MOLLY STILLMAN: How to Show Up on the Page (Despite Your Critics)
Have you ever had someone you respect critique your writing in an unhelpful way? Maybe they told you were “bad with grammar” or that you should stick to writing some other genre than the one you were currently practicing. On today’s episode, I talk to author Molly Stillman about her debut book, If …
CAIT WEST: Breaking Up With Christian Patriarchy
Cait West is the author of a brand new book called RIFT: A Memoir of breaking away from Christian Patriarchy. On today’s episode, we talk about what it was like to write such an important and personal story, how she escaped the chaos and control of her upbringing, and how she’s used writing to live…
When Your Story Ends In Tragedy…
We all hope our story has a happy ending. So what do we do when our story ends in tragedy? How do you write a hopeful story when you don’t get the outcome you were expecting? In this episode, I share with you a difficult set of circumstances I’ve been navigating, and how I have made peace with an “…
The Cost of Clarity
We ask for clarity, we say we want clarity, but when clarity tries to come, we also resist it. One of the reasons that clarity seems to elude us is that clarity is incredibly expensive. In today's episode, I’ll talk about what clarity costs us. What would you have to let go of in your life in order…
How to Tell the Truth While “Staying Positive”
Do you sometimes feel the tension between telling the truth about what happened to you and staying “positive”? Or maybe you’ve given up on staying positive altogether since your story includes tragedy or despair. In this episode, I come at this question head-on. I share an experience from my childh…
Rewriting Your Story in Real Time
In this episode, I share a highly practical real-life example of how I rewrote my story in real time. When I changed the way I was telling myself the story, I was able to reroute a travel experience from a frustrating and stressful one to one that was more peaceful and fun. I hope you find this sto…
JONATHAN MERRITT: Permission to Be Known
On today’s episode I talk with a dear friend and acclaimed writer Jonathan Merritt about the power of owning your story, about sharing your story even when it alienates you from your community and about his new beautiful children’s book called Me and My Guncle. If you’ve ever wondered what it might…
Why “Thinking Positive” Isn’t Enough
When rewriting a story from your life, it can be tempting to skip over the parts that are challenging or uncomfortable. But rewriting a story isn’t about ignoring the truth. It’s about integrating the truth into a higher Truth. How do you access a higher, better truth when the details of your story…
Telling the Same Story Again and Again…
Do you ever get the feeling like you’re telling the same story over and over again? The details may change (new boss, new partner, new hometown) but the cycle of the story stays the same. In today’s episode I talk about what to do when you seem to be stuck in the same frustrating story on repeat. I…
A Story I’ve Never Shared Before…
On this week’s episode of the Write Your Story podcast, I’m sharing a vulnerable story that I’ve never shared before. This is a story about leaving an important part of myself behind—how I realized she was gone, how I went back to find her, and how I am integrating her into my life now so I can liv…