Writing the Heartache Online Workshop starts 4/15

Is there sorrow in your life? Grief due to loss? There is much heartache in life. Discover how writing helps to heal and even brings health.

The next five-week online writing course, Writing the Heartache, starts April 15th. Hope you can join us for a time of writing for healing, hope and health. Register by going to the link here.

Pamper Yourself this July!

Last year I took a leap of faith and hosted two all-day grief writing workshops in North Carolina. I've taught my "Writing the Heartache" Workshops at other people's seminars, but never on my own where I was responsible for locating the venue, serving lunch, advertising, etc.

I'm happy to announce that this summer I will offer another all-day workshop in Raleigh, NC. "Gateway Through Life's Losses" will be held at the Raleigh-Cary, NC Hampton Inn and Suites' Capital~Piedmont Room on July 30th from 8:30 AM to 4:15 PM.

This is a workshop for anyone who wants to write from any kind of loss (divorce, death of a loved one, financial, etc.) or from broken relationships. The grief/loss scope is wide.

Writing therapy is a wonderful gift you can give to yourself this summer! One of the participants from last year said that she had taken care of so many, now it was time to take care of herself and pamper herself with the workshop.

I've created a page on my website with all the details.

Please spread the word to all your friends and family in this area who could benefit from a day of healing, health, and hope.

Guest blogger

Joanne took my recent online Writing the Heartache Workshop and for one of her assignments, created this poem in memory of her son, Jim.


Precious Moments By the Sea

By Joanne Lose (Jim’s MOM)

The sun sparkles on ocean waves
Clear, bright and aqua blue
They walk along the lapping shore
Toes covered in a sandy glue

I watch as they walk on
Listen as the stories unfold
Laughter bounces on balmy breeze
They are precious to behold

This memory finds me often
The perfectness of us three
Sealed in my heart forever
Precious moments by the sea.

~*~*~
You can read more about Jim and the justice his mother and friends seek here .

Next Writing the Heartache Online Course --10/18-11/19

The next online Writing the Heartache Workshop starts on October 18 and runs for five weeks. This will be the last course offered this year, so sign up now!

Duirng our time together we will cover the following aspects of grief-writing:

1. Week One: Introduction - Getting to Know You
2. Week Two: Introducing Your Loved One Through Poetry
3. Week Three: Writing a Letter to Your Loved One and to Others
4. Week Four: Writing for Change - The Essay
5. Week Five: Writing for Publication

When Fathers Weep At Graves

I see them weep
The fathers at the stones
Taking off the brave armour
Forced to wear in the workplace
Clearing away the debris
With gentle fingers
Inhaling the sorrow
Diminished by anguish
Their hearts desiring what they cannot have
To walk hand in hand
With children no longer held
To all the fathers who leave a part
Of their hearts at the stones
May breezes underneath trees of time
Ease their pain
As they receive healing tears
. . . the gift the children give.

~ Alice J. Wisler

We welcome guest blogger, Kit Tosello

Unexpected Comfort
Guest post by Kit Tosello

FYI: When you’re a mom and you have a personal crisis, the world doesn’t stop.
You try to keep the balls in the air. You wash dishes and drive kids to school and say, "Have a great day, honey!" But your arms feel extra heavy and each word you speak takes deliberate effort.

And then there’s the hole. I discovered that grieving was like a dark gaping hole in the ground, luring me to its edge, daring me to confront my deepest hurts.
I had watched as my Mom gracefully shed her broken earthly body, and danced into heaven three days before last Christmas. It was a divinely beautiful, spiritually affirming moment.

So I looked up, beyond the ceiling of the yellow-painted hospital room and whispered, "Congratulations," and then I looked back at her delicate face – my mother’s face – for the very last time.

Then I collapsed into my twenty-year-old daughter’s arms. "I’m so afraid," I whispered.

"Of what?" she asked softly.

"Of tomorrow," I sobbed. "And the next day, and the day after. Of life without her."

During Alice Wisler’s online course, I found that writing kept me away from the pit. It exposed the monsters under my bed for what they were: fears and insecurities that lost their power when exposed to the light.

