Writing as a Pathway to Self-Care, Personal Discovery and Healing with Laura Khoudari ’00 and Lisa Weinert (Barnard ’02)

Please join us for a two-part workshop featuring Laura Khoudari ’00 and Lisa Weinert (Barnard ’02) on the topic of narrative healing. No experience is required. This workshop is for anyone interested in harnessing the power of their voice as a healing path to reflection, connection and joy.

In this immersive two-part workshop, “Narrative Healing” author and founder Lisa Weinert (Barnard ’02) and trauma-informed coach and author Laura Khoudari ’00 will guide you through the healing power of storytelling with a mind-body approach to writing. This two-part trauma-sensitive workshop offers gentle embodied movement and mindfulness practices along with writing prompts to wake up the stories we’re holding in our bodies. This allows us to process our stories, release their meaning and utilize their true impact. Participants will come away from this workshop with the skills they need to communicate using their authentic voices.

Hundreds of studies have shown that a consistent writing practice can have a meaningful impact on our overall health and well-being. It can decrease anxiety, stress and depression; lower blood pressure; increase heart health; and foster an overall feeling of wellness, connection and joy. 

In part one of the workshop, we will establish how and why writing is a healing practice, the benefits of a regular writing practice, and we will try a few generative prompts in class. You will walk away with a guide to exploring a writing practice focused on self-care, reflection and relaxation. 

In part two on October 15th, we will reflect on the joys, challenges and obstacles of establishing a consistent writing practice, and we will also share reflections in small groups. This full-body and full-spirit two-part workshop will unlock healing stories within you to empower wholehearted listening, generate creative work and foster meaningful connections in the communities that matter to you.

Please note that you are not required to attend both workshops to participate.

Participants can expect:

• A transformative experience for individuals on their own healing path
• Creative generative prompts
• Somatic practices for the writing body
• Contemplative, meditative and breathing practices to ground and regulate the body
• Practices for deep relaxation and rejuvenation
• Guidelines and support to design a sustainable writing practice
• Listening and communication exercises
• Cutting-edge research, empirical data in narrative medicine and access to leading experts in the field

This event will be recorded and made available for a limited time following the event.

About the presenters

Laura Khoudari ’00 is a trauma-informed wellness writer and storyteller. Her work as a leader in trauma-informed weight lifting and her book, “Lifting Heavy Things: Healing Trauma One Rep at Time,” have been recognized across the fitness and mental health industries as well as by NPR and The New York Times. Khoudari is currently working on a collection of essays exploring how the ordinary acts of cooking and eating can be a path home to ourselves as well as a means to ask and answer big questions about life and love. She finds tremendous joy in the kitchen as well as in restaurants, at food trucks and in markets around the world. Her personal essays have appeared in Archetype and Human Shift Magazine. Learn more about her and her work at laurakhoudari.com and on Instagram @laurakhoudari.

(Photo credit: Barry Sutton)

Lisa Weinert (Barnard ’02) is the author of “Narrative Healing: Awaken the Power of Your Story.” She has taught and lectured on the power of storytelling at institutions including Wesleyan University, Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health and at Fortune 500 media companies. In 2016, she founded Narrative Healing, a mind-body writing program, to integrate her 10 years of experience in book publishing and her experiences as a yoga teacher. Weinert’s workshops, courses and coaching have taken her to renowned centers of mindfulness and healing, including The Rubin Museum of Art, Wesleyan University, Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health and the Omega Institute of Holistic Studies, and she has fostered a global online writing community. Her work has also been featured in Yoga Journal and Human Shift Magazine. She writes about mindfulness, personal growth, wellness and the healing power of writing and is a Merit Scholarship Award recipient and MSW candidate at Fordham University. Learn more about her work at lisaweinert.com.

Accessibility information

This event will include an oral and visual presentation about the healing power of writing. For inquiries about the accessibility of this event or to request any accommodations, please email programs_team-g@mtholyoke.eduor call Kate Sawicki at 413-538-2734. Please make accommodation requests no later than 10 business days before the event to allow time for implementation; however, in all situations, we will make a good faith effort to provide accommodations up until the time of the event.

As the host, Mount Holyoke College reserves the right to record this session, and the event sponsors will give prior notification to event participants of any intention to do so. The recording feature is disabled for others so that no one else will be able to record this session through Zoom. At all times, recording by any other means is not permitted without prior written permission from the event sponsor or as an approved accommodation.