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Memoir as Medicine

A Healing Writing Workshop with Dr. Lissa Rankin and Nancy Slonim Aronie

"Every hard thing that's ever happened to you is memoir-making material." 

Have you ever thought of writing your memoir as part of your healing process? If so, you're not alone. Kick off your creativity in the New Year and join memoir writers and writing teachers Lissa Rankin, MD and Nancy Aronie as they join forces for six 2-hour live Zoom sessions over six weeks starting January 18th, 2023. Their healing writing workshop, based on Nancy's book Memoir as Medicine, will help you create beauty from the life challenges that made you who you are today. 

None of us would ever wish for heart-wrenching traumatic experiences so we'd have material for writing kick-ass memoirs.

But if you're a human on Planet Earth right now, that means you've experienced trauma. We can either get crushed by our traumas or we can choose to transform them into art as part of our medical and therapeutic treatment. 

All of our traumas are memoir-making material, and it's incredibly healing when we can alchemize our shit into gold.

Writing and sharing our stories while allowing the emotions that accompany them to flow through us in a safe, sacred space is a key part of the healing process. Usually, when we tell our painful stories in our own families, we're met with blame, shame, defensiveness, denial, gaslighting, delusion, attack, magical thinking, or spiritual bypassing, rather than the unconditional acceptance, love, and validation that helps us heal.

But if we write our memoir stories and have our heart-breaking and heart-opening stories witnessed, attuned to, mirrored, validated, co-regulated and even celebrated in safe brave spaces with other memoir writers, healing happens- Every. Single. Time. 
Not only can we create beautiful writing that helps us rewrite our trauma stories into stories of repair, resilience, and courage; we also get to help others with the stories we write, making meaning out of what happened to us and even turning our stories into service.

"Everyone has a story to tell and telling it is important. Sharing 'this is who I am, these are the things that shaped me, this is where I am now' allows a kind of magic and healing to happen." - Nancy Slonim Aronie, author of Memoir As Medicine

If you and your muse are already working on your memoir- or you're thinking about getting started, join Lissa Rankin, MD and Nancy Slonim Aronie for a 6 week Zoom class Memoir As Medicine.

We'll be using as our text for this class Lissa's first writing teacher Nancy Slonim Aronie's new book Memoir As Medicine and working through some of the creative prompts in the book. 

Nancy says, "I started the Chilmark Writing Workshop after I had been to writing groups that destroyed me and everyone else in the room. I learned early on that Creativity requires safety." We will create that safety, so your muse can create something spectacular!

"Everyone has a story to tell and telling it is important. Sharing 'this is who I am, these are the things that shaped me, this is where I am now' allows a kind of magic and healing to happen." -Nancy Slonim Aronie, author of Memoir As Medicine

Lissa knows personally how transformational that kind of safety can be for the creative process. 

Lissa had never written a book when she first took Nancy's Writing From The Heart workshop at Esalen in 2007, right after her father died, she had a baby, and she quit her job as a doctor in the wake of her Perfect Storm (aka memoir-making material.)

After that workshop, her first memoir flew out of her. Nancy and the community of other memoir writers opened up her writing voice, and although that first book didn't get published (Lissa had no "platform" at the time), she's published seven books since then, including two memoirs.

Owning, writing, and transforming your own story from pain into magnificence is worth doing purely for medicinal purposes, regardless of whether anybody else ever reads your writing. But some trauma survivors feel passionate about sharing the lessons they've learned from their memoir-making material and have a bee in their bonnets about helping others who are still in hell when they've been to hell and made it back with holy grails of wisdom.

Lissa and her team will discuss the business of publishing with regards to memoir writing for anyone interested in learning the nuts and bolts of what that takes. 

While you certainly don't have to publish your memoir in order to receive the healing benefits of writing it, sometimes holding your story in a book in your hands helps you get it out of your body and into something beautiful that can help others, even if you self publish it.

"If you’re writing, you’re a writer. Write like you’re a goddamn death row inmate and the governor is out of the country and there’s no chance for a pardon. Write like you’re clinging to the edge of a cliff, white knuckles, on your last breath, and you’ve got just one last thing to say, like you’re a bird flying over us and you can see everything, and please, for God’s sake, tell us something that will save us from ourselves. Take a deep breath and tell us your deepest, darkest secret, so we can wipe our brow and know that we’re not alone." -Alan Watts

The Workshop Program*

Six LIVE 2-hour Zoom Sessions with - with Lissa Ranking & Nancy Slonim Aronie

All sessions will be recorded and are available within 24 hours of each session.

* Session content subject to adjustment.

Session One
Wednesday, January 18th. 2023
9:00 am - 11:00 am Pacific Time
Creativity & The Muse Require Safety
- with Lissa & Nancy

Session Two
Wednesday, January 25th. 2023
9:00 am - 11:00 am Pacific Time
The Muse, The Critic, & Hurt Creative Parts: IFS & Memoir Writing 
- with Lissa & Nancy
Session Three
Wednesday, February 1st. 2023
9:00 am- 11:00 am Pacific Time
The Hero's/ Heroine's Journey: Transforming Your Sob Story
- with Lissa
Session Four
Wednesday, February 8th. 2023
9:00 am - 11:00 am Pacific Time
Structuring Your Memoir: Which Parts Do I Write?
- with Lissa & Nancy
Session Five
Wednesday, February 15th. 2023
9:00 am - 11:00 am Pacific Time
You Can't Always Be The Good Guy/Girl In Your Memoir
- with Lissa & Nancy
Session Six
Wednesday, February 22nd. 2023
9:00 am - 11:00 am Pacific Time
 Everything Can Be Milked As A Memoir Metaphor
-with Lissa & Nancy

+ Plus

Memoir as Medicine Companion Workbook
This workbook is designed to be a companion piece to the live workshop, but it can also be used as a standalone resource.
Writing a memoir can be a powerful and transformative experience. It allows us to process and make sense of our own experiences, and can provide us with a deeper understanding of ourselves and our place in the world. It can also be a cathartic and healing process, helping us to work through difficult emotions and experiences.

