Expert: Jerry Waxler
Dates: March 22, March 29, April 5, and April 12th
Time: 7-8:30 ET | 4-5:30 PT
Cost: Members – $59 | Non-members – $69
This course will be recorded. Everyone who signs up will receive audio recordings after each session takes place.
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Your effort to turn your memories into a coherent whole is both a literary endeavor (you’re writing a book) and a psychological one (you’re reconstructing and repairing parts of your own psyche.)
In this course, we’ll raise your awareness of the healing aspects of the genre. By knowing the ways memoir writing can help you grow, you will gain insights into the power of your own story, and at the same time, learn more about yourself.
About the course
In four sessions, Jerry will introduce lecture material and then answer questions. At the end of the session, we will review points and suggest topics for reflection.
Students each week will submit questions, and short, 100 to 200 word reflection pieces related to the lecture material. Sharing these pieces on a Google group will give you the opportunity for peer support and discussion, including comments from Jerry.
Members – $59 / Non-Members – $69
Session 1: Portray Yourself as the Heroic Main Character
When you view your life through the messy collection of memories, your self-image might seem chaotic. As a result, it is easy to fall into the notion that you were a victim of events. By becoming the author of your own memoir, you gain the voice of authority about yourself. And you suggest a courageous role for your main character.
Some things you will learn or consider in this session:
- What is a “story” and how writing your memoir taps into this powerful thought system
- How stories help you re-envision your role in the world as an active, energetic creator.
- How each significant period can form the basis both for self-understanding and for good memoir writing.
Session 2: Breaking the chains of secrets and silence
When children whine or pout, we tell them to “use your words.” Words are valuable for adults, too. Words can provide a path toward wisdom and self-acceptance.
However, when we are afraid to reveal our innermost thoughts, we sentence ourselves to self-imposed isolation.
In this session, we’ll go deeper into what compels you to keep this silence, and how memoir writing helps you turn the key and open the door.
Some things you will learn or consider in this session:
- Why the impulse to privacy is automatic and powerful
- Steps to move beyond these automatic restrictions
- How to find your healing words in safe places
- How finding your voice helps you re-parent your inner child
Session 3: Mid-life: Find your narrative in order to find your future
Children expect to grow taller and more competent each year. Young adults continue to expect continuous improvement, such as in marriage, growing kids, or advancing career.
But mid-life forces us to shift our perspective. Constant growing requires a different sort of effort. We find that to continue the upward climb we need new strategies. Memoir writing provides a deep, rich, complex tool to reshape your thinking and provide increasingly wise perspectives about who you are now.
Some things you will learn or consider in this session:
- How re-shaping your story is an important, enriching tool for reclaiming your energetic engagement with life
- How switching your goals from “achievements in the world” to claiming your wisdom is a timeless, and important function of maturing into adulthood.
- Midlife is a time when many of us start searching for family and ancestral context. Memoirs writing provides powerful tools for this search for familial wholeness.
- Grieving is a form of “re-storying” – find your way back by telling the whole new story
Session 4: Memoir writing as an energizing antidote to aging
By exercising your language arts, you find a vigorous brain exercise, that keeps your brain healthy, refreshes the memories that compose your journey up until now, and provide the soul with the balm of creative self-expression.
Your life provided you with a wealth of experience. By writing your memoir, you can offer that experience as legacy to our civilization. It is a heady goal, somewhat larger than any individual own experience. And yet, that larger than life wealth is always passed down from generation to generation through the contributions of individuals.
Some things you will learn or consider in this session:
- Neuroplasticity and the powerful value for elders to exercise their creative and linguistic skills
- How memoir writing provides an energizing “sport” for those of us who have a lifetime of memories and are looking for the renewal of creative self-expression.
- Memoir writing exercises other “mental muscles” in order to achieve research, organization, goal setting, motivation challenges, social engagement.
- Leave your legacy (your story is one of your gifts)
- Find a language for your own spirituality
I’m Deaf and wondering if, or how much of, your class is in written form.
Hi Rachel,
Unfortunately, this class is not in written form. We are constantly looking for ways to improve NAMW and hope to be able to better accommodate you in the future.
