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 Writing Circles for Healing is a way to express our authentic voice and to access our inner guidance. Self-reflective writing helps to heal illness, loss, grief, and life-altering transitions. Writing in a safe, supportive environment allows us to express our deepest feelings. By sharing our stories and listening to each other with empathetic, focused attention, we validate our experiences. We access our inner healer as we gain fresh perspectives on our lives and find courage and hope. We realize that we are not alone, that healing is a process, that we can encourage growth and self-awareness through paying attention to our intuition. Writing is a way to listen to the deepest self, to find our authentic voice, and to interpret our experience. It is a way to learn from the past, plan for the future, and to coach ourselves through a crisis. We can transform what may be painful into something profound and full of meaning through the process of writing, reading, and listening. Writing about trauma, loss, grief, illness, and life-altering transitions such as re-location or divorce can be therapeutic. By using simple techniques of spontaneous self-reflective writing and sharing our stories in a supportive environment, we experience commonality, connection, meaning, and wholeness. Transformation comes from understanding both the positive and the negative aspects of our experience as we delve deeper into its significance. We gain confidence in our ability to find hope, grace and renewal.
Story as Medicine From Clarissa Pinkoles Estes quoted in Radiance Magazine: "In this tradition a story is 'holy,' and it is used as medicine. The story is not told to lift you up, to make you feel better, or to entertain you, although all those things can be true. The story is meant to take the spirit into a descent to find something that is lost or missing and to bring it back to consciousness again."
photo courtesy of Peter Thorpe |
Wendy Brown-Báez is a writer, teacher, performance poet and installation artist. She has facilitated writing groups since 1994. She has managed shelters for the homeless and visited incarcerated adults and teens. She is trained as a hospice volunteer and as a facilitator of Monologue Life Stories. Wendy studied alternative healing, ceremony, and spiritual traditions with Earthwalks for Health and is a member of a woman's Moon Lodge. Wendy received 2008 and 2009 McKnight grants through COMPAS Community Art Program to teach writing workshops for at risk youth which developed into an art installation showcasing their recorded writings.
Wendy is a performance poet with vivid performances nationally and in Mexico, in cafes, bars, galleries, bookstores, schools, cultural centers, peace centers, writers groups, art festivals, women's retreats, and private homes, solo and in collaborations.
Wendy has published poetry and prose in numerous literary journals. She is the author of a poetry CD Longing for Home, a full-length collection Ceremonies of the Spirit (Plain View Press, 2009) and a chapbook transparencies of light (Finishing Line Press, 2011).
Wendy is available to speak to your writer's group, classroom or support group on the practice of creative writing, writing to heal, poetry on the page or on the stage, or to teach non-profit's staff and volunteers how to use writing as a therapeutic tool. |
testimonials: Hi Wendy, I just wanted to thank your for helping me get started with your writing workshop. I have been thinking about how therapeutic the writing has been for me, and how it has inspired me to write further. It has been very confidence building! Thanks again, Julie I was so impressed by your talents to teach; to create; to inspire; to yield stories from the heart. I loved being there, in fact, I would take your class over again--you have a very unique way of stimulating our stories. --Margareth Miller
"I attended a writing workshop led by Wendy during the 2008 Madeline Island Women's Weekend. Her ability to unlock the potential of the writer in each was contagious and an inspiration to those of us exploring for the first time getting our thoughts on paper, and the seasoned writers." --Elizabeth Ellis
“Wendy Brown-Baez was a marvelous teaching speaker without coming across as too heavy handed.” -J. T. “Wendy's presentation on form and structure was clear, very instructive, practical, and a great help in understanding the importance of consciously structuring our writing. Great job, Wendy!” – Shane N. “Wendy Brown-Baez was quite knowledgeable about poetry and it was a worthwhile evening.” –Kate O.
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Anyone is welcome to join our writing circles; you don't have to be a writer. Just show up with a pen and a notebook and a willingness to find your own words!
To contact Wendy:
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