In 2014, when I was recovering from a rocky marriage and divorce, I longed for a compassionate community that would understand my experience. I considered volunteering with Younity—then called Womanspace—and thought starting a writing group would be a healing experience. But back then, I was busy rebuilding my life and short on time. I relegated the idea to the back of my mind, where it lay dormant for years.
In the fall of 2024, almost a decade later, the idea to begin a writing group crossed my mind again when I relocated to Mercer County. I was now older and wiser, a more refined teacher and writer. Maybe now was the right time to finally begin that writing group…or was it? I went on a long walk to sort out my thoughts. As my inner critic tried to dissuade me, I came across a playing card on the sidewalk from a game called Flesh and Blood, one of those fantasy, Dungeons and Dragons-adjacent card games. I picked the card up, flipped it over, and saw the words that would embolden me: The Bolt of Courage.
That evening, I wrote a letter to Younity proposing the idea and soon connected with Susan Victor (Younity’s Chief Operating Officer, Client & Community Services), who was enthusiastic and supportive. “You know, it’s funny—I was just thinking about something like this,” she said when we first met. Rumi said that “What you seek is seeking you,” and this felt like one of those moments. An impulse that had been building up inside of me for years had been a part of the collective unconscious all along.
We decided to run the writing group for eight sessions over Zoom with volunteers—a wonderful group of women I feel honored to know—starting in late January 2025. For each session, I prepared a prompt accompanied by a reading to serve as inspiration. I chose from writers who have deeply moved me: Terry Tempest Williams, Chanel Miller, Meredith Hall, Maggie Smith, Mary Simmerling, and Lauren Slater. I also did some research about writing groups and discovered a wonderful writer and teacher named Pat Schneider, who created the Amherst Writers Method. In her book, Writing Alone and With Others, Schneider outlines five essential affirmations that shaped the ethos of her writing groups, which I shared with our writers at our first session: everyone has a strong unique voice; everyone is born with creative genius; writing is an art form that belongs to the people, regardless of economic class or education level; the teaching of craft can be done without damage to original voice or artistic self-esteem; and a writer is someone who writes. Schneider died in 2020, but her egalitarian principles survive her. Were she alive today, I would offer her my gratitude for being our lodestar.
I could tell after our first meeting in January that I would want to hear everything this group of women had to say. Sharing at each session was encouraged but always optional. Writers didn’t share their writing at every session, nor did I want them to feel pressured to do so. Over time, however, each writer courageously shared with our group, and I carry their stories in my heart. These women amused me, made me laugh, and broke my heart; they shared everything, and they made me feel everything.
When we write, we make sense of our lives and render the disjointed chaos of our human experience into a coherent narrative. When we integrate traumatic events and dark periods into a larger life story, we process complex emotions and make peace with our past. Throughout our time together, our writers shared the benefits they experienced in writing and sharing their stories within the context of our supportive community. One woman mentioned that she frequently traveled, always trying to escape her pain. During the pandemic, she was forced to slow down and travel inward. In writing with our group, she continued this internal journey, examining aspects of her past she previously had not felt ready to confront. Another woman emailed me that the writing was “a challenge, but cleansing at the same time.” Yet another one of our writers, who aspires to publish a book about her experiences, emailed me to express her appreciation for how the writing group helped her be more intentional in her writing process. She felt less alone as a result of writing and hoped her stories would offer solace to readers who feel alienated by their trauma.
Of course, I was thrilled to hear that our writers were growing, healing, processing their pain, and even making art from it. I know from my own experience–in both scattershot journaling as well as more sustained, focused projects–the curative power of writing. But the good news is, this healing is not mere anecdotal reportage; expressive writing has tangible, scientifically-proven benefits. Psychologist James Pennebaker found in his research that “Writing about important personal experiences in an emotional way for as little as 15 minutes over the course of three days brings about improvements in mental and physical health. This finding has been replicated across age, gender, culture, social class, and personality type.”
Another gift of storytelling is that the stories we tell ourselves about our lives are not static. They can change over time with maturity and perspective. We can reframe old events with newfound compassion for ourselves. We can challenge old stories we’ve been telling ourselves for years, or even decades, in light of personal growth and insight. This reappraisal can be empowering. As author George Saunders puts it, “Reconsideration in hard; it takes courage. We have to deny ourselves the comfort of always being the same person, one who arrived at an answer some time ago and has never had any reason to doubt it. In other words, we have to stay open (easy to say, in that confident, New Age way, but so hard to actually do, in the face of actual, grinding, terrifying life).”
Indeed, staying openhearted in a world that can be cruel and punishing is no easy task; this is why practicing openheartedness within the context of a supportive community, like the one we established with our volunteers, is helpful. Our writing group valued creative expression and nonjudgmental listening. Essentially, it was a miniature retreat so we could feel more whole and brave when we re-entered the world. Retreating is not an act of passivity; it is a powerful act of self-care that allows us to carry on with the business of living.
All of our writing sessions were meaningful, but one session stands out to me in particular: the evening we read Mary Simmerling’s poem, “What I Was Wearing,” in which she describes what she wore the night she was sexually assaulted. I offered the following prompt: Use your memory of what you were wearing at a specific moment to tell a story you want to tell. (If you want to delve into and unpack a traumatic event, you may, but you do not have to.) Oftentimes, recalling small details— like what we were wearing—can trigger related memories. Like Simmerling, you may want to use what you were wearing to make a point.
One woman shared a story about choosing a beautiful, colorful outfit for her 40th birthday after going through a dark period in her life. As she read, I shared the joy she experienced in celebrating herself and appreciating her beauty. Another woman shared a brutal story about her sexual assault, which shattered me and brought me to tears.
This session reminded me of how hard it is to feel everything. In order to feel anything, we have to be willing to feel everything; numbing ourselves to pain also numbs our joy. Allowing ourselves to feel the full weight of our humanity and sharing that humanity with others–that takes courage. I am so grateful to the volunteers at Younity for sharing their courage with me.
