How Writing From the Heart Transformed My Life

It could change yours too

Photo by freestocks on Unsplash

Today I emailed a friend who used to work with me at Retreat West, which is the creative venture I started in 2012, to thank her for inadvertently changing my life for the better. Little did I know that when she encouraged me to start writing a personal newsletter to the email list once a month, she would set me on the path to finding a new calling with my writing and teaching. I knew in the back of my mind that I wanted, needed, to change how I was doing things but I felt stuck and couldn’t figure out how or what I needed to do. So I carried on doing what I was already doing.

I started writing the personal newsletters for Retreat West once a month and I never planned in advance what I would say but sat down and wrote from the heart each time. And what my heart had to say was that writing fictional stories for competition deadlines and specific publication opportunities wasn't enough for me anymore. I started talking about just writing for the love of it, to get better at it, to learn something about ourselves and being human, to grow, change and adapt.

But lots of the people subscribed to Retreat West weren’t into this and every time I sent one of these emails we would get loads of unsubscribes. So it was decided I would stop. But I had discovered something about myself in writing them. That writing fictional stories and teaching courses solely focused on writing fiction was no longer where my heart lay. I needed to make my courses and workshops more heart-centred so that they encompass who we are as writers, not just what we write. To discover what the meaning in it is for us and what we’re writing for.

I started looking inside myself for the answers to that and came to understand that writing, since I started doing it mindfully, makes me well. It helps me to process my emotions, my past, my present and an imagined future. It allows me to put myself in others’ shoes and grow my empathy and compassion. It helps to connect me to people, both through the writing we do together and through the strangers my words reach who get in touch and let me know how they have been touched by them.

But writing didn’t always make me well. I used to be angsty and obsessive about it and that was a part of being angsty and obsessive in general due to unprocessed trauma, because I was living unhealthily, and as I had no mindfulness in my life.

Having worked with writers now for almost 20 years, I know that many of us have a difficult relationship with our writing. We compare ourselves to others and come up short. We question our right to write. We feel like imposters. We find it hard to deal with the inevitable ‘no thank yous’ that come with submitting our work to agents, publishers and journals. We get scared to really let the truth come out in our work so we censor ourselves.

All of this has been on my mind since I first started writing here on Substack in February 2023, just a few months after I turned 50 which felt like a huge and positive turning point in my life. It has guided the development of the Year of Mindful Writing course I launched at the start of this year, and it has led me to spend this year learning new skills to support my teaching and working with writers in new ways.

Writing The Mindful Writer and developing that course has led me to launch a new creative venture where I can bring all of this together. Also called The Mindful Writer, it’s where I align fiction, memoir, life writing and wellbeing so that we can use our words to heal ourselves, others, and our world. I really believe that how we develop our craft, and the relationships we have with ourselves and others, are crucial in helping us to build the world we want to see.

The new website has just gone live and to celebrate this new exciting chapter of my life, and to thank you for investing your time in subscribing and reading and commenting on what I share here, you can get a 10% discount on any of the courses, at anytime using the code TOGETHER at checkout. The discount code will never expire.

The course I am really excited about is The Well Writer, which is available as a group course and as a 1-1 coaching course working directly with me. I can’t wait to get started!

I am also running Zoom workshops and the first one is scheduled for 7th December: Self-Compassion Journalling for Writers. As the first place we have to start changing things is in the relationship we have with ourselves, and with our writing.

If any of what I’m saying resonates with you, then I hope you’ll come take a course or a workshop with me. I will still be writing here every week and sharing my journey and ideas for living and writing mindfully but I want to work more closely with people so that we can keep helping each other to heal, to get better at writing, and to connect more open-heartedly with everyone and everything in our world.

We live in a challenging and divisive world and I want us all to use our words to bring us closer together again, to show us ways we can live in peace and joy despite the times we find ourselves living in.

With love,

---

P.S. This weekend is the first Mindful Writing Marathon and I am really looking forward to that too and would love to see you there!