our lives in disruptive ways.

I track it on a scale of 1 - 10, with 1 being no worries, 5 being moderate, and 10 being absolute panic. On the low end of the scale, it doesn’t affect my daily activities. In the middle, it interferes with some daily activities, and in the upper range, it interferes with every moment of daily functioning. I’ve been hanging out between 4 - 5 lately. On the morning of this therapy session, I was at a 6, and I was thankful for the privilege of professional help.

Now that I’m resourced with self-care and mindfulness practices, medication, therapy, and community, I’m able to take much better care of myself and get support before it gets to the panic end of the scale.

It helps to talk, write, and share about it outside of therapy, too.

Before I started opening up, I wrapped shame around it, tried to negate it from my public persona, thinking that giving it more attention would not only make it worse, but would also cause people to treat me differently.

Over the years, well-intentioned folks have told me to seek a closer relationship with God to strengthen my faith. Ignore the lurking dread and focus on things that make me feel good. Feel the fear and push past it. Write and affirm: I’m free of worry, I’m free of worry, I’m free of worry enough times, and it will become true.

But none of these things have been healing for me in any sustainable way. When driven, I can dig deep and push past the fear with my survival instincts, but it’s hard on my body and I still become dysregulated, still go into a fight/flight/freeze/fawn response, and still tend to get stuck there in constant anticipation of the next trigger. (If you’re not familiar with survival responses, I recommend reading this beautiful overview by

Beth Anne Fisher

about polyvagal theory and the nervous system.)

What has been helpful is the integrative approach of acknowledging the fear as part of my mind’s way of trying to protect me. I have to let myself feel it, acknowledge it, get curious about it.

The racing thoughts, the cramping stomach, the clenched jaw, the shaking hands, the tension in my back, my heartbeat in my ears, the fatigue, the heaviness, the dissociation. Of course my instinct is to resist it. Tell it to just go away.

But when I sit with this primal language that speaks through my body and allow myself to listen to it, I find new ways to open up and understand what it’s trying to tell me. Only then can I begin to relate to the worry in a different way and redirect that energy.

I give myself permission to worry, knowing that I can find wisdom in it. That I can transmute that energy if I have the courage to face it.

In Wisdom of Anxiety, Sheryl Paul says:

“For anxiety is both the wound and the messenger, and at the core of the message is an invitation to wake up. In order to decipher the specifics of its messages, we have to shift from a mindset of shame, which sees anxiety as evidence of brokenness, to a mindset of curiosity, which recognizes that anxiety is evidence of our sensitive heart, our imaginative mind, and our soul’s desire to grow toward wholeness.”

…

I told Andrea that when I got on the call with her I was at a 6, but by the end of our time, I was at a 4. It feels good to talk about the worry, normalize it as a part of my experience, instead of pretending it’s not there like I used to. We talked about separating what we can control from what we can’t, and consciously designing lives that support our special needs while still honoring our dreams and values.

It was my own emotional complexities that led me to create the Creative Courage framework, to help other purpose-driven folks use writing as a method to face the fears that block their fullest expression. In the three-month course, I share techniques for embracing vulnerability and incorporating self-care into the creative process to unlock your creative potential.

Registration closes this Thursday, June 6, or when all spots are full. There are four spots left. You can learn more here.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this! Please share with me in the comments.

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Please note: This is not advice from a mental health professional. I’m speaking from my lived experience and offering up ideas for healing through creative practice. Here are a few mental health resources for educational purposes and finding support:

National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)
National Institute of Mental Health (NIH)
Psychology Today
Therapy for Black Girls
Talk Space
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

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drop in and write with the community this month:

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June 7. Free Monthly Writing Workshop // 7 - 8 pm et

June 13 - August 22. Creative Courage Writing Intensive // 6 - 8 pm et

June 22. Author visit w/ Ashley M. Coleman // 11 am - 12 pm et

June 26. Practice Session #16 - Group Journaling w/ guest Erica D’Eramo // 7 - 8:30 pm et (free for paid subscribers or $15 drop-in fee)

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take a class with me through the writer’s center:

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June 23. Vulnerability in Personal Storytelling // 1 - 4 pm et