I’m sad today. My once-bouncey blonde cherub, who melted his Grandma’s heart when he curled up sweetly next to her while she napped, graduates from high school next Friday. I can’t hear Mom’s voice saying how proud she is of him. But I can scrawl my disappointment here on this page, before God, and find unexpected comfort.


About the writer:
Kit's blog, The High Desert Home Companion, is a "Kitchen Designer's take on life in Central Oregon." Visit her blog and read more.

A testimony of the power of the pen

Mourning the Death of a Relationship Through Writing the Heartache

Those words are not a dramatic statement, but are a beginning of acknowledging the loss of someone who lives yet acts as though you are dead.

For those who have experienced the loss of a loved one who has not died, there is hope and relief in the form of the Writing the Heartache workshop. For years I thought I was crazy; having assumed that the grief that never seemed to end was all in my head. Writing the Heartache showed me that the assumption was wrong; I wasn’t crazy, I was continually grieving.

For years I have been beating myself up for the choices made by another over which I had no control or influence. I had been blaming myself for causing the whole relationship to collapse. I had believed the lies, the tormenting taunts that if I had been a better sister, if I had done more to help her, if I had been there, if I had been more mature, if If IF. When you let the “ifs” take over, they conquer your whole life. If is only a possibility, it is not the truth, it is not an accurate reflection of what was nor is a suggestion of what will be.

The workshop is just as powerful when you are grieving the loss of a relationship as when you are grieving the loss of a person when you open your heart to the ministry of writing, open your mind to seeing another perspective and open your spirit to the ministering of God through the gift of writing what is in your heart.

When I first signed up for the workshop, I hoped it would help. Throughout the workshop I discovered a whole new reality than the one that I had believed in. I was able to see truths about myself, my sister, and my situation that I was not able to see before; as well as putting the past into perspective which I could not have done otherwise.

Pouring out the grief onto paper brought more healing than talking allowed for me. The words flowed freely and by releasing them, they lost their sting, their power over me and any affect they once had.

The assignments given were not complicated, but asked you to look into your heart, to see beyond the obvious and let go of those things that hindered you. When you put your heart in black and white you can see a whole palette of possibilities you could not see before. It is as though you are seeing the situation for the first time in Technicolor.

This workshop does not guarantee that you will share your epiphanies with the one who is gone from your life. There is no guarantee it will ever be made known to anyone but you. I do not plan to show these writings to my sister. This is something I did for me. It was worth every hour spent, every tear shed, and every heartache rending me again to gain the freedom and self-forgiveness. At the end of this workshop I can see my sister more clearly, I have a new perspective about what really happened, but more important I know myself better and can see a deeper truth about who I am.

This workshop is a gift you give yourself. It will continue to make a difference in your life long after you stop remembering you ever completed the assignments. Five weeks are an investment in yourself that never ceases to give rich dividends.

~ Written by one of the attendees of my Writing the Heartache online course and used with permission for this blog.

A little about why it works

I've been writing my pain out in one form or another for thirteen years now. I have journals, spiral notebooks, and computer files to prove my heart brokenness. In addition to writing, I've taught, shared, gone on retreats, led seminars and workshops. I've told women and men across the country that writing is an essential tool for healing as I've encouraged grievers to put pen to paper.

It works. And I continue to be amazed that a narrow pen and skinny notebook can serve as therapist, instructor, and healer. When we write from our pain due to loss, we release the bottled-up agony and let it loose on the pages. And what we learn is that the emotions are no longer loose, wandering about, uncontained. For once we spill them onto the page, they become clearer, believable, and we even gain understanding of why we feel like we do.

Writing from our heart's deep core is some of the best therapy there is.

It sounds simple, almost too simple. But I am one of its most avid advocates. As Alice Walker once said, "Writing saved me."

I want others to experience the benefits writing gives us---a gift, ready to be untied. And like many gifts, when you use it, it not only blesses you, but has the potential to be a blessing to others.

Welcome to a new blog: Writing the Heartache

Folks,

Thanks for joining me here, and welcome! This is the offical blog for Writing the Heartache!