THE PRACTICE SESSIONS
The Practice Session is a group journaling session that features a community member or invited guest who shares a journaling practice with the group. We spend the session learning, writing, sharing, and discussing. The details for each session are provided below as they are scheduled. The dates and times of day vary each month to accommodate different time zones and schedules.
The sessions are recorded and archived.
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UPCOMING SESSIONS
(scroll down for archived sessions)
Session #18: One Story, Three Ways w/ GG
Sunday, November 3 from 12 pm - 2 pm et RSVP
In this session, we will look at examples of different literary forms, and choose a personal theme or story to write about in three different ways.
ARCHIVED SESSIONS
Session #17: Writing the Future w/ Jolie Doggett
Saturday, July 21 from 3:30 - 5 pm et
In this session, Jolie will be sharing more about the benefits of journaling and we’ll work through unique writing prompts to get us thinking about the future! Our future as individuals and the future of the world and humanity. In our journals we’ll be manifesting, goal setting, and getting honest and creative about the legacy we want to leave behind.
Jolie A. Doggett is a writer, editor, reporter, and podcaster based in Raleigh, North Carolina. She produces a weekly newsletter and podcast called Finding the Right Words all about journaling for self expression and self discovery where she shares writing prompts and monthly writing challenges. Jolie also hosts digital writing workshops where she helps people get creative with their inner work. When she’s not writing in her journal, you can find Jolie reading some historical fiction, or spinning around in her local pole dance studio.
Follow her on instagram @jolie_bean or @findingtherightwords_. Subscribe to her newsletter and podcast on Substack.
You can find the slides from the session here.
Session #16: Dialogue with the Inner Critic w/ Erica D'Eramo
Wednesday, June 26 from 7 - 8:30 pm et
Many creatives have a complex relationship with their inner critic. Rather than working to silence this voice, we will seek to open up a dialogue with her based on curiosity and exploration. By the end of our session, we will walk away with some tools and tactics for relating to her in a healthier, more productive way.
Erica D'Eramo is an ICF-accredited coach, columnist, and creative, as well as the founder of Two Piers Consulting. She specializes in working with those folks who are breaking molds and trailblazing paths to create impact.
You can find resources related to this session here.
Session #15: Personal Storytelling and Poetry w/ GG
Thursday, May 23 from 6 - 7:30 pm et
In this session, we will read poems to provide inspiration as we blend poetry and memoir to write about our life experiences. This session includes a brief overview of the topic, and prompts and reflection questions to generate poems.
Session #14: Play and Create: Writing Through Found Forms
w/ Kelly Macias
Sometimes inspiration is hidden in plain sight. Kelly will lead us through a session where we experiment with found forms, learning to create stories from social media posts, text messages, emails, customer reviews on Amazon and more!
Kelly Macías is a writer, researcher, and storyteller based in Los Angeles. Her writing has appeared in Prose Online, The Sunlight Press, Newsweek and elsewhere. You can learn more about her work at www.kellymacias.com and connect with her on Instagram at @kelmacias.
You can find resources related to this session here.
Session #13: The Gift of Un-Editing Yourself
w/ Delanea Davis
Delanea is a Hope Strategist, Development Coach, Corporate Leader, Workshop Facilitator, and Writer of Hope, whose mission is to resuscitate and ignite hope in the lives of others encouraging them to move forward in faith with purpose.
We will explore the connection between self-editing, people-pleasing, and scarcity mindset. We will use journal prompts to uncover specific edits that we make in our creative expression/s. We will then practice un-editing in the safety of the AML Community.
SESSION #12: Visualization and Journaling
w/ Lindsey Van Wagner
Lindsey shares her truth to help you live yours, guiding you to tap into your full potential, reclaim your power, and spread your gifts with the world! She writes for local periodicals, teaches clients one-on-one and in groups, and manages Haven 101, a wellness studio in Rockville, Maryland. Visit her on instagram @spiritvigilante or at her website thespiritvigilante.com
Lindsey will guide participants through a visualization meditation to call on their power and truth, helping them to realize their limitlessness and access the untapped ability to do whatever their heart and soul desires.
SESSION #11: Creating Your 2024
w/ Laura G. download the guide
*use code GG for 20% off all The Gift of a Year workbooks
The Gift of a Year was founded by Laura G. initially to document a sabbatical year off from work. As the year progressed, it became clear to her that without a clear intention for her time she was just drifting. This understanding led her to design a year planner filled with questions and prompts that focus on creating a clear vision for each new year. Through The Gift of a Year, Laura aims to create more opportunities for people to listen to their intuition and to create conscious direction towards what they really want.Join us for a 90-minute session designed to help you dream and create your best year ahead using the questions and prompts from Laura’s 2023|2024 year planner.
SESSION #10: Gratitude in Relationships
w/ Dr. Sophia Godkin
Sophia Godkin, PhD is a Health Psychologist, Happiness & Relationship Coach, and best-selling author. Known for helping people to develop true confidence, create satisfying relationships, and become truly happy from within, Dr Sophia shares practical tools for happiness through in-person and online individual and group coaching, courses, and writing.
