You as a Powerful Author: Healing Among a Supportive and Soulful Community

Poetry was one of the recovery tools we shared in our workshop Recovering from Divorce, Reclaiming Yourself, which was held at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health this past September.  Poems like Love After Love by Derek Walcott speak to the heart of why this type of healing work is so important.

The poem is about falling in love with yourself after some love that you’ve had with another has ended. There are beautiful lines about reconnecting with the “stranger who was yourself,” who knows you by heart. The reader is encouraged to nurture, care, and give back to him- or herself. In addition, it highlights the importance of letting go to now “feast on your life.”

For me, this poem captures the spirit that we hoped to give to our participants—and I am so grateful that we had the opportunity to do so through this workshop.

Recovering from Divorce, Reclaiming Yourself

This workshop design and facilitation was a joint effort by myself, my husband, Jeff Zimmerman, and three of our colleagues: musician Bobby Sweet, journaling expert Lara Tupper, and Mindful Movement guru Ken Nelson. We were so touched and privileged to be able to deliver this workshop to participants from all over the United States and Canada. The workshop integrated psychological concepts, mindful movements, poetry, meditation, journaling, and music as tools for people to draw upon in recovering from their divorces.

The wide range of “tools” allowed our participants to choose what was most meaningful to them. For some, writing was very helpful; for others, the movement was useful. Moreover, the integration of these tools was incredibly profound. To be able to heal in a safe environment made a tremendous difference in our participants over the course of the workshop. At the end, their emotional states had changed, as evidenced in their demeanor, their writing, and in what they spoke about.

The Heart of the Workshop

Sharing one’s divorce story as the powerful author is the heart of the workshop. It was an opportunity to break open and really heal the wounds of divorce—and other losses as well. Participants found themselves in the process of grief and mourning and used the concepts of transformation, healing, and transition to change their story in the presence of a newly built, yet incredibly supportive and integrated community. Fear of embarrassment faded away as the group built a truly welcoming space and allowed each other to find inner strength, become vulnerable, and do the hard work.

Please contact us to hear more about this experience.