If you’re new here, paid subscribers receive Story Work exercises every Sunday night at 8 pm et. Story Work: Field Notes on Self-Discovery and Reclaiming Your Narrative is the name of my new book (which is currently available for preorder!) The term describes my signature process of reflecting, 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. For the next few weeks, our story work theme is Life in Transition. This post is temporarily available to all subscribers.
Before we get into the new story work theme, here are some workshops I have coming up. (If you are interested in creative coaching, sign up here to receive early notifications about new offerings.)
Creative Courage Writing Intensive - Self-Study. The self-study version of the Creative Courage Writing Intensive offers a flexible, pressure-free way to engage deeply with the concepts and exercises on your own terms, with access to all recorded sessions and guides to support your creative growth. The self-study option will be available until July 31.
July 27. Writing as a Restorative Practice via The Writer’s Center. This workshop supports writers of all levels in overcoming creative blocks and burnout by exploring limiting beliefs, aligning with natural rhythms, and developing a sustainable, restorative writing practice.
August 3. Writing with Vulnerability and Creative Courage via Writing Workshops. This three-hour workshop helps writers cultivate the courage to explore vulnerable, meaningful stories by understanding their unique storyteller type, embracing creative vulnerability as a generous act, and building a sustainable, self-honoring writing practice.
weekly story work exercise
This is the fourth and final post of our current theme, Life in Transition. You can find other recent themes here. You can find all the archives here.
I don’t usually write from the middle of it.
When I’m in the middle of a storm, I often go into a freeze state, just trying to shelter in place. Typically, I can’t find words until the sky has cleared, the dust has settled, and I feel safe. I think I am more naturally a ‘hindsight writer’ in this way.
But this year, in my private writing, I’ve been making a deliberate effort to document as I go, to help me process what’s happening. This time in my life has been full of transitions and uncertainties, and I want to remember what this particular unraveling feels like.
I don’t want this chapter to blur into the past like so many others, where I come out of it thankful that I made it through, but not remembering how. I’m writing down what’s happening, what my faith is saying, what my fear is saying, and how I’m responding.
These private reflections will be field notes for my future self—the one who might look back into her journals searching for reminders that she can do hard things.
She will open the 2025 journal to find herself in the middle of a personal (and collective) reckoning. She will see a woman heartbroken over the destruction of democracy in her country, while continuing to lean into purpose, and creative community, and showing up for herself and others in all the ways she’s been called to do. She will look back and see that life was still full, meaningful, and joyful…
…even when things felt like they were falling apart.
In this series, we are exploring how life’s transitions—both chosen and unexpected—ask us to soften into uncertainty, release old stories, and listen more deeply to ourselves.
Today’s installment is an invitation:
Write what’s true now. Write from the middle of it.
What’s true for me now is that while my creative practice is thriving—I am celebrating the release of my first book of essays in a few months, I have beautiful clients and a community that lights me up, and I have more ideas than I have hours in the day to act on—the business part of my work is struggling.
This year has been slow. Painfully slow. Do-I-need-to-get-a-job kind of slow. Every time I log into Squarespace, it reminds me that my revenue is down 38% from this time last year. That’s just one income source, but all of them are down.
I’ve sustained myself through unexpected, non-business-related income and depleting my savings, all the while operating with an attitude that defies scarcity—steady in the belief that abundance comes in many forms, and that everything is working out for me.
But lately, my offerings haven’t been resonating or converting into steady client work the way they used to, and I’m sitting with what that means.
Whether you are self-employed or not, chances are you’ve faced a season when your work wasn’t fully meeting your needs:
Maybe you were doing work you loved: you felt inspired and aligned, but it wasn’t paying the bills, and the financial strain began to overshadow the fulfillment.
Or maybe the opposite was true: you had stability, a steady paycheck, and the kind of external success that looks good on paper. But inside, you felt disconnected, uninspired, or even trapped.
Oh, the tension between purpose and practicality.
This is a dance I’ve been learning for the past 12 years since I left my 9-5 life. Through all the highs and lows, I always return to the bottom line that I will never regret choosing to walk and work in my purpose, even though money worries have walked beside me the whole way.
