When Your Writing Becomes a Gateway for Others

There is a moment in healing that most people don’t talk about.

It’s when your pain, once so private and all-consuming, becomes a path of healing for someone else.

After my husband died, the early morning hours became the most unbearable part of my day. That was our time. Coffee. Connection. Our peaceful start to our crazy day.

And suddenly, it was gone.

In that space of loneliness and longing, I began to journal. Not with intention or structure—but out of necessity. I needed somewhere to spill out my grief–a place for my grief to go.

What poured out of me was what I would later learn is called automatic writing.
It was a cascade of emotion, truth, wisdom, and heartbreak.

I had been heartbroken open–I was awake.

I wasn’t writing for anyone else to read.
I was simply writing to survive.
I was writing to let go of my emotions.
I wanted desperately to assuage the sharp edges of grief.

After a year, I had written over 80,000 words.

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Eventually, my publisher asked me to shape those pages into a memoir. With the help of an editor, those raw writings became Heartbroken Open: a memoir through loss to self-discovery.

But the real turning point didn’t happen during the writing. My pivot toward service happened shortly after.

I met a woman named Mary through a friend. She had recently lost her husband. We met at a cafe one balmy evening, and I could feel her grief immediately—palpable, overwhelming, disorienting.

I recognized it because I had been there myself. It felt like I had been dumped in a washing machine on rinse and repeat. Tossed and turned over. Mary was in the cycle now.

I was only two years further along than she was, but I handed her the first draft of my manuscript and whispered, “I know this isn’t a club you wanted to join, but here we are… widows in our forties.”

Mary read the book. And to this day, she credits it with helping her find her way.

Over the years, I’ve met countless women who have said the same thing—that reading my story felt like someone reaching out a hand in the dark and saying, “You’re going to be okay. Keep going.”

And someone, somewhere—often someone you will never meet—finds their way because you were willing to tell the truth about your experience.

That is the power of writing and sharing your story.

Not just to transform your own life…
but to open a gateway for others.

And that kind of impact?

Well, it’s gratification like no other.

An invitation for you…

If something in you is stirring as you read this—if there’s a story, a memory, or even just a feeling that wants a place to land—you don’t have to do it alone.

Inside our Writer’s Circle, we hold a space for exactly this kind of writing. Not always perfect writing. But honest, healing, true writing from the heart—shared in a community that understands both the vulnerability and the power of putting words to your lived experience.

If you feel called, we’d love to welcome you in.

Because your story—just as it is—might be the light someone else is waiting for.

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