Beginning her career in book publishing, Weinert eventually became a certified yoga instructor with a specialty in trauma-informed and restorative yoga, leading her to combine her professional training with her own experience with trauma to create The Narrative Healing Program, a writing program that seeks to release our stories in a way that is accessible and empowering. Instead of putting pen to paper immediately like most writing programs, Narrative Healing begins with the body and provides anyone— not just writers—a comforting and inclusive pathway to heal by first searching within.
IG: @narrativehealing
LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-weinert-84648a10/
Narrative Healing is a mind-body writing program designed to awaken the healing power of the stories within to heal from trauma, and inspire others. Narrative Healing is based on the premise that our stories exist to heal. They live in our bodies and have a benevolent purpose. They exist to keep us safe and support our personal well-being, our natural ecosystem, our community and our world. We see this in nature all around us—trees shed leaves to benefit the earth, flowers release pollen to spread their seeds, and animals eliminate to fertilize the ground. Our stories exist in this same container. Not only do our stories help us individually, each story we take in and give out has the potential to help someone else–even when we don’t intend it. It’s automatic; each of our bodies holds a story someone else needs.
The healing power of sharing your story is not based on whether you hold a position of power in our culture, and it’s not based on literary merit, nationality, race, class, religion, sexuality, gender expression, age, physical or mental ability, lifestyle, or belief system. It goes deeper than that. It’s biological. Our bodies are our stories, and we tell our stories to release them, the same way we need to exhale. How, where, and when we release them is an indication of our basic wholeness and sense of safety.
When you release the story you are meant to share, it will create new meaning. You don’t need to be fancy, famous, influential, or have a lot of followers to make a global impact with your story. There is lifesaving, life-affirming, and valuable information in the stories we carry in our bodies and share with each other, whether we write a bestselling book, have a heart-centric passing conversation with a stranger, or speak our truth in a letter. Every story matters.
Narrative Healing offers a new paradigm for healing and storytelling that begins with the body, and then moves to the page and into community. My hope is that if we start to listen to the body when it whispers, we won’t have to wait for it to scream to hear what it has to say. And we will thus have the capacity to listen to others too.
I’m passionate about supporting people to tell the stories they need to tell to live their full potential and be able to help and inspire those around you. If publishing a book is part of that journey, that’s great, but it doesn’t need to be. The book is not the destination. My work is about staying aligned with creative goals and keeping the writers well being at the center of the process. I’m inspired and grateful that the publishing industry continues to unfold in a way that offers many options for writers to be in the driver's seat of their own experience.
I frequently say that declaring you want to write a book is one of the fastest roads to writer's block. I like to begin with checking in and asking instead, : Why are you here? What are you trying to say? What do you need to say it? And, who are you talking to. A book may be the right path, but it’s certainly not the only path. I encourage writers to be open minded when it comes to format, genre, and audience and focus on supporting a writing life.
Narrative Healing is about becoming more aware of how we are telling stories all day long in how we move, breathe, type, tap. Oftentimes the most important stories we share are not uttered aloud, but described by how we move and by what we don’t say. My hope is that however you share your work - whether it’s embodied or published - that you are maximizing your own healing and helping potential.
Mindful movement is an important part of leading a creative life, it doesn’t have to be yoga, it can be walking, or swimming, breathing or even olympic weight lifting or napping. The idea is to connect with the stories within through somatic practices to awaken what needs to be told now and to offer yourself choices along the way. What’s most important is that the movement feels invitational and accessible. The point is that when you become aware of your breath and your body, it can become a source of inspiration and direction.
We are moving bodies of stories. Most of the time, we’re only paying attention to the loudest, strongest, and bossiest stories within us; many of our most important stories are frightened, bored, frozen or very very quiet - even sleeping. Mindful movement can wake up your sleeping stories– the old ones, the difficult ones, the ones we are avoiding. It should be a gentle process that requires love and attention as you awaken to a more embodied life.
I’ve worked closely with writers who love yoga, and I’ve also worked closely with writers who hate yoga. Some swim, walk, hike, the options are limitless and the path is personal.
There are so many women I admire! Let me begin with the one I met first, my fabulous mother, Sylvia Ann Hewlett. She shows me by example how to lead a creative life. One of my favorite moments with her happened over a casual conversation. At the time, I was sharing fear I had about a project I was working on. I asked her, “Am I setting the bar too high?” and she replied without missing a beat, “Where else are you going to set it? Don’t you dare set it low!”.
I pray with all my being that peace and collective listening is a trend in 2024.
Hope that change is possible.