Through carefully selected prompts from her book 'The Couple's Gratitude Journal,' we'll venture inward and explore thoughts, feelings, and insights that speak to the heart of human connections. Whether the connection is between romantic partners or friends, the prompts and our surrounding discussion will provide you with a taste of how gratitude in its most genuine form can serve as a gateway to deeper relationships.
SESSION #9: Breaking Up with Your Inner Critic
w/ L’Oreal Thompson Payton
L’Oreal Thompson Payton is an award-winning journalist and the author of Stop Waiting for Perfect: Step Out of Your Comfort Zone and Into Your Power. Her personal essays, feature stories and celebrity interviews have been published in esteemed media outlets such as Bustle, Essence, Fortune, SELF, Shondaland, and Well + Good among others.
In this 90-minute workshop, L’Oreal Thompson Payton will help attendees identify their inner critic; guide them through a powerful journaling exercise where they will pen breakup letters to their inner critic; and learn self-compassion exercises to use when negative self-talk inevitably tries to get in the way.
SESSION #7:Shedding and Blooming
w/ Latoya Torrance
Latoya is a writer, storyteller, mental health advocate, and self-proclaimed recovering perfectionist. She’s always had a heart for uplifting Black and brown women, and with her brand, Human Over Perfect, she aims to help women like her heal from perfectionism and thrive in their personal and professional lives.
Latoya will be sharing a poem she wrote during a moment in which she felt raw, exposed, and vulnerable. She was at the start of her healing journey: going to therapy, uncovering trauma, and exploring the dark parts of herself. We will use her poem as prompt to discuss the power of vulnerability and the beauty of shedding before blooming.
SESSION #8: Tending to Our Dreams
w/ Carmen D. Harris
Carmen D. Harris is a dreamer and a somatic spiritual coach. Carmen experiences joy in exploring Blackness, the dreamscape, and our embodied wisdom as a Source of creative possibility. She is the founder of a leadership coaching and consulting practice, www.imaginemefree.com and co-founder of twoinchesbeyond.black, a practice playfield for Black imagination, dreams, and joy. IG and Threads @carmendharris
In our time together will explore our sleeping subconscious as the oceanic and never ending Source of creative material and inspiration. We will use a dream as a starting point for cultivating trust in our practices, our voice, and our incredible capacity to create daily with ease.
SESSION #5: Where you from?
w/ Cierra Kaler-Jones
Cierra is a social justice educator, writer, researcher, movement & meditation instructor, and artist based in Washington, D.C. Her heart’s work is dedicated to storytelling for social justice — using narrative change to disrupt the status quo and dismantle oppressive structures and systems.
Grounded in the Ghanaian principle of Sankofa, meaning "go back and get it," "it is not taboo to go and fetch what is at risk of being left behind," we will explore a writing prompt that encourages us to think about where we've been and how it's shaped us.
SESSION #6: Where you from?
w/ GG
This week we will continue to work on the theme 'Where you from?' that we started in Session #5. If you were in the last session, this will be a continuation for you. If you did not attend the last session, you will receive direction and have time and space to explore the prompt and participate. Coach Delanea Davis will join me in facilitating the discussion.
This session is a continuation of the “Where You From?” prompt that we started with Cierra Kaler-Jones.
SESSION #4: Where the world knows how to love
w/ Rolanda Findlay
Rolanda is high-vibrational energy. She is light. She is joy. She is passionate about evolving, creating, and being. Together in this session, we will read and discuss a specially selected poem as our initial inspiration. From that space, we will nurture and cultivate feelings of bliss, liberation, and abundance in our own words.
SESSION #3:
Writing Relationship Status
w/ Bree Melvin
Bree is a writer, educator, advocate, and creative visionary. She is passionate about cultivating spaces that inspire connection, reflection, and growth. chat transcript
In this session, Bree provided prompts to help us explore our ‘relationship status’ when it comes to writing.
SESSION #2:
Pillars of Resilience
w/ Rachel Nusbaum
Rachel writes in pursuit of healing, with coffee and candy at hand. Crafting and sharing the story of decision-making on the cutting edge of medicine while pregnant with her son planted the seed for what became her creative business, Orchid Story (https://www.orchidstory.com/). Rachel lives with her husband and two kids in Virginia and is working on her first novel.
In this session, Rachel shared a writing exercise based on Dr. Shelly Harrell’s Three Pillars of Resistance.
SESSION #1: What are you afraid to say?
w/ Ashleigh Owens
Ashleigh is writer of personal essays centered around her experiences with mental illness. She was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder in 2020, but has a lifetime of episode occurrences which she uses outlines for her work. With her words, Ashleigh hopes readers feel seen, heard, and less alone in their struggle and are able to understand themselves and others a bit better.
In this session, Ashleigh prompted the group to explore the questions we are afraid to ask ourselves.