The Story You Need to Tell: Writing to Heal from Trauma, Illness, or Loss

by Sandra Marinella, Christina Baldwin (Foreword by)

Overview

A practical and inspiring guide to transformational personal storytelling, The Story You Need to Tell is the product of Sandra Marinella’s pioneering work with veterans and cancer patients, her years of teaching writing, and her research into its profound healing properties. Riveting true stories illustrate Marinella’s methods for understanding, telling, and editing personal stories in ways that foster resilience and renewal. She also shares her own experience of using journaling and expressive writing to navigate challenges including breast cancer and postpartum depression. Each of the techniques, prompts, and exercises she presents helps us “to unravel the knot inside and to make sense of loss.”

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781608684830
Publisher:	New World Library
Publication date:	05/16/2017
Pages:	328
Sales rank:	220,616
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Writing teacher Sandra Marinella, MA, MEd, has taught thousands of students and fellow educators and presented hundreds of workshops to veterans, educators, and cancer patients. She lives near Phoenix, Arizona.

Table of Contents

Foreword Christina Baldwin xiii

Author's Note xvii

Introduction 1

Part 1 Writing: Not Drowning

Chapter 1 Waving: Not Drowning 11

Chapter 2 Facing Trauma: When There Are No Words 21

Chapter 3 Writing: Finding Our Words 29

Part 2 Writing Down the Self

Chapter 4 A Room of Your Own: A Journal 39

Chapter 5 Writing Down the Self 53

Chapter 6 Stages of Writing and Healing 67

Part 3 Finding Meaning through Story

Chapter 7 The Magical Mystery Tour: How Our Brains Create Story 85

Chapter 8 Stories: Our Lives Hang on Narrative Threads 97

Chapter 9 Finding Our Life-Defining Stories 113

Chapter 10 Making Sense of Self with Stories 125

Part 4 Rewriting Our Shattered Stories

Chapter 11 Writing to Heal 143

Chapter 12 Breaking the Silence 153

Chapter 13 Getting Unstuck 163

Chapter 14 Embracing Other Perspectives 169

Chapter 15 Story Editing 173

Chapter 16 Rewriting and Transforming 181

Part 5 Writing to Heal

Chapter 17 Writing to Heal from Hardships and Trauma 191

Chapter 18 Writing to Heal from Illness and Injury 209

Chapter 19 Writing to Heal from Loss 225

Part 6 Writing to Transform

Chapter 20 Resilience 251

Chapter 21 The Burst of Creativity 261

Epilogue 271

Acknowledgments 275

Notes 279

References and Suggested Reading 285

Permission Acknowledgments 291

Index 293

About the Author 309

Editorial Reviews

Sandra Marinella has written a wonderful guide for all those struggling to make sense of the story of their lives! It can serve as the perfect prescription for real healing.”
— Susan M. Love, MD, author of Dr. Susan Love’s Breast Book

“Sandra Marinella’s The Story You Need to Tell is a collection of illuminating stories that shows us the power of writing to transform our lives.”
— Ellen Bass, poet and bestselling author of The Courage to Heal, Beginning to Heal, Like a Beggar, Mules of Love, The Human Line, and Free Your Mind

“Sandra Marinella deserves our recognition for her years of dedicated work with writers, veterans, and cancer patients. Her incredible research, her networking, and her gift for words should carry this book into the pantheon of great books on writing.”
— Christina Baldwin, author Storycatcher and Life’s Companion

“Sandra Marinella brings keen research skills, a brilliant storytelling voice, and a distinguished teaching career to this cohesive guide for writing the unspeakable. Her vivid prose twines her own powerful cancer story with dozens of other courageous voices, each writing the road from devastation to reclamation.”
— Kathleen Adams, LPC, director of the Center for Journal Therapy

