Greetings! If you’re new to the Writing Your Resilience Substack, welcome! I’m Lisa Cooper Ellison, a trauma-informed writing coach, author of this Substack, and your resident story alchemist. If you’ve been here for a while, thanks for sticking around. I’m so glad you’re here.
By the time the tornado warning arrived last Friday, I thought, of course there’s one.
The previous day I’d found out that sweating HVAC ducts were creating a mold farm between my basement ceiling and first floor that required expensive remediation. I had to find a place to stay, rearrange furniture, and move out before the work began on Monday to protect my sensitive immune system.
Hours into our move prep, my phone fell from my purse onto the pavement. The screen shattered in a brilliant starburst pattern. And then the clouds rolled in.
Lightning bolts scratched the sky. Thunder boomed and echoed off nearby buildings. My phone buzzed and screamed for me to take shelter. Now!
I did what any sensible former Kentuckian would do: I opened the front door to see what the hell was going on.
Outside, other disbelieving neighbors gazed skyward, searching for confirmation that the warnings were legit.
“Have you ever been in a tornado?” I asked them. They shrugged.
I scanned the sky for the telltale points of a forming funnel I’d seen during previous tornadoes I’d witnessed. My eyes landed on a cloud that looked like a pack of horses stampeding toward us. “That’s the one to watch,” I said, then headed to the house.
Minutes later, the heavens opened. Rain flew both sideways and fell in giant glops. Ninety-mile-per-hour winds lashed the trees. The sky tossed batches of golf-ball-sized hail at our houses and my car, which, of course, was in the driveway because we were supposed to go out again.
I soon learned a new term: microburst. One had dropped like a hurricane bomb onto our neighborhood.
Last week’s eclipse energy had struck again.
One of my favorite childhood tales was Chicken Little. I have fond memories of all the barnyard animals running in circles, crying, “The Sky is Falling.”
The sky above Charlottesville had shredded the trees in a nearby park. My ceiling was literally coming down, and mold—my worst nightmare—had invaded my home. On top of that, I’m still really sad about losing my beloved cat, Miss Foxy, three weeks ago.
Have you ever experienced a confluence of calamities or a comedy of errors (or maybe horrors) that’s so big all you can do is laugh?
Yeah, we were totally there.
And I was like what in the name of all the gods and goddesses is going on, and how in the hell do I work with this without burying my feelings under the carpet being taken out of my house?
To get some ideas, I flipped open my trusty Human Design app to check the transits.
Sun Gate 29, the Gate of Commitments, stared back at me. It asks us to examine what we truly want to do. That seemed impossible in the face of everything happening around me. How could I consider my commitments, or work on the ones I’d already identified, when everything was being ripped away?
Sometimes, we need to be stripped bare before we really understand what clothes truly fit us.
In that naked, vulnerable state, we need to let go of our mind’s “shoulds” and tap into the Gate 30 energy that’s available to us right now. Gate 30, is the Gate of Feelings. It asks us to feel into our passions and to use our emotions to connect with what our soul truly wants us to do. If you’re reading this newsletter, it’s likely that yearning has something to do with a story you’d like to tell or revising the story you’ve been telling yourself about who you are. And maybe five other things that feel really important right now.
By the time the storm hit, I’d spent a lot of time considering what needed to go, both in my house and in my life so I could accomplish my goals. And yet, when life goes into scorched earth mode, you come face to face with this reality: Priority truly means one. So, as the ceiling tiles were cut away, our belongings were pile up to be wiped with mold disinfectant, and we packed our car to leave, I repeatedly asked myself the following questions: What’s the one thing I must accomplish or I’ll break my own heart? What is my soul telling me to release to honor this desire?
Instead of thinking my way through this, I’m using my feelings as a guide.
Sometimes that’s messy work. My feelings over the past week have included microbursts of frustration and overwhelm about the too muchness of this situation, a crying jag when I encountered a ball of Foxy fluff behind the couch, and grieving what I know I must give up to follow my passions.
At one point, stopping to attend to these emotions would’ve terrified me because I worried they’d floor me at a time when I really needed to get things done. But I learned a long time ago that emotions only last for around ninety seconds if you allow them to flow through you.
So, I feel what I need to feel, and then I carry on. As I do so, I’m practicing gratitude for what’s going well: The amazing friends who opened their home to us are at the top of my list. Russell at Best Buy who provided a temporary fix for my shattered phone screen follows close behind. My car, a.k.a. the Victorymobile’s, apparently teflon paint job and windshield that both escaped the storm unscathed are an added bonus. And we’re breathing sighs of relief that our savings cushion will thankfully cover the repairs.
And finally, working for myself means I get to decide what happens this week, and right now I’m focused on weathering all of this.
That desire for ease is precisely why I said, “Of course there is,” when I saw that tornado warning. I had already accepted that everything except my reaction was outside of my control. I could freak the fuck out or I could stop and breathe. Or I could do both, which I’ll admit I did after discovering the mold.
Sometimes stopping to breathe and feel in the midst of hard stuff is as resilient as you need to be. And if you can’t do that because life is coming at you too fast, simply existing is enough. You are always, always as resilient as you need to be. When things settle, you can re-engage with the story you’re telling about how your life is flowing.
If it speaks to you, here are a few questions to ground you over the next few days:
What is asking to be released? Or maybe, what’s crashing down around you?
How is it forcing clarity around your singular priority?
If you’re not sure what your priority is, what’s the one thing you must complete this fall to keep from breaking your own heart?
How are you feeling about what must be released so you can narrow your focus?
What do you need to let your feelings flow?
What’s one way you can give yourself grace?
Personally, I’m sitting in camp presence and saying productivity be damned until I truly feel the ground beneath my feet. Instead of doing, I’m breathing, journaling, and giving myself the extra rest and nourishment I need to navigate this. The world requires a kind of inner leadership from us right now that helps us work with our emotions, because they are the divining rods leading us to the lives that have been waiting for us all along.
Love and blessings to you,
Lisa
Your Turn: How are you attending to your emotions? If life is falling apart or throwing you a curveball right now, how are you adjusting your schedule? Share your answer in the comments. You never know who you might inspire or help.
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The podcast is on a break so I can focus on my writing and some much-needed rest. Until it returns on September seventeenth, I’ve curated a summer rewind series of fan favorites. This week’s rewind episode features one of my favorite guests: Sue William Silverman. Speaking with Sue is like drinking a shot of inspiration. Grab yours by listening to this week’s episode. In it, we dive into the power of metaphors, the masks we wear, and how to own the story you are meant to tell.
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Are you curious about the similarities between fiction and nonfiction? Have you ever dreamed of writing a novel? Could you see yourself dabbling in the speculative realm—or would you like to know what it is?
Then join me this week (the week of August 17th) for the FREE WorldShift Speculative Fiction Writers Conference! During this weeklong event, you’ll have a chance to learn from over 40 presenters on the craft of fiction writing. If you’re fiction curious, this conference might inspire you to get started. And if you’re team memoir all the way, attending some of these sessions will make you a better memoirist. And if it speaks to you, I’d love it if you attended my session.
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Discover what a writing voice is, the question you should ask BEFORE trying to cultivate yours, and the skills you need to develop to make your work so distinctive that all people need to do is read a few sentences to know it’s you.
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