Kind Regards,
Erica
NAMW
Rachel, You might be able to get quite a bit out of the course even without the audio component. I will be giving out a few handouts. And you will be able to participate in the discussion on our google group. Peer feedback (both give and take!) is one of the most healing things about memoir writing, and you can gain some of that by posting your pieces and commenting on others.
Jerry
Will we have access to recordings of these sessions? I have a class every Thursday and the time is impossible for me, darn.
Hi Lorie,
Yes, these sessions will all be recorded.
Kind Regards,
Erica
NAMW
Thank you so much!
Lorie
This sounds great!!! Love to join. Great comments.
I have had brain injuries and have been trying to write at least a certain part of that memoir. Sounds weird but I am getting to the point… One of my doctors does not want me to go the support groups they talk about problems and such around the room. So writing the problem is reliving the experience. Is it not?
I was thinking differently know confused after hearing him. He said I should concentrate on the positive. Would this workshop show that how to bring best out of the situation? To help others. I want to… right! Hope that makes sense.
Hi Donna,
This is a great question! Looking for the good times is one way to stay positive through the journey of writing about dark times. Another way to stay positive is to continue to focus and refocus until you can portray yourself, despite suffering, as a courageous main character striving to grow. (This is one of the main themes of the course.)
I think of memoirs as hope machines – during the process of reshaping your random stream of memories into a coherent Story, you are teasing out a better understanding of a courageous main character striving to be the best version of yourself.
During writing about the past, naturally you might have painful moments, but overall the goal is positive, uplifting, and “recontextualizing” your past into a courageous story.
I hope this helps!
Jerry
Hello, Jerry thanks bunches this was an awesome answer Yes it helped. When I read your synopsis over again it speaks to me more and more esp growing and neuroplasticity. I would like to tell my neurologist about the telecourse. But do not meet her until the 6 April. ugh long sigh! Oh, I may miss a class, too. I do not know if you know about Christianity but the week of the 25th March 2018 is the Holiest week of the year for us.and Thursday is Holy Thursday big celebration that day. Well, would we get homework assignments to do? some how? blessings
Hi Donna, In the event that you miss a class, you can catch up by listening to the recording. I will mail out (and/or post) a hand out which will include your writing suggestions. So I expect you will be able to stay current.
Regarding neuroplasticity, this is a scientific principle that is totally accepted in the medical community. The general idea is that your brain connections are enhanced when you work with them – so memoir writing literally “exercises” the brain and improves its connections. As in any exercise, it takes time and effort and the rewards are long term.
Jerry
ok thank you for responding I appreciate it. I am all for exercising the brain. See you Thursday. I have a friend who wanted to come to this one but cannot make it. do you know if you will have other courses like this one? thank you blessings
What are the options if you cannot participate live? I have a conflict on all of those Thursdays.
Hi Monika,
Great question. We will be recording all the sessions, so if you can’t attend live, you can listen to the recording. Each session will raise issues about the relationship between memoir writing and healing. So for example in the first session I’ll talk about how memoirs can be thought of as the heroic journey through some aspect of your life. During the following week, you’ll reflect on how that applies to your memoir writing. Post your short reflection piece on the google group – it will be available for my comments and answers to your questions. If you have time, you will also be able to learn a fair amount by witnessing or commenting on other reflections and answers. In this way, I believe you will be able to get value from this course without being able to attend the sessions. I hope this helps!
Best wishes,
Jerry
As others have mentioned, I can participate live for the first hour, but then have an ongoing commitment. I’m so excited to read about this though, and would love to participate! What do you advise? Will you be doing this again, and I could wait until then? Thank you!
Hi – can I still sign up for the seminar?
Hi Debra,
This class is totally full! Please keep an eye out for announcements about other upcoming classes.
Kind Regards,
Erica
NAMW
Put me on the wait list, please — thank you :-).
I see the class is totally full but would like to join the next time it is offered. In the developmental-editing stage of writing my story, I can attest to the fact that writing memoir is both a literary and psychological exercise.
Hi Marian,
We are already talking to Jerry about the possibility of a second class. Stay tuned!
Kind Regards,
Erica
NAMW
I am definitely interested in signing up for the next program.