Transforming Trauma: Episode 133

Telling our story––to a trusted friend, a therapist, or ourselves––is a continuous unfolding. Each layer shed is an opportunity to re-engage with the past and assess its significance on the present. If the subject matter includes trauma, the process of exposure requires extra care. One writer invites us to establish a practice of dipping into and out of our story’s muck, building the capacity to tolerate what’s buried underneath, and reconnecting with what is true, whether or not we even intend to put pen to paper.

On this episode of Transforming Trauma, host Emily Ruth is joined by the inimitable writer and writing coach Jeanette LeBlanc. The pair explore what it means to “write your way through” trauma by examining the narratives we create. Jeanette’s profound, sensory-rich prose has been a fixture in the blogosphere for decades. She’s gained legions of new fans via her Substack newsletter and latest self-published work, You Are Not Too Much: Love Notes Of Heartache, Redemption, And Reclamation. Her considered, heart-centered approach to coaching provides writers and would-be writers with the support and, more importantly, permission they crave to “reclaim sovereignty, truth, and bravery, using the stories of their lived experiences as the vehicle to expand into authenticity, courage, and expression.”

“For me, the starting point of writing, no matter where it ends up, is always a dismantling of all of these disparate pieces,” says Jeanette, who describes her craft as an endless exercise in excavation and revaluation. “It can be a messy and really raw process,” she confides. But rather than abandoning that difficult work altogether, Jeanette approaches her writing with the same deliberate awareness that a NARM client uses in therapy. She checks in with her body’s responses and remains inquisitive rather than trying to force a specific outcome. “There is a voice under that high-activation, danger-zone, red-lights-flashing space”, she confides. “There is always a space underneath that. It’s really, really hard to get to sometimes.”  In order to get there, she writes about the trauma voices that are “important to hear [and] to discern the voice of my heart and turn its volume up a little bit louder.”

Transforming Trauma is grateful to Jeanette for sharing her practice with our community and reminding us that sharing our story is part of the healing journey.

 

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

Joan Didion

Lidia Yuknavitch

 

GUEST CONTACT AND BIO

Website

JeanetteLeBlancArt on Etsy

Instagram

Substack

X

Facebook

 

Jeanette LeBlanc is a writer, self-published author, teacher, and motivational speaker. She guides humans seeking permission to stop seeking permission along their journeys to increased sovereignty, truth, and bravery, using their stories of lived experiences as vehicles to expand into authenticity, courage, and expression. As a facilitator, coach, and guide, she has directly led over 800 brave humans (thousands more via her social media presence) on the journey toward a life of exploration and fulfillment. Jeanette, queer and single mama to two delightfully unruly grown daughters, is the author of  You Are Not Too Much | Love Notes On Heartache, Redemption, and Reclamation.