You’re Invited—Somatic Writing Workshop on Saturday
Join us for Mapping the Ecology of Our Lives this Saturday 6/27 at Noon ET
Hi loves,
Before I tell you about the workshop, I just want to say thank you.
This little corner of the internet has become something I never could have imagined when I started sharing my writing here. What evolved as a place to serialize my memoir has become a place where we gather around stories, around writing, around healing, around the strange and beautiful, sometimes brutal work of paying attention to our lives.
Many of you have read chapters of my memoir, attended live sessions, replied to essays with your own stories, and trusted me with pieces of your lives. I don’t take any of that lightly. I’m so grateful you’re here.
Every season, I open one Inner Room workshop to my paid subscribers. And I’d love for you to join us for this one.
Mapping the Ecology of Our Lives
Saturday, June 27 at 12pm ET
One of the things I’ve noticed in my own writing is that when I sit down to tell the story of my life, I almost always rush toward the hardest thing. The addiction. The prison sentences. The police raids. The grief. The thing that changed everything. And while those stories matter, they’re never the whole story. There was an entire landscape surrounding every difficult thing I’ve ever lived through.
Together, we’ll slow down and widen the lens. We’ll spend time in the body. We’ll write and reflect and connect, and we’ll follow threads we may have overlooked and get curious about the larger web of experiences that made us who we are.
Every time I teach this kind of work, something surprising happens. Someone remembers a detail they haven’t thought about in years. Someone realizes the story they’ve been telling isn’t the whole story. Someone reconnects with a part of themselves they thought was lost. Someone discovers that alongside the grief, there was also beauty, that alongside the wound, there was also resilience and things that helped carry them through.
It’s one of my favorite kinds of writing to do and to hold space for because it reminds us that we are always bigger than the hardest thing that happened to us.
No preparation needed. You don’t need to know what you’ll write about. You don’t need to have the right story. Just bring yourself, something to write with, and a willingness to be curious.
I would love to see you there.
See the Zoom link below.
There is something that happens when women gather around their stories with this kind of intention. Something I can’t fully explain, but that I’ve watched happen again and again inside my somatic writing community, The Inner Room.
Here’s what some of the women in our community have said…
“My writing has so needed a home to land in. A place to be unleashed. And what you provide has proven such a fertile ground for me.”
“I am finding the support and accountability that I needed to show up for my writing on a regular basis. The Inner Room has been a safety net for me.”
“Being in community and the spaces that Jessy creates is what brought me here. Connecting over stories is such an essential piece to our humanity. It feels special and necessary to encourage us all to use our voice in the most authentic and impactful ways that we each can.”
“I’ve attended some of Jessy’s ‘Write the Hard Thing’ lives and so appreciate her focus on cultivating somatic safety, which is what drew me to this nurturing community.”
“I really value being in groups where we can be raw and real and honest. I’m in awe of all of you who’ve shared. Thank you for creating such a safe and welcoming space, Jessy.”
“From these beautiful sessions, I have learned I need to write about the thing I am running away from.”
This is the room. And there’s space for you in it.
What makes The Inner Room different from other writing spaces is that we begin with the body. Every session starts with grounding. Breath. Orientation. A way of arriving that lets your nervous system know it’s safe enough to go to the hard places. You learn how to open a difficult memory without being swallowed by it.
We gather each week in live writing circles where we breathe, write, and witness each other’s work. Once a month, we go deeper with workshops on memoir, voice, resistance, and the writing life—all held through a nervous-system-informed lens. There are open mics, a private community space, and a room full of thoughtful women who are doing the brave, sustained work of writing their hard stories and helping each other stay with it.
The steadiness of the room, the repetition of return, the presence of other women inside the same process—that’s where the real shift happens. Over time, the page stops feeling like a cliff edge. You stop circling the hard story. You start living in relationship with it.
You don’t have to do this work alone.
Our summer season begins on July 1 and runs through September 30. That said, there’s never a wrong time to join. The work is ongoing. You’re welcome to join now or later—the door is always open. The membership is for three months, no matter when you start. People find their place exactly where they are.
Our weekly hour-long writing circles are either on Thursday at 8pm ET or on Saturdays at noon ET. If you can’t join live, there’s a replay available and the private community space where I share all the prompts and somatic practices.
Here’s what we’ll be exploring together in the summer season:
Write the Want: On Women’s Desire, Hunger & Aliveness
Saturday, July 25 at noon ET
It’s summer, and the body knows things we’ve spent years learning to quiet. We write toward desire — not just romantic wanting, but the full hunger of a life. What you’ve been afraid to ask for. What got buried alongside the hard things. What’s been waiting.
The Shape of Your Attention
Saturday, August 22 at noon ET
This workshop is taught by guest teacher and Inner Room member Michelle Dowd, author of Forager: Field Notes for Surviving a Family Cult. Together we’ll practice paying attention to our own attention—mining the writers who influenced us and discovering how the subjects that won’t leave us alone can become a compass for our creative lives.
Who’s Telling the Story: Finding Your Narrative Persona
Saturday, September 26 at noon ET
The voice you write from changes everything—its tone, its angle of vision, what it chooses to see and what it leaves out. In this workshop, we’ll use writing and breath to ask: who is actually approaching this story, right now, at this moment in my life? Bring a piece you’re working on, or simply a story that’s been waiting.
Learn more about The Inner Room here.
I hope I’ll see you Saturday. <3