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/
Writing Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through Writing
Breaking the Silence with Melanie Brooks
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Melanie Brooks joins the Writing Your Resilience Podcast to speak about her book, A Hard Silence: One Daughter Remaps Family, Grief, and Faith When HIV/AIDS Changes It All. This is the book she once struggled to write about her father's death. In today's episode, we'll explore the powerful impact silence has on you and how to break through it.
Before we get to this conversation, I have a few questions for you. What role has silence played in your writing and in your life? Has it ever been helpful? Has it ever held you back? If you could learn one thing about it, what would that be? How could learning this help you become more resilient?
Melanie Brooks is the author of A Hard Silence: One Daughter Remaps Family, Grief, and Faith When HIV/AIDS Changes It All (Vine Leaves Press, September 2023) and Writing Hard Stories: Celebrated Memoirists Who Shaped Art from Trauma (Beacon Press, 2017). She teaches professional writing at Northeastern University and creative nonfiction in the MFA program at Bay Path University in Massachusetts. She holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast writing program. She recently completed a Certificate of Narrative Medicine at Columbia University. Her work has appeared in Psychology Today, the HuffPost, Yankee Magazine, the Washington Post, Ms. Magazine, Creative Nonfiction, and other notable publications. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband, two children (when they are home from college), and two Labs.
Episode Highlights
- 2:55: The pain of living with secrets
- 5:54: Navigating anticipatory grief
- 15:45: The transformative power of finishing your story
- 20:00 The magic of timing and the stories we tell ourselves
- 26:00 The influence of narrative medicine on Melanie’s story
- 30:00 Marrying two stories into one
- 37:00 Melanie’s best writing advice
Connect with Melanie:
Website: melaniebrooks.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/melanie.brooks.1690
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melaniejmbrookswriter
X: https://twitter.com/MelanieJMBrooks
LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/melanie-brooks-504826121
Get Melanie’s book: https://bookshop.org/p/books/a-hard-silence-one-daughter-remaps-family-grief-and-faith-when-hiv-aids-changes-it-all-melanie-brooks/20151761?ean=9783988320209
Connect with your host, Lisa:
Get Your Free Copy of Write More, Fret Less: https://lisacooperellison.com/newsletter-subscribe/
Website: https://lisacooperellison.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lisacooperellison/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UColPDzpoQlVktIv7-f7ObRg
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lisacooperellison/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-ellison-b5483840/
Sign up for Find the Memoir Structure that Works for You: https://janefriedman.com/find-the-memoir-structure-that-works-for-you-with-lisa-cooper-ellison/
Produced by Espresso Podcast Production: https://www.espressopodcastproduction.com
Visit https://lisacooperellison.com/yourdesign/ and use promo code RESILIENCE to get 30% off your foundational report.
Visit https://lisacooperellison.com/yourdesign/ and use promo code RESILIENCE to get 30% off your foundational report.
Building Better Memoir Scenes: https://janefriedman.com/building-better-memoir-scenes-with-lisa-cooper-ellison/
Connect with your host, Lisa:
Get Your Free Copy of Ditch Your Inner Critic: https://lisacooperellison.com/subscribe/
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Produced by Espresso Podcast Production