“Sandra Marinella uses her own story as the inspiration for others who face insurmountable odds to rise up to their challenges, assess them, and conquer them. Thoughtfully written, deeply encouraging, and profoundly personal.”
— Laurie Notaro, New York Times–bestselling author of The Idiot Girls’ Action-Adventure Club and Autobiography of a Fat Bride

“One does not have to be a writer to gain insight from this book . . . especially relevant for those who are inclined toward journaling and putting their feelings on the page.”
— Library Journal

“Sandra Marinella’s passion and enthusiasm for writing shine throughout this poignant and insightful book. With the skills and experience of a seasoned writing teacher, she shares with us the tools to tell the stories we need to tell and reminds us of the healing power of writing.”
— Michael Ferguson, postdoctoral fellow, cognitive neuroscience, Cornell University

“Both Sandra Marinella’s writing and her workshops are filled with inspiration and love. Her words truly touch her audience.”
— Dale Yavitt, RRT, MPH, the Body, Mind, and Spirit Program Coordinator, Piper Cancer Center, Scottsdale, Arizona

“In The Story You Need to Tell, Sandra Marinella inspires the vulnerable in all of us to be the strength in each of us. She has a unique form, transforming a sentiment of safety and empowerment through writing into healing. Her own story highlights the power of the written word and provides a guide to healing through writing. Her book and her work are transformational.”
— Courtney Klein, cofounder and CEO of SEED SPOT

“Marinella’s practical direction and inspiring narrative invite readers to become writers. ‘Our stories create us,’ she writes. ‘And our writing can recreate us.’ The Story You Need to Tell is an important and beautiful book that I cannot wait to share with my students and others whose stories are aching to be told.”
— Judy Reeves, author of A Writer’s Book of Days and Wild Women, Wild Voices

“In The Story You Need to Tell, Sandra Marinella does just that — recounting her own personal and professional experiences with skill, wit, and bravery. She reaches out and tells the stories of others, too, weaving a strong safety net for any of us who need a nudge toward paper and pen. This book is a testament to the author’s courage, strength, and heart and a love letter to the power of words.”
— Amy Silverman, author of My Heart Can’t Even Believe It: A Story of Science, Love, and Down Syndrome

“Using her work with cancer patients and veterans, as well as her own experience, Sandra Marinella guides you through the dark and lonely times of illness, trauma, and loss to the healing power of writing. With writing prompts designed to lead you deeper into self-reflection, she shows how you can discover your own strength through writing the story you need to tell. And — most important of all — she offers the empowering realization that you can choose how you tell the story and what it means.”
— Barbara Abercrombie, author of A Year of Writing Dangerously and Courage & Craft

“The Story You Need to Tell inspires, uplifts, and teaches people who need to address the power of their memories and their stories how to stand in their truth and how to find words to express what is often inexpressible. Words heal, and Sandra Marinella will help you find yours.”
— Linda Joy Myers, president of the National Association of Memoir Writers and author of The Power of Memoir and Don’t Call Me Mother

“Sandra Marinella has empowered us to take charge of our life story and to turn challenges into meaning and purpose. Telling our stories not only helps us heal from trauma but allows us to craft a beautiful life out of the ashes.”
— Dr. Norma Bowe, professor at Kean University, author of Perspectives on Community Mental Health, and subject of The Death Class: A True Story about Life

From the Publisher

05/01/2017
One way to handle trying life events, says writing instructor Marinella, is through expressing your pain, dreams, and aspirations through narrative. For this book, the author interviewed hundreds of people, from veterans and cancer patients to students and grieving parents, all of whom have found that writing helped to lay out a broken experience and allowed them to begin to piece it back together again. Prompts provided at the end of each chapter serve to jump-start one's thinking to make sense of one's story. Other suggestions include describing difficulty from a different viewpoint and exploring tales of hope and possibility. VERDICT Although one does not have to be a writer to gain insight from this book, it will be especially relevant for those who are inclined toward journaling and putting their feelings on the page.

Library Journal