Welcome to Story Medicine, my newsletter for the Storyhood® community. Twice a month, I share something new – a lesson I learned, an idea I wrestled, or something perplexing I just found – plus a story prompt for you to explore in your own voice.
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Storytelling as a Practice
New to Story Medicine? Start with this foundational piece on what storytelling as a practice really means.
#18: After 58 years he apologized …
Trigger warning sexual harm; complex PTSD. He emailed my sister saying he wanted to attend the celebration of my mother’s life, and she asked me what I wanted to do. “Let me think about it,” I said, pausing to ask myself that question overnight. I had forgiven him — and everyone else who knew and…
#17: “At so many levels … ”
Last week at the gym, my friend Jenna asked, “So how are you?” “I feel like it’s all too much …” is what I think I said, rolling my eyes and moving into a creaky down dog. “At so many levels …” is what she definitely said, then six of us laughed at once. The…
#16: How do we talk about when feelings change?
October 18, 2025 Most of our trip through Germany, the Czech Republic, and Austria, I did not write. Jed and I wrote back and forth in that new journal I bought in the paper shop on Winterfeldstrasse, but I did not do the kind of daily writing or writing for the world I usually do,…
#15: Dementia is a different way of knowing
Jed woke up and described his dream: It was a very peaceful dream. It took place in a large art installation in nature, (reminiscent of the Dana Milbank article about being in touch with nature and his brother on the Appalachian Trail). Maybe it was also inspired by our walks: noticing shrubs changing, new flowers,…
#14: The miracle of walking in a foreign landscape
Last time, I wrote about the day my husband Jed’s body started to shake. In this upcoming week that includes the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, I am meditating on the holiday’s insistence that our community’s faith creates miracles out of the most profound everyday constraints. October 2024 I insisted Jed go back to the neurologist…
#13: A day my marriage changed in an afternoon
I felt a surge in the energy running through my body. Questions that had been emerging for several years came together and made sense in a moment. My knowing shifted, but not in a rational or intellectual way. And not just the content of the knowing shifted, but the vessel — my way of knowing…