Your Story Can Change The World

We, as women, have stories to share. We, as women, have examples of coming together in yards and coffee houses and kitchens and conference rooms to confide to one another these stories. We, as women, have kept journals and secrets.  We have longings and desires. We have dreams we have yet to fulfill. We have faced challenges, trials and traumas and have acquired capacities, resilience and wisdom.  

We also have conditioned to deny, minimize and not speak our truth. We have been conditioned to not take up too much space.

And we have learned traditional and masculine ways to write and respond to writing.  

We need something entirely new–guidance and instruction that speaks to our WHOLE being, not just our minds.

We need spaces that honor and emphasize feminine qualities and powers.   

Writing is a healing and transformational modality and a way to express ourselves and document our life stories. When I studied writing years ago at the University of Arizona, traditional writing classes provided information on writing theory and opportunities to receive coaching and feedback. The traditional approach practiced in writing workshops is for the writer to contribute their work, keep quiet, take the criticism and go revise their work until it matches what the critics want. The writer had no voice whatsoever in the process. These spaces often prevented women, and even men, from sharing their authentic stories.

Fear of criticism, ridicule and a focus on what’s wrong can shut down creativity and potentialities and silence our voices.   

If the acorn is to become an oak and a very unattractive-looking bulb an exquisite lily, the right conditions are needed. Each individual contains numerous acorns, numerous bulbs. These acorns, these bulbs, are the many small and large transformational moments, memories, dreams, questions, understandings, misunderstandings and stories that lie latent within us.

If provided time, space and loving and compassionate attention, what lies latent within will have the chance to bloom and better our world. 

I’ve been blessed to have teachers and mentors and colleagues who said NO to traditional tendencies. Joy Harjo, who is now serving as America’s poet laureate, was one of my graduate school professors.  Her way of creating a safe and nurturing space that allowed creativity to flourish was entirely different than almost every single workshop I had experienced.  She effectively guided her students to build upon the possibilities and potentialities of their writing. Her way of being and teaching influenced my own practices as a professor. 

What are some of the ways in my Mindful Writing workshop will inspire you to mine for the gems of wisdom—those transformational moments and experiences in your life— and to write about them with clarity and conviction and as an act of service?  

• You will receive mindful and whole writing methods and strategies to develop your ideas into writing that touches hearts, serves and inspires. You will not disappear yourself into a how-to list but present yourself and your story.

• You will learn about WHOLE practices (body, mind, spirit, social) that develop the potentialities of your work and create authentic, innovative and vibrant writing that flows through you.

• You will learn about busting through “the prison of self,” the ego, the greatest of all prisons. Often the biggest block to writing is yourself—your fears and doubts, your tendencies to worry about what others will think.

• You will experience some laughter as we tap into diverse energies that exist within you and support you to discover the wide range of your own voice. We are warriors. We are lovers. We are sovereign. We are magical. We are the children we once were. We are our wise future selves. We are divine beings.

• You will honor your own feminine energies and superpowers through inspiration on how to listen to your heart, the songs of your spirit, and treasure those songs. Intuition, clarity of mind and connecting in a spirit of curiosity are among our superpowers.

• You will receive encouragement and guidance to aim for truthfulness, your north star, the foundation of all other virtues, the most necessary ingredient for personal and social change and for the betterment of the world.

So. . . What are your stories? What moments of your life – the joyful, the challenging, the expanding – have not yet been mined and written about?

Our personal stories are part of the collective, part of the whole. They are the gifts we give one another.  They connect and unite us.  They liberate us and our communities.  They matter.

I invite you to register today for my first two workshops in 2021, January 16 and 30th. The workshops build upon each other; they can be taken individually at $79 each or together at $100 for both. These experiential workshops will provide you a way to see the many moments of your life that, when written about, become gems and gifts that illumine our world. Click here to register.

Kim Douglas is a writer, educator and speaker with undergraduate and graduate degrees in creative writing from the University of Arizona and 28 years of experience as a college professor in Arizona and Michigan.  She has served on several boards to advance women, to provide arts education to underserved populations and to promote racial understanding and justice. She is a certified leader with Feminine Power and Health Coach with Sears Wellness Institute. She has owned a nutritional franchise for the past 15 years and is a national marketing director with the Juice Plus+ company.

Kim has a deep appreciation and respect for how sharing our stories of transformation, experience and wisdom is an act of service that can inspire personal, professional and social change. She is an expert at helping women see powerful writing possibilities from their own day-to-day personal and professional experiences, their challenges, and their trials. 

As an educator and transformational writing coach, she sees writing as a healing and transformational modality and now teaches online. Her 8-week writing program launches in February 2021 and provides a unique and whole approach designed to support women to move from their fears and doubts about their capacities to developing the confidence and skills to translate their ideas into an ongoing blog, a book or a legacy project, and to see their efforts as an act of service. 

She is also a mom of four adult daughters, “Kiki” (grandmother) to four grandsons and wife to a supportive and talented educator and counselor who is gifted with nurturing the hearts and talents of children and youth.  

Kim Douglas is the author of “High Desert: A Journey of Survival and Hope” and a co-author with Kevin Locke of “Arising.”