Writing Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through Writing
The Writing Your Resilience Podcast is for anyone who wants to use the writing process to flip the script on the stories they’ve been telling themselves, because when we tell better stories about ourselves, we live better lives.
Every Thursday, host Lisa Cooper Ellison, an author, speaker, trauma-informed writing coach, and trauma survivor diagnosed with complex PTSD, interviews writers of tough, true stories, people who've developed incredible grit, and professionals in the field of psychology and healing who've studied resilience.
Over the past 7 years Lisa has taught writers how to write their resilience. Each time her clients and students have confronted the stories that no longer serve them, they’ve felt a little safer, become a little braver, and revealed more of their true selves. Now, with this podcast, she is creating a space for you to do this work too.
Equal parts instruction, motivation, and helpful guide, Writing Your Resilience is an opportunity for you to join a community of writers and professionals doing the work that helps us cultivate our authenticity and creativity.
More about Lisa Cooper Ellison: https://lisacooperellison.com
Get Your Free Ditch Your Inner Critic masterclass—your shortcut to a confident, S.H.I.F.T.ed mindset: https://lisacooperellison.com/subscribe/
Episodes
129 episodes
Summer Rewind: The Loneliness of Sibling Loss with Alyson Shelton and Lynn Shattuck
About this episode:I am currently on break so I can focus on my writing and some much-needed rest. Until I return with new episodes on September seventeenth, I’ve curated a summer rewind series of fan favorites. This week’s episode with Lynn Sh...
Linger in the Uncertainty: Jill Christman on Writing Through Grief and Loss
What do we carry with us from the people we love and lose, and how do we make a choice from the center of our grief? This week, I'm wrestling with these questions alongside memoirist Jill Christman, whose new book The Heart Folds Early...
Writing as the Language of Emotions: Lindz McLeod on Storytelling, Empathy, and Our Shared Humanity
What if understanding your characters (and your readers) came down to something as simple as a cup of coffee? In this episode, I sit down with author, writing coach, and rule-breaking storyteller Lindz McLeod to explore writing voice, character...
Are You Writing for Others or Yourself? How to Break Free From People-Pleasing as a Writer
About this episode: Have you ever said yes to something that felt like destiny, only to realize later it took you further from your goals? In this episode, I share a personal story about a writing group experience that taught me one of the most...
Writing, Healing, and Psychedelic Therapy: How Psilocybin, Set and Setting, and Integration Support Creative Resilience with Stacey Simmons
About this episode: With a recent executive order expediting the review of psychedelic drugs like psilocybin, psychedelic therapy is moving from the fringes into the national conversation — and this week's episode couldn't be...
Author Platform Strategy: Why Less Effort Gets Better Results with Human Design
Building an author platform can feel overwhelming, especially when you're doing it alone, on a budget, and wondering if any of it is actually working. In this episode, I sit down with author and adoptee advocate Patricia Knight Meyer to explore...
Author Platform Myths Debunked: How to Reach Readers Without Burning Out | Writing Resilience
Author platform doesn't have to mean performing for an algorithm or chasing followers who don't care about your work. In this episode, I break down what an author platform actually is, why the "magic formula" myth keeps so many writers stuck, a...
Building a Writing Career from Trauma: Book Launches, Platform Growth & Healing with Tia Levings
What does it really take to build a writing career out of your hardest story and stay whole while doing it? In this episode, I sit down with author Tia Levings, whose memoir A Well-Trained Wife has become an increasingly timely reckoni...
Why Writers Struggle to Find Flow — and the Simple Practices That Bring It Back
What does it really take to get into a state of creative flow and what pulls us out of it? In this Editor's Round Table episode, I’m joined by fellow editors Sarah Chauncey and Lynn Shattuck to explore the Law of Increasing Flow: a framework bu...
How to Stop Controlling Outcomes and Start Surrendering: Tools for Writers and Creatives
About this episode: Have you ever come to a point in your life where giving up was the way forward? If so, how was that different from defeat? In this episode, I unpack what healthy surrender really means, how it can actually strengthen r...
