Thank you
, , , , and many others, for tuning into yesterday’s Write the Hard Thing Live to write and ground together.This gathering is an invitation to pause, ground, and touch into the stories we’ve been carrying, the ones that feel heavy, avoided, or tucked away. The rhythm is always the same: ground, write, ground. We breathe on either side of the writing because hard stories can activate old fear, anxiety, or grief, and grounding helps create the safety we need to let truth rise to the surface.
We write for just ten minutes. That limit is intentional. Ten minutes is long enough to hit the emotional heat, but short enough to keep the mind from talking us out of what we most need to say. It’s a small, repeatable practice, one that builds safety and trust with your body and your story, week after week.
This week’s prompt came from my own memoir, The One Who Leaves, which I’ve been serializing here since March. I shared about being evicted from our home when my dad’s meth lab collapsed because he could no longer get the chemicals he needed to make it, and how that loss eventually opened a doorway to chosen family—neighbors who showed me, for the first time, what stability and love could feel like.
So the Write the Hard Thing prompt was:
Write about the first time someone outside of your family made you feel like you belonged.
Maybe it was a teacher, a neighbor, a friend’s parent, or even a stranger, just someone who didn’t have to, but showed up anyway. Hell, it could even be a TV show, a tree, something you felt safe with, that made you feel seen.
Here are a few of the titles that surfaced in the session…
A Safe Place -
The Same Deep Water as You -
(Inspired by The Cure. I love this title!)Mine was Budding Angst
For me, it circled back to music, and a neighbor (a different one from the memoir chapter) who tossed Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill into my lap one afternoon. I didn’t know it yet, but it was an offering. Connection through rage and loss and song. We were just kids, awkward and searching, both of us motherless in one way or another, our budding angst threading itself through the music. The fury, the ache, the unapologetic dysfunction of youth. Suddenly, it wasn’t just my anger. It wasn’t just my grief. It was ours, blaring from a cheap CD player that ran on batteries, while we sat in sun-warped plastic chairs stacked like thrones.
Sometimes belonging doesn’t look like safety or stability in the traditional sense. Sometimes it’s finding someone willing to sit in the fire with you, who hands you the soundtrack to everything you never had words for. Something that says: you’re not crazy, you’re not alone, yeah, this is totally fucked, but hey, we’re in it together. The smallest gestures become anchors. Anchors that still hold, even years later.
That’s the beauty of this practice, you never know where ten minutes will take you, only that if you show up, something true will surface. If you feel called, drop your own title or a single line from your writing in the comments. This space is yours as much as it is mine.
We’ll be back again next week with the same rhythm, but a different prompt. If you want to join us, bring your breath, your body, and your story. You don’t have to do this alone.
How Does It Work?:
Free Live writing every week (20 min total: 10 min writing, plus short grounding practice before/after). Here’s the next one.
All subscribers receive a notification when I’m Live, and I’ll also send a reminder in the chat 12-48 hours beforehand.
Replay will be available for all subscribers (in case you need to write on your own time).
Show up as you are. Come late if you need. Even one minute of writing is a win. You never know what’s going to show up.
And remember, don’t overthink. Just write.
The Flow:
The first 5 minutes will be a brief welcome and grounding.
I’ll give the prompt (use it or follow your own thread).
We’ll write for 10 minutes, together. I’ll let you know when you have one minute left.
We’ll close with a short, regulating breath or body practice.
You can drop off quietly or stick around to ask a question in the chat.
Why Just 10 Minutes?
Because we’re gently retraining the body to believe this is safe.
Ten minutes, over and over again, becomes a practice. A pathway back to yourself. It’s long enough to begin but short enough to stay present. It’s doable, and over time, the body builds trust, which is the whole point. We’re creating a container (a safe, repeatable experience) where your nervous system can learn that it’s safe to tell the truth. We’re offering it new evidence, rewiring the way it relates to the stories we’ve been afraid to touch.
When are the next sessions?
Thursday, September 18th at 12:00pm ET
Friday, September 26th at 12:00pm ET
Friday, October 3rd at 4:00pm ET (I’ll be in Portugal, so this might change)
Join me for my next live here.
These sessions are just a glimpse of what’s possible when we write the hard thing in community. On September 20th, I’ll be guiding Let the Body Tell the Story, a two-hour workshop where we’ll explore how to build safety in the body, reframe fear, and begin to tell the stories we’ve been circling. If your body has been carrying something heavy, maybe it’s time to set it down.
