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Reflections on Writing Groups

Filed Under: Everyday Feminism, Higher Education By Beth Godbee February 3, 2021 Leave a Comment

It’s been a full year of facilitating online writing groups, so I’ve been reflecting on why these groups have felt and continue to feel so supportive, especially through the pandemic’s early days, escalation, and continued intensity.

Typically, I share that online writing groups have the potential to:

  • Hold creative space for incubating, developing, and completing writing projects
  • Build and strengthen relationships among writers across distance
  • Maintain momentum for writing projects even when facing other due dates and demands on our time
  • Provide just-in-time support, mentoring, and processing of what comes up through and around writing
  • Co-create a life-giving writing environment where we can share ideas with engaged and supportive readers

These are potentials I’ve reflected on previously in the essay, “‘Hanging Out’: Cultivating Writing Groups Online,” co-authored with former writing group members Tanya Cochran, Rasha Diab, and Thomas Ferrel.

This screenshot shows the start of the reflective essay, “‘Hanging Out’: Cultivating Writing Groups Online,” co-authored with former writing group members Tanya Cochran, Rasha Diab, and Thomas Ferrel—published in JAEPL in Winter 2015-2016. The page is white with blank font, showing the article’s article, author names, and opening paragraph.

These potentials still feel true, but in this past year, I’ve realized something more:

  1. I realize that writing groups keep me connected to other people and help me feel not-alone at a time when aloneness is the typical state.

  2. I realize that showing up for the group gets me over the initial hurdle of opening documents I might want to keep closed, and once I’m in the work, I settle my body and find a rhythm.

  3. I realize that group members remind me why my writing matters and that I can’t keep skirting around the writing that matters most. In other words, writing groups keep me accountable to looking at what I’m writing—and not writing!—and keep me asking “why?”

  4. I realize that many life changes happen through writing, especially when writing brings attention to our built-in assumptions and ways of being in the world. Writing groups can highlight these changes—and the changes we’re hesitant to make, too.

  5. I realize that there’s something significant to witnessing others’ life changes and allowing others to witness my life changes. In the moments when we break through surface talk into truer feelings, vulnerabilities, and intimacy, the world feels full of potential.

Image shares one writing group reflection: “many life changes happen through writing, especially when writing brings attention to our built-in assumptions and ways of being in the world” in pink text against a pink background. A notebook, thermos, pens, and papers are also part of the pink background.

There are many more reasons why I value writing groups, but I share these reflections today—both in honor of a full year of holding writing groups and because new groups are starting this week.

If you’d like to join or learn more, check out the registration page.

And let me say again how grateful I am to fellow writers and writing group members.

—
This post is written by
Beth Godbee, Ph.D. for Heart-Head-Hands.com. If you’re interested in connecting around writing, but can’t make this round of writing groups, check out upcoming writing retreats or writing coaching. And consider subscribing to the newsletter for additional resources and announcements. Thanks!

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The first person to show me the power of bearing witness was Helen, my first year Women and Gender Studies professor. Helen was a fierce feminist whose lectures felt more like prose, poetic and passionate. She made me want to take a hammer to patriarchy, and I loved it. 

With Helen, I felt safe enough to say the things I could barely articulate to myself. To name my wounds, to language hard truths, to let someone else in on my hurt. And with Helen, I felt held in those lived and living realities. There were no therapeutic interventions, no life adages, no solutions. There was simply a human being listening, honouring and affirming my experiences of misogyny, racism and sexual violence.

Years later, I forgot this wisdom. I went through therapeutic training(s) that, over time, left me feeling like that wasn't enough. That listening, and presence, and holding space for hurt wasn't enough. And in many aspects of life, I started to feel like I always needed a brilliant intervention that would offer an "aha moment." 

This week, I was reminded in many ways of the power of being present, of listening, of bearing witness. That you don't always need to have the answers, or offer your critical feminist thinking on a topic. You don't always need to have a solution, or advice. And you don't always need to intellectualize what someone's going through. Sometimes, you can just climb into the emotional fort they've built, grab a pillow, and be there. 

Yup, you can just be there, friend. And that's enough. 

(Consensually*)

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About Beth Godbee

I'm an educator and former college professor who believes our fully embodied selves matter in the world. We can’t just think our way out of the incredible injustices, dehumanization, violence, and wrongdoing that characterize everyday life. We must feel and act, too. [Pronouns: she/her.] Read more ...

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