Rising Above the Stories we Carry—A Memoir’s 12,000+ nautical-mile journey

Rising Above the Stories we Carry—A Memoir’s 12,000+ nautical-mile journey

By Heidi Love

Art by Linden O’Ryan

Authors of Knowing Acts—Engage in Healing 

It is a vision of paradise and the promise of escape. Verdant peaks rise to meet a tropical sun. Streams of water surge over a fissure in a sheer cliff, disappearing in spectral mist. Luminous birds soar above a turquoise Polynesian bay. 

The Bay of Virgins lies on the far side of the island of Fatu Hiva, near the center of the South Pacific. My dream to search for an elusive waterfall began at age fifteen. It is impossible to drive or fly there. It took four decades of self-discovery and a five-year sailing odyssey for me to find my way. 

In the midst of my 12,000-nautical-mile sail from Maine to French Polynesia, penning a memoir of this awe-inspiring journey seemed as evasive as my waterfall search. While it wasn’t particularly difficult to generate 85,000 words, crafting a powerful captivating story was harder than I had imagined. While revision after revision and writing class after class helped me to hone the manuscript, the heart and passion of the story seemed lacking. I began to lose confidence.

One snowy day in February after my return from the South Pacific I exchanged homes with artists in Vermont. Earlier that year I had met a trauma survivor who asked for help, saying she was in a “very dark place.” I talked to her through the night, offered a few of the mindful healing exercises I had used through my own PTSD episodes at sea, and urged her to seek professional help. Later she told me my exercises were “lifesaving.” When a second friend too asked for help, I wondered if creating a workbook of exercises might support others on their healing paths.

As near-blizzard conditions swirled around the Vermont home, ideas, gifts of art, haiku, music, even unexpected energy from a Buddhist monk seemed to envelope me. A friend who had lost her young son to leukemia offered beautiful art she had created in an effort to share her healing spirit. Together with my husband Dennis and a Harvard psychiatrist, Anne Hallward, M.D., we created Knowing Acts—Engage in Healing, a customizable workbook for a personal healing journey. The workbook offers a calming practice for emotional balance and mindful ways to defuse sadness, grief, anger, rage, and feelings of numbness or loss.

Like the mystical energy-filled snowstorm that Knowing Acts was conceived under, once it was published I was left with a crystal blue sky and a path back to my memoir. It took setting aside the manuscript to allow for the heart and wisdom of the tale to become clear.

Here are three lessons learned in my writing process:

1. FEEL THE FULLNESS OF YOUR FEAR 

Tapping into the depth and fullness of my past, my pain, and my fear made my writing more vivid. As I allowed my imagination to roam in childhood spaces that terrified me, I found a path through the darkness. By allowing each draft to became more and more understated it invited the reader to more fully connect with their own fears and experiences.

2. TRUST 

Trusting my intuition, and being willing to set aside the path I had planned brought forth new creative energy. Sailors have a saying that the worst thing to carry on a boat is a plan. With writing I find plans and outlines helpful at the start yet allowing my writing to direct it’s own course opened up new and creative directions for me.

3. SHARE 

Sharing my process with other creatives: two artists, a yoga teacher, writers, several therapists, a Buddhist monk, and numerous courage seekers, expanded my horizon and brought greater depth to my manuscript. Interviewing women of courage through my blog (LaughingAtTheSky.org) brought inspiration and connection. Women mentors including a therapist who climbed near the death zone at Mt. Everest, a two-time world circumnavigator, and a “third-gender” leader from the matrilineal society of Guna Yala, Panama, lifted me. I hope I have and will continue to return the favors and insight they shared.

Most of us carry stories from our past. While some stories lift us up, others can weigh us down and diminish or restrain our lives. If you, a friend, or a loved one suffers from overwhelming emotions or would like to develop a calming practice for emotional balance please consider supporting and sharing Knowing Acts. I believe that singular acts of kindness can have profound impacts over generations. You never know whom you might inspire or where it might lead.

“This inspiring book is a touchstone, a safe harbor to return to again and again as we navigate the courageous journey towards healing.”

Anne Hallward, MD

Executive Director Safe Space Radio Tufts University Medical School Harvard University Medical School

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Heidi Love’s self help book Knowing Acts—Engage is Healing is endorsed by Harvard Psychiatrist and Safe Space Radio’s Executive Director, Anne Hallward MD, and was released in September 2021. Her memoir, Laughing at the Sky will be released in 2022.

