What Happened When I Reached For The Lifeline Called Writing…

Growing up in Oklahoma in the 1960s, writing was reserved for professionals, and voice as vocation or vocalization was too. Journalists. Singers. Politicians. Diaries came with miniature locks and tiny keys and typewriters pecked out papers letter by letter. Being a cheerleader or singing in the choir was as loud as a lady could respectfully be. I was a practical girl, raised to be the woman who followed everyone else’s rules. I thought if I took the safe and linear path then life would be simple and everything would turn out alright.

In grade school, I wrote in perfect rows on my triple-lined paper and diagrammed sentences with the best of them. I wasn’t one of those kids that started creating short stories and poems at age four. I don’t have an MFA or even a degree in journalism. In fact my first career was as an accountant for a multi-national firm. I allowed precise rows of balanced numbers to speak on my behalf. If the columns added up I believed my life would be orderly too. Numbers were my friends and words were overrated. I believed these truths without articulating them until mid-life when my life swung drastically out of balance and it was time for a new truth.

When my eldest child was barely fourteen my husband and I came to the harsh realization that our son was abusing drugs to a life-threatening extent that required immediate in-patient treatment. At the same time, my mother who lived 1,500 miles away was slipping into a vapid state of dementia. I had a ten-year-old daughter who needed me and a husband who worked 60-plus hours a week. The safe numbers of my life were skewed. I didn’t know where to turn or how to ask for support. I was raised in a culture of silence. Speak when spoken to. Don’t say anything if you can’t say something nice. Never ever air your dirty laundry to others.

With nowhere to turn, I reached for the only lifeline available, a slightly worn copy of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way that a friend had given to me. After perusing the initial pages, I bought a black and white composition notebook and started to practice the act of free-writing three pages every day. Three arduous pages of blurting my fears and tears into the notebook.

I wrote grocery lists and blah blah blah over and over to fill the space when my mind stalled and I couldn’t find anything else to say.

Slowly, surely, deliberately, I developed a daily journaling practice. I showed up with pad and pen in the morning after my husband left early for the office and before my daughter awoke for school. I sat in the low light at our kitchen table where I poured my thoughts, worries, dreams, and internal and external stories onto the page. I wrote and wrote and wrote until I exhausted the dialogue, covered all of the what ifs, dared to say things I’d only whispered in my mind, and ultimately landed at a moment of rest.

Then I got up and did it again and again and again. As my practice deepened, so did my sense of peace and the ability to be present to others and the world around me. I started to heal. My voice grew stronger. I learned how to articulate what I needed and garnered support from others. My dreams became my own.

Three months after I began my writing practice, I enrolled in a graduate program for counseling psychology. The school encouraged independent thinking and required that we explore our personal stories in depth. My mother died. My son moved to another treatment center. I wrote papers for class and continued my journaling ritual. Through these practices, I learned the value of both the written and spoken word. The chaos quieted as my voice strengthened and I discovered that authentic stories untangle us from lies, tether us to truth, and help us transcend into new ways of being.

It was in 2004 that I began the simple writing practice that has continued to this very moment. While I occasionally write entire pieces using my laptop, nothing can compare to the act of putting pen to paper in the wee hours of the morning. In the act of showing up and getting something, anything really, down on the page, the alchemy of healing and transformation begins. 

Writing saved my life. It’s taken me hundreds of blog posts, dozens of hand-written journals, and three published books to finally say aloud with confidence that I am a writer.

But here’s the deal—first and foremost, I am a woman who shows up on the page. Like Flannery O’Connor, I write to discover what I know and in the discovering I validate my own experience. I realize that not everything adds up in life and following the rules is overrated. By choosing to engage in a simple writing practice with only myself to be accountable to, I’ve grown beyond where I imagined I ever could be.

Putting pen to page pushed my life off the linear path and into the space where dreams whisper through the lines and possibilities spring to life. Things may not add up in neat columns, but life is more vibrant, my voice is stronger, and so am I.  

—

Kayce Stevens Hughlett is a tender, a healer, and an artist of being alive who believes in everyday magic and that complex issues often call for simple practices and author of “SoulStroller.” She holds a Masters in Counseling Psychology from The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology and she is a Certified Martha Beck Life Coach.

Her novel, “Blue,” won the Chanti Award for best women’s fiction in 2015. Kayce began her working life as an accountant for a multi-national firm and transitioned to the healing arts when life’s harsh circumstances sent her searching for answers on a less-linear path.

She is the co-creator of SoulStrolling® ~ a movement for mindfulness in motion. Raised in the heartland of Oklahoma, she now resides in Seattle, Washington with her family and muse, Aslan the Cat. Learn more at http://www.liveittogiveit.me/

 

SoulStroller: experiencing the weight, whispers & wings of the world

SoulStroller introduces a fresh way of living life on one’s own terms—expanding readers’ world views whether they choose to visit destinations like Paris, Ireland, or Bali, or get to know what home looks like through fresh eyes. Labeled shy and rendered virtually silent by age six, Kayce had been raised to fit the role of perfect wife, doting mom, and accomplished woman.

She fulfilled her mission by her mid-40s when society said she had it all. Society was wrong—her eldest child disappeared into a haze of addiction, and her perfect world crumbled. Ethereal, gritty, and relatable, SoulStroller is the evolution of a woman too timid to speak her mind into someone who writes her own rules and redefines what it means to live with silence, compassion, and joie de vivre.

Buy the book HERE

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: Contemporary Women Writers, How To and Tips