This workbook is organized into a series of exercises and prompts that will guide you through the process. Each exercise is designed to help you dig deeper and explore the stories and experiences that are most meaningful to you.
Writing a memoir can be a powerful and transformative experience. It allows us to process and make sense of our own experiences, and can provide us with a deeper understanding of ourselves and our place in the world. It can also be a cathartic and healing process, helping us to work through difficult emotions and experiences.

This workbook is organized into a series of exercises and prompts that will guide you through the process. Each exercise is designed to help you dig deeper and explore the stories and experiences that are most meaningful to you.

About Nancy Slonim Aronie

Nancy Slonim Aronie has been a commentator for National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. She was a Visiting Writer at Trinity College in Hartford, CT, wrote a monthly column in McCall’s magazine and was the recipient of the Eye of The Beholder Artist in Residence award at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Nancy won teacher of the year award for all three years she taught at Harvard University for Robert Coles.

She gives writing workshops and lectures at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, Omega Institute, Rowe Conference Center, Esalen, Wain-Wright House and The Open Center in New York City. She teaches at Harvard University.
Nancy Slonim Aronie is a force of nature. Her teachings inspire writers to speak their truth, to be more present in their lives, and to connect with others. Her approach centers around keeping a sense of safety and positivity at the center of the process.

Nancy writes, “If you feel safe, you can do anything. You can take the risk of saying this is who I am, this is what terrifies me, this is what moves me, this is what makes me laugh. When you take that risk, you dig deep. You will access your innocence, your truth and your vulnerability and then you cannot miss.”

She is the author of the book "Memoir as Medicine," which explores the use of writing as a means of healing and self-discovery.

In addition to "Memoir as Medicine," Aronie has also written a number of other books, including "Writing from the Heart: Tapping the Power of Your Inner Voice," "The Writing Life: Writers on How They Think and Work," and "The Writing Life: Writers on Love, Sex, Money, and Power."

Aronie is a strong advocate for the therapeutic benefits of writing and has used her own personal experiences with cancer and loss to inspire others to use writing as a means of self-exploration and healing. She has been featured in numerous media outlets, including the New York Times, the Boston Globe, and NPR, and has conducted writing workshops and retreats around the world.

About Lissa Rankin, MD

Lissa Rankin, MD believes that writing and healing can be intimately related and teaches writing workshops infused with trauma healing and spiritual healing, both in person and virtually. Lissa agrees with Nancy Aronie that trauma is memoir-making material, and we can alchemize our pain into the most beautiful story-telling when we feel safe for the muse to come out to play, in a community of other writers who also feel safe and can help us hold our story while we rewrite it as art. 

Lissa has been writing since kindergarten and was offered her first book deal when she was 12, which she turned down, since they were her private stories. She was a creative writing major at Duke University and wrote her first fiction book as her thesis on African American women's literature while in college. Throughout her medical training while becoming an OB/GYN, she wrote stories inspired by her patients and used writing to heal the moral injury she felt while working within a corrupt medical system. 

When she quit her job as a doctor in 2007, she finally succumbed to her lifelong desire to be a career writer. Her first book Broken, a memoir about her journey through the wounded health care system, never got published because she didn't have an audience. So at the urging of her literary agent, in 2009, Lissa began blogging and publishing The Daily Flame, a daily email love letter from your "Inner Pilot Light" to your wounded parts, based on the healing model Internal Family Systems (IFS), a trauma healing spiritual path which Lissa incorporates into all the healing and writing workshops she facilitates. 
Because her blog and Daily Flame emails quickly garnered a large readership, she was able to publish her first book in 2010 and has been blessed to have her last 7 books published. Her third book, the New York Times bestseller Mind Over Medicine, has sold over 300,000 copies in 28 languages. 

In addition to putting in her 100,000 hours and writing every day, in 2012, Lissa founded the Whole Health Medicine Institute, where she and a team of luminary faculty train physicians and other health care providers about “Whole Health” and the “6 Steps to Healing Yourself.” 

Lissa has starred in two National Public Television specials, her TEDx talks have been viewed over 5 million times, and she leads workshops, both online and at retreat centers like Esalen, 1440, Omega, and Kripalu. 

Her latest health equity project is non-profit work committed to democratizing trauma healing and spiritual healing while eliminating the public health epidemic of loneliness, bringing Sacred Medicine out of its current status as a luxury good to anyone who needs it and is open to it, regardless of socioeconomic status, race, or gender identity. 

Lissa lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her daughter Mira, who is also a writer, and her puppy Gaia, who would tell great stories if only she knew how.

only US $297
Enrollment for this workshop has ended. 
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Frequently Asked Questions:
Do you offer stipends?
If the cost of this program presents a financial hardship then we hope you will contact us for other options. Please write to support@lissarankin.com
How do I contact customer service?
Please contact us by sending an email to support@lissarankin.com
What kind of technology will I need in order to participate?
All you’ll need is a computer or a smartphone and internet access in order to participate. All live calls will be on Zoom.
What if I can't attend a session when it takes place ? 
All sessions are recorded so if you can't attend the live session you'll be able to soak up the juicy teachings, healing intentions, and spiritual energy of this course at any time it’s convenient for you.
© 2023 Lissa Rankin INC ·  All Rights Reserved

 

 

 

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