How to Discover Your True Writing Voice with Jeannine Ouellette
About this episode: This week, I’m joined by Jeannine Ouellette, author of The Part that Burns and a writing instructor whose deepest passion is using writing to connect us with our humanity. She sees the craft of writing as so ...
Silenced No More: How to Write the Story You've Been Afraid to Tell with Meagan Justus
In this Ask Me Anything session, writer and advocate Meagan Justus brings two questions that so many writers are quietly wrestling with. 1st: when you keep circling the core of your story without being able to reach it, do you shape what you ha...
Healing Your Ancestral Trauma: How Family Constellations Work Can Free You from Stories That Aren't Yours with Tania Gonzalez-Ortega
What if the stories we tell about ourselves aren't really ours, and what if we could finally trace them back to where they began? This is something I’ve been asking myself for years, and today I’m excited to share a few ways you can answe...
Human Design for Writers: How Understanding Your Design Unlocks Resilience, Creativity, and Deeper Healing with with Jessica Eure
What if the key to unlocking your creativity wasn't about doing more but about finally understanding who you are? In this episode, trauma therapist Jessica Eure and I explore how Human Design is transforming the way we wo...
Find Your Life's Purpose One Feeling at a Time: A Human Design Approach to Alignment
Resources for this Episode: Get Your Free Human Design Report Ditch Your Inner Critic Now&nb...
How I Escaped Iran & Wrote My Way to Freedom | My Name Means Fire Author Atash Yaghmaian
What if the condition that made your life unmanageable was also the source of your greatest gifts? In this episode, I sit down with Atash Yaghmaian, a therapist, activist, and author of My Name Means Fire, to explore how writing became...
Creative Intuition: The Skill That Makes Life and Work Easier
Would you like to know when to say yes or no, how to tell which piece of feedback is right for you or your book, or how to proceed with greater ease? If you’re working on a book, would you like to spend more time having your characters tell you...
How Writers Keep Going When They’re Exhausted, Overwhelmed, and Doubting Themselves
How do you keep the faith when your nervous system is fried, your heart is tired, and the world feels like too much? In this editors’ roundtable episode, I’m joined by Kristin Sancken and Lynn Shattuck for an honest conversation about wha...
How to Write a Memoir When You Don’t Remember Everything (Memory, Trauma & Emotional Truth) with Sue William Silverman
What do you do when the memory you need most for your memoir is the one you can’t quite reach? You listen to this week’s guest, Sue William Silverman. Sue is the award-winning author of nine works of nonfiction and poetry and co-chair of the MF...
Can You Trust Your Memories? What Neuroscience Reveals About Trauma, Story, and Healing with Stacey Simmons
Listeners, do you ever wonder if your memories are real? Are you writing a memoir and struggling to remember something—or worrying that what you’re sharing might not be “the truth”? Today on Writing Your Resilience, I’m joined by psych...
How to Write About Trauma Without Traumatizing Your Reader with Melissa Fraterrigo
Writers, are you writing about trauma and wondering how detailed to get or how to connect the dots when your story feels scattered? The solution might be a memoir in essays that allows you to write about powerful discreet moments that are...
Memoir Writing Mistakes: Why “This Happened, Then This Happened” Isn’t a Memoir with Wendy Dale
This week, I’m joined by Wendy Dale, the author of The Memoir Engineering System, for a conversation that will change the way you think about structure, scenes, and what actually makes a memoir work. We talk about why “this happened, t...
Entering the Fire Horse Year: The 3 Things Writers Must Do to Reclaim Momentum
As we step into 2026, many writers feel ready to begin—yet remain stalled or exhausted from the year before. In this episode, I show you how to reclaim momentum through creative alignment and the one thing you must do to harness your success. W...
Encore Episode: Breaking the Silence with Melanie Brooks
In this encore conversation, author and teacher Melanie Brooks and I explore the lifelong impact of silence—within our families, our communities, and our writing lives. Drawing from her memoir, A Hard Silence, Melanie shares how unspok...
Encore Episode: Writing about Absent Fathers and Attachment Styles with Acamea Deadwiler
Join me and Pushcart Nominee, TedX Speaker, and multi-passionate creative, Acamea Deadwiler for this encore episode where we talk about normalized violence, how our attachment styles can influence the way we approach our memoirs, and the import...