Through memory, the past appears in bits and pieces. Through the lens of storytelling, though, the past reveals its secrets. In each stage of your story you will discover that your effort to overcome difficulties is the fuel that leads toward your story’s conclusion.

Life writing is about the past

When you are in the midst of an emotional challenge, you need tools today. The helpful alliance with a professional can offer you insights into the current crisis, as well as provide tools for helping you navigate through the storm. For longer term issues, and especially to sort out pains that emerge from earlier circumstances, you may also choose to reorganize your understanding of the past. In any such inquiry into the roots of your own development, writing can help.

Launching into emerging adulthood

When you finish biologically growing up, you must go out into the world. During this complex adjustment, you must develop relationships, career, and adult self image. Developing your story can help you claim your rightful place.

Grieving

After a loss, stories can help you find your way back to a life that makes sense. For one thing, stories can help you stay connected with the person you lost. For another, stories can help you gain courage to make sense of your new situation.

Midlife

After you’ve been an adult for a while, you begin to notice that the story of youth, when all things were possible, no longer seems to apply. A healthy, healing story can help you maintain energy and excitement.

If you’re feeling anxious or depressed

If your emotional state is distracting you from enjoying life, there are a variety of tools that can help you get back on track. When expanding your options, consider the power of finding the healthiest story you can tell about yourself. In your healthy story, you can heal from old wounds and add a more conscious courageous approach to the future.

Healing from trauma, abuse

Some disruptive events in the past leave emotional wounds years later. Repairing your story can help you recover from these disruptive memories, and restore a healthy sense of safety and purpose.

Other major changes in role or identity

At many times in our lives we must assume a new role. Now I’m a parent, then a grandparent. Now I’m a student, then a doctor. Now I’m a resident of one country. Then of another country. Now I’m married. Now I’m single again. As we move from one role into another, finding the new story can help us grow into and fulfill our best selves.

Healthy aging

As the decades pass, you look back on an increasing pile of memories. If you ignore these memories, they might seem jumbled. By gaining the habit of storywriting, you can reshape the past into the purposeful framework of a story, bringing you pleasure and energy in t

I offer individual memoir coaching

I’d love to help you write your story! I offer warm, nurturing, and insightful guidance to help you translate memories into memoirs.

This is for you if you:

• Are feeling the urge to write your story but not sure how to get started
• Want to turn a pile of anecdotes into a good story
• Need to talk through difficult memories with a writing coach
• Have completed a first draft and want to make it clearer, more compelling, and more emotionally rewarding for you and your readers

What you get with each 60 minute coaching session

• Supportive insightful coaching into specific challenges in your manuscript and in your writing life
• Comments on your writing (up to 1,500 words per session) to help you overcome challenges
• Writing assignments, suggestions, and a plan for further progress

If you already have a manuscript, let me read it

I will read your manuscript and give you feedback to help you identify areas that could benefit from further revision. I will provide a written report and also 2 hours of phone coaching to walk you through my suggestions and observations.

Contact me today to ask about rates and to set up a free initial 15 minute conversation.