Heidi Love is the author of the soon-to-be-published memoir Laughing at the Sky. She co-founded the $8 million dollar marketing and social media agencies Ethos and Vontweb and founded the online community LaughingAtTheSky.com, with interviews and inspiration for seekers of courage (including a personal interview with poet laureate Amanda Gorman). Her recently published self-help workbook Knowing Acts—Engage is Healing is endorsed by Harvard Psychiatrist and Safe Space Radio’s Executive Director, Anne Hallward MD.

“This inspiring book is a touchstone, a safe harbor to return to again and again as we navigate the courageous journey towards healing.”

Anne Hallward, MD, Harvard University Medical School Tufts University Medical School, Executive Director Safe Space Radio

Websites         HeidiLoveAuthor.com

Twitter                        @Laugh_AtTheSky

Facebook         @LaughingAtTheSky1

Instagram        @HeidiLoveAuthor

KNOWING ACTS: ENGAGE IN HEALING

Knowing Acts-Engage in Healing is a customizable workbook and calming practice for emotional balance. It includes 100 pages of full-color beautiful illustration and over 30 easy, pleasant-to-do exercises with music, art, mindfulness, poetry, haiku, and more. There are selections of brave books, websites, podcasts, personal anecdotes, and free resources. Rich with original healing art by Maine watercolorist Linden O’Ryan, Knowing Acts presents a positive new approach for personal healing journeys. Created by trauma survivor Heidi Love on her own healing journey, and thoroughly reviewed, endorsed, and enhanced by numerous trauma experts, Knowing Acts combines art, psychology, and personal experience to support rising above trauma and living life to it’s fullest.

“This inspiring book is a touchstone, a safe harbor to return to again and again as we navigate the courageous journey toward healing.” Anne Hallward, MD, Founder and Executive Director, Safe Space Radio, Former Faculty Harvard Medical School, Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Tufts University Medical School, Exemplary Psychiatrist Award Recipient by the National Alliance of Mental Health.

Knowing Acts offers engaging ways to create a calming practice for those suffering from overwhelming emotions and encourages readers to ACT before spiraling down in unhealthy ways. It helps to defuse deep sadness, grief, shame, rage, anger, and feelings of numbness and loss, through an automatic response. It uses a stopgap measure to help trauma, sexual assault, and domestic violence survivors, and those experiencing hardship and loss, move from PTSD, suicidal ideation, or debilitating emotions to places where they can feel calm and restored, and seek professional help. Created by trauma survivors for survivors it includes a customizable workbook to create a plan of ACTS to use during the sudden onset of intrusive thoughts and overwhelming feelings.

Thoroughly reviewed and endorsed by trauma and counseling experts, including Dr. Anne Hallward, Harvard-trained psychiatrist and Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry Tufts University Medical School, and Dr. Susan Newman Manfull Social Psychologist, it is hailed as a lifesaving resource. If you or someone you know is seeking a healthier approach to overwhelming sadness, grief, anger, rage, or numbness, or recovering from PTSD, suicidal thoughts, trauma, sexual assault, domestic violence, or other hardships, Knowing Acts offers a calming approach to emotional balance and healing.

“Thoughtful, sensitive, and practical with spot-on personal solutions, this workbook is an exceptionally valuable resource.” Dr. Susan Newman Manfull, Social Psychologist

“In Knowing Acts Heidi Love has really given survivors of trauma a simple, grounding tool. I absolutely believe the this workbook will be a helpful and perhaps life saving resource for those in crisis.” Wendy Hoge LCSW, Therapist

“While Heidi’s words and understanding create a safety net for a healing journey, the beautiful artwork by Linden O’Ryan adds vibrational energy to truly nurture my soul. As a sexual assault survivor, I am grateful for this workbook and wish that this resource had been available to me when I was in the deep dark recesses of my healing journey. I know that these two women have created an incredible supplement to use in tandem with traditional therapy.” Sexual Assault Survivor in Maine

“My personal experience as a survivor of violence, and working with hundreds of women over the years, all provided me with a true understanding of how long and hard the road to recovery can be for some. I can see how incorporating Knowing Acts in one’s recovery process would be a valuable tool, and of great benefit.” Denise D’Amboise, Former Outward Bound Women of Courage Program Manager and Instructor, and former Domestic Violence Advocate.

Generous donations have allowed hundreds of workbooks to be donated to sexual assault and domestic violence centers. For more information on how you can help visit GoFundMe,com/f/heidi-loves-help-save-a-life. Heidi invites readers to join her online community of seekers of courage at LaughingAtTheSky.blog. 

 

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: Contemporary Women Writers, How To and Tips