Boundaries, Burnout, and the Body: A Writing Workshop for Creative Resilience

Periods of transition, uncertainty, and burnout can cause ruptures in our physical, emotional, and creative well-being. In this generative writing workshop for writers of all genres and experience levels, we’ll explore what it means to recognize, respond to, and rebuild resilience in the face of burnout—and how our most grounded, authentic writing begins with a compassionate awareness of the body.

Co-taught by a neurodivergent leadership and wellness coach, Kaylyn Kirkpatrick, and award-winning poet, Caitlin Scarano, this course will invite writers to engage in their writing practice through the lens of self-reflection, recovery, and resilience.

Each session will open with a grounding somatic practice, such as gentle, accessible seated movement or breathwork, followed by a generative writing prompt. Through a blend of small and large group discussions, targeted readings, and interactive activities, we will understand burnout and how it impacts us, uncover the values that fuel our creative practice, and discover long-term creative resilience. Please note: this is not a therapy group but a writing-centered space informed by somatic practices. All somatic practices will be gentle and adaptable for varying needs.

In the second half of the course, we will dedicate part of each session to workshop and discussion, where you will share new writing in a supportive, collaborative environment. Between sessions, you’ll receive additional wellness practices and writing prompts, as well as access to our shared online space, where you can post writing and reflections. Each week, you may submit up to one page of new writing (in any genre) for instructor feedback. You’ll also have the opportunity to schedule a 1:1 session with the instructor of your choice to explore burnout resiliency, somatic approaches, and your own writing practices.

Who This Course is For:

This workshop welcomes writers of all genres and experience levels who want to replenish creative energy and reimagine their relationship to writing during times of stress or transition, within a supportive community.

Learning and Writing Goals

Learning Goals

In this course, you will: 

• Uncover a personal vision of rest and regeneration through reflective writing.
• Explore simple somatic practices to help connect mind and body.
• Expand language for values, needs, and boundaries through writing prompts.
• Develop resilience through guided reflections, writing rituals, and group discussion. 

Writing Goals

In this course, you will: 

• Build a consistent writing practice to enrich physical and emotional wellness.
• Share new creative writing in a supportive and warm workshop setting.
• Generate new creative work.

Zoom Schedule

We will meet once a week via Zoom on Wednesdays from 6-7 PM Eastern. 

Weekly Syllabus

Week 1: Uncovering Our Values Through Writing in Times of Burnout

• In our first class, we will gather and orient to the space of this container and community as writers. Through guided visualization and writing prompts, we’ll identify the elements we’d like to call forth into the next 6-weeks in order to rebuild meaning, writing the new story we want to tell about our well-being and our creative work.
• Activity: Reconnect with values by tapping into memories of peak experience

Week 2: Energetic Awareness and Writing from the Body

• This week, we’ll practice asking for and receiving information from the body to develop non-judgmental awareness of our needs and energetic patterns. We’ll learn to listen and incorporate messages from the body and mind to create conditions for well-being and resiliency and how it relates to our writing practice.
• Activity: Converse with the body through the language of sensation

Week 3: Exploring and Communicating Boundaries Through Writing

• This week is about honoring our feelings, needs, and limitations from a place of kindness and collaboration. Writing through a non-violent communication framework, we’ll investigate what deeper needs may be hidden beneath strong reactions and periods of creative burnout. We’ll then create new scripts for how to reach for what we want and stop internal and external patterns of encroachment.
• Activity: Reframe stories of blame using a non-violent communication framework

Week 4: Writing as Restoration

• Burnout, depletion, or disconnection are often signals that there is a need for spaciousness to restore creative energy and allow new ideas to emerge. Through restorative breathing techniques and guided writing prompts, we’ll investigate our relationship to rest and regeneration. 
• Activity: Develop one specific and actionable goal around writing as a restorative art

Week 5: Designing a Care Plan For Creative Wellness

• When we have clarity around our creative capacity and needs, and after we have gotten some space, we gain new insights about what fuels and inspires us. This week, it’s time to add back what nourishes our bodies and writing practices. Through guided reflection and writing, we will examine the conditions that encourage and support our creative process. 
• Activity: Map the phases of your creative cycle and the nourishment needed for each

Week 6: Writing As Your Future Self

• In this final week of the course, we’ll leverage our imagination to call in more of what will support our burnout recovery and long-term creative resilience. Using guided prompts, students will visualize their future self and gain insights around the conditions that support and sustain their best writing. Students will have the opportunity to then share their vision, make commitments to honor their writing practice, and celebrate the insights gained through these 6-weeks.
• Activity: Collaborate with your future self on the conditions that support creative wellness

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and reserve your spot in the course.

$445.00 Original price was: $445.00.$380.00Current price is: $380.00.Enroll Now