the right invitation
If you’re new here, Story Work is the name of my current book-in-progress. It describes a process of reflection, reclaiming, and reimagining the stories of our lives. It involves looking at your life experiences as creative material that you have the power to shape. Paid subscribers receive Story Work exercises every Sunday night at 8 pm et. If you are interested in receiving this weekly flow of self-reflection ideas for your writing practice, plus access to our monthly group journaling session, The Practice, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Read on for a preview of our weekly exercise.
For the next few weeks, our theme is The Makings of Courage and what we’re exploring here is how creative blocks come from emotional blocks. Last week, the post was about the chakras (the body’s energy centers) and how stagnant energy in our bodies impacts the way we experience life and express ourselves. When the throat chakra is not free to transmit our truth into the world because shame, guilt, regret, blame, and so on, our ability to manifest our creative callings is limited. One way or another, to access creative courage, we need to address the pain, shame, and conditioning that block us from fuller expression.
Last week’s exercise was to practice activating our throat chakras by reading and journaling from Audre Lorde’s essay, “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action.” When we feel stifled creatively, reading and journaling are two powerful ways to open our throat chakras and allow more authentic expression to come through.
In the Creative Courage Writing Intensive, which is open for enrollment, we spend time identifying more practices—which are unique to each of us— that we can build into our lives to help us get unblocked.
This week’s story work exercise is about finding an inviting path out of your comfort zone that adds meaning to your life and doesn’t feel forced.