It's Time to Lift Your Pen: My Writing for Better Health short course
Join my membership community for a writing course with a difference. No sharing required
“Lindsay is a phenomenal writer. Her writing for better mental health course is gently life-changing, and brought me back to writing for myself after years absent.”
Kayleigh Bohan, More than Zero
Hi friends,
Planning an autumn launch of the online incarnation of my in-person writing course has been interesting, given the not-at-all-autumnal weather we’ve been subject to in Glasgow this past week. This is a complaint and not a complaint, of course. I know that it’s pleasant, particularly for us in the north of the UK where ‘summer’ only blazed for a muggy — oftentimes stormy —fortnight in June. But I can’t help but mourn. This is not an ‘Indian Summer.’
Oh, these beautiful, topsy-turvy, tainted days. What will we make of them when we are old and dare to look back at the ways we bore witness?
The call to the page rings loud and urgent. These digital ones, yes, but more significantly, the cloth-bound ones of my current journal. I’ve taken it to the shed in part to escape the housework (please tell me others’ domestic standards fall off a cliff when it’s hot) and, as always, give myself permission not to think about the outcome of these short sessions.
I take my seat at the bench, pen poised in my left hand which now hovers over a blank right-hand page (yes, I’ve been converted,
. She wrote about how to keep a writer’s notebook recently and it’s worth a look). I put the date at the top. A sentence about the weather. I put the pen down.I take stock of what is going on outside the single-paned shed windows. At first, not much. I must be patient. Then a sudden swoop of long-tailed tits who don’t know I’m watching as they avail themselves of the feeders strategically placed at eye line. Our pair of wood pigeons, always watching for fallen spoils, soon arrive. The tiny birds scatter, but I know they’ll be back.
Next, the grey squirrels appear. They look like they’re having fun scaling the gnarly pear tree; jaws straining round neon-green conkers. Back and forth, back and forth they go. I sit very still. Resist opening the window to hear what’s going on. I’ll only disturb.
After a time, I snap out of my trance and recall why I’m here. I turn my attention to what is going on inside, lift my pen again and away I go.
It looks dreadful. My writing cannot keep up with my thoughts. I segue from one thing to another. Find words for the emotions that have threatened to overwhelm. Scare me witless.
I turn towards those ugly feelings; the inconvenient and distressing ones, too. Offer up space for rumination. Catastrophy.
Where previously, an irrational superstition would have stopped me from allowing these thoughts into the actual world, now I see the diffusing power of giving them their place. It’s an evolution of my therapy experience, where for three years I was offered safe harbour, meted out in 50-minute chunks, to say anything. Anything.
And I’ve come to know I can tell myself anything. Whatever I need to hear. Doing so doesn’t make any of it true. It doesn’t foretell disaster. In fact, it takes the power these beliefs may have had when constrained in my mind and thoroughly disarms them.
In analysis, I could tell without looking at a clock that the ‘therapeutic hour’ was drawing to a close. I know now, too, when I’m done.
I close the journal. Place my pen down and leave lighter.
Are you called to the page?
We will meet on Zoom at 8pm BST on Tuesdays for four weeks from 22nd April 2025.
Each of the themed one-hour sessions begins with a hello, followed by a reading (an extract from memoir, an article, a poem…) and the week’s prompts. We’ll have time with cameras off or on to write, then get together again at the end for a round-up.
It is in no way a course for writers, though I can’t promise it won’t awaken something in you that you might want to explore creatively…
It is NOT a course that involves sharing your work. In fact, it’s the opposite. It is writing in a supported way as a means to process and assimilate. Writing for your eyes only. Maybe even, as a previous attendee said, writing that will never be read. Words that might be destined immediately for the fire. I like this. We'll be talking about ritual in Session One.
It will equip you with tools for life. It will help you start, re-start, develop or maintain a simple, therapeutic writing practice in a way that fits in with the many demands on your time.
What if I can’t make it live? Each session will be recorded. Let me know if you’d like to be sent the recordings and resources and I’ll add you to the list.
Are you up for it?
Why trust me?
A significant part of my day job at a national literacy charity involves in-person and online group facilitation. We adhere to adult safeguarding guidelines and are well-versed in co-creating codes of conduct for shared spaces online and in person. Though this course is in no way affiliated with my place of work, I want to offer reassurance that I come to this with extensive teaching experience and a full appreciation of how creative expression can be triggering, even when there is no sharing involved.
I am offering a compassionate, supportive space for you to explore how writing for yourself might benefit your mental and physical wellbeing. I hope attending will nudge you to continue to carve out necessary space for thoughts and feelings you may stuff down to the detriment of your long-term health. You might want to read more about the Pennebaker Method, which has inspired the creation of this course.
What do I need to do?
Sign up or upgrade to my paid membership community before our first session. You will receive the Zoom link by email. Simple!
All you'll need for Session One is a favourite pen and something to write on. It doesn't have to be pretty: save your lovely notebooks for gratitude journaling or creative writing!
And if you have a friend who you think might like to join you, please share this post with them. It can be so lovely to see a familiar face at these things, I know. A chance to share in an experience that you can catch up about later.
Here are some lovely words from previous attendees…
“The session tonight was so good, and you're such an excellent workshop leader - you make the space feel very safe and welcoming. Thank you again, looking forward to next week.”
“Writing for Mental Health was the highlight of my week! It was so nice and necessary to carve out that time with yourself to check in. Lindsay guided us to think about our feelings in the present moment but also deeper dives, the most memorable for me being on the topic of shame. Most importantly, it was a lovely, safe atmosphere to gather with a new community (many writers themselves), to share and empathise. It was a really special workshop and I'm grateful to have been part of it.”
“I so loved these workshops, and genuinely got stuff down. Thank you, Lindsay.”
“You created a very chilled and cosy, comfortable atmosphere for a workshop which is VERY hard to do online.”
Lindsay x
I would appreciate the recordings of your Writing for Health course, please. I’ve been away quite a lot and couldn’t get to the first two sessions.
I loved those sessions and signing up for your membership. It was the best intuition-led decision at a hard time. Thank you. 🙏💗