Life is not forcing me to choose between purpose and practicality, it’s teaching me how to live in the in-between space, where things that once worked no longer do, and the next chapter hasn’t quite taken shape yet.
This space is uncomfortable. It’s asking me to get honest about what I’m outgrowing and brave enough to imagine what’s next from a place of love, not fear. It’s challenging me to maintain a growth mindset and recognize the overflow of my blessings even when the numbers in my bank account try to convince me otherwise.
On Monday, June 30, I wrote in my journal:
This is going to be part of my testimony.
This stretch of difficulty and contraction is not an ending. I can choose to see it as a launching pad, giving me the momentum I need to break through my own glass ceiling.
Which is why I’m writing now, from the middle of it. Writing to find strength in it.
Writing in hopes that these words might spark something for someone navigating a similar in-between. A time when something you love—something you’ve given your whole heart to—begins to change shape.
Maybe you’re grieving the chapter that’s closing. But I want to offer this: there is quiet hope in the surrender. Because in releasing what was, we begin to make space for what is meant to take its place.
You might feel lost, and you don’t know when or how you’ll feel found again. But one day you’ll tell the story of how you made it through. I’m claiming this for you, as I claim it for myself.
Writing from the middle and sharing before I’m on the other side feels strange but satisfying. It feels like an act of courage, showing life that I may be uncomfortable, but I’m not ashamed.
Because two of the deepest wounds I have faced in my healing journey are low self-worth and the fear of being seen and judged. And one of the ways I am reclaiming my power in those places is naming where I am. Letting myself be seen in the now.
And knowing—wholeheartedly—that the slowing of my business has nothing to do with my worth or the value of my work. That nothing is wrong with me, and I am not broken.
Y’all—my inner child is so proud that we’ve evolved to this place!
This place where my trust muscle is strong enough to not shrink with shame, but to stand steady in transparency. Speaking my truth. Offering my humanity. Because maybe the answers I’m seeking will arrive through this honesty and the ripple effect it creates.
On Thursday, June 22, I wrote:
I am listening. I am here. I am having a hard time. I am blessed and supported and deeply grateful. Something new is being born in me. I am afraid of change, but I welcome it. I am open to this growth. I have faith in this process.
I don’t know what’s being prepared for me. But I do know that the version of my career that brings financial ease and creative alignment is already here, waiting for me to fully claim it. And for reasons that I’m sure are rooted in healing and growth, I haven’t been ready.
And that’s okay. It takes the time it takes.
In Story Work, I talk about claiming authorship of your life and being creative about how you assign meaning to your experiences.
It is a powerful companion for being in transition. It helps you anchor into your identity through language. It gives meaning to the lostness, the messy middles, and liminal spaces. It affirms your progress—even when the path isn’t yet clear.
We don’t always get to choose what happens to us, but we do get to choose the story we tell about it.
In the past—and still sometimes, especially when I’m depleted—I’ve assigned disempowering meanings to my struggles. I’ve made hard seasons mean something about my worth, my ability, my potential.
Can you relate to that?
Through Story Work we ask ourselves: What assumptions am I making? What else could be true? How can I find strength, meaning, or a sense of empowerment within this experience, rather than letting it diminish me?
Reclaiming our stories always includes some kind of letting go. There’s old identities and outdated beliefs. There’s patterns and personas we once needed for safety or belonging. We thank them for their protection and set them free.
On Monday, June 9 , I wrote:
I’m releasing the version of myself who felt like she had to prove her worth through appearances, accomplishments, and possessions. Who felt like she needed to perform even when she was struggling.
I am embracing this version of me who is in transition and uncomfortable, but still rooted in my own definition of abundance. I am separating my worth from my bank account. I’m not going to let my ego stop me from growing through this experience.
It’s okay to outgrow old versions of ourselves. It’s not just okay—it’s essential.
The in-between is not sexy, but it is valid, it is worthy, and it is part of our becoming. None of it is shameful. All of it belongs.
Exercise:
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