Hi friends,
I am excited you’re here to experience the Brave The Page book club on my Substack. Each week, I’ll share a short video (ten minutes) with a special reading from a chapter and a writing prompt for you to engage with at your own time. I'll also break down what I was processing when I wrote each chapter. Feel free to share in the comments your favorite quotes from the introduction or what takeaways this left with you.
When I wrote this introduction, it was important that it be titled “Hello, Body.” So much of this book, even though it is about the power of writing our stories, is also about the stories within our bodies that are often hidden until we begin listening to our lives speak. I start the book with this paragraph: “Our bodies are storytellers, holding the pages of our lives inside. Some pages are tucked away in drawers we’ve forgotten about. Some pages have been crumpled up, burned, and put through the shredder, but still, they are there in our bodies, even if we can’t see them. So much of the healing process is about uncovering these displaced pages that have formed us over the years, so we can begin transforming those fragmented stories into a cohesive whole.”
Throughout Brave The Page, the body is central to the narrative. I take you through my personal body narrative to illustrate how it brings our stories to life, beginning this introduction with my childhood illness, Scleroderma. I have written about this illness briefly, but never in this much detail. It was essential to bring to the page because, as I researched my body as a storyteller in graduate school, understanding the psychosomatic impacts of the illness was a necessary part of my research.
After you read this introduction, I’d love for you to consider your own body’s story as you read this section from the book, ‘“Our skin, muscles, and organs store emotions that are repressed during trauma; our bodies can become holding cells for our anger, sadness, worry, and despair. “We are all living history books. Our bodies contain our histories—every chapter, line, and verse of every event and relationship in our lives,” Caroline Myss explains. “As our lives unfold, our biological health becomes a living, breathing, biographical statement that conveys our strengths, weaknesses, hopes, and fears.”’
“The work I’ve discovered over the years is to understand that my body is not my enemy but instead my historian, my advocate, my storyteller, and my brilliant friend. She offers me gifts wrapped in skin and language, full of wisdom, waiting for me to open them. As poet Mary Oliver writes about being given “a box full of darkness,” I, too, have come to understand that such a thing can indeed be a gift. This reframe around the body can seem so contradictory. Still, when we approach the body’s story with compassionate listening, we can heal our narrative one chapter at a time.”
+ Please go through the introduction and highlight the lines that speak to you, write them down, and jot a short note about why you think that resonates in this season of your life.
+ Dig into the “Hello, Body” writing prompt, but write Hello, body at the top of a piece of paper and write a short letter to them. Then, after you are done, have your body write back to you. Feel free to do this as many times as you want. The goal is to create a dialogue with your body and see what transpires. This is not about being “good writing” or judging what is being written between you. It is about opening the door and listening to the stories that live within you.
+ Once you have finished, feel free to share anything revealed to you in the comments or ask questions that arise. I can’t wait to hear and celebrate you for Braving The Page!
If you haven’t yet, you can order your copy (print/ ebook/ or audiobook) from wherever you buy books.
Sending love and chat soon,
Megan
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My book, Brave The Page: How Writing Our Hard Stories Brings Healing and Wholeness, speaks to the sacred heart of writing tender stories and is now available! Get your copy and begin writing to heal your life.
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