Courses by Michele
HEALING WRITING FOR "SOUL WOUNDS"
ResilientU: 28 Days of Healing Writing to Cultivate Moral Resilience
Join us for the 28-day e-course that helps you build your “moral muscle,” so that in any situation, you can hold your center, act with confidence, and maintain your integrity.
Have you ever had to compromise yourself or something you hold dear, like a sacred belief, a core value, or an essential part of your identity because of forces seemingly beyond your control?
Have you suffered because of institutional or systemic barriers that prevent you from acting with integrity, particularly when it comes to fundamental moral principles and ethical responsibilities?
Have you felt fractured from repeatedly not having your values respected, either individually or collectively, or been outraged that others don’t grasp a moral significance or moral imperative that is clear to you?
If so, this is the experience of moral distress—and it can feel like death by a thousand cuts.
Moral distress causes anger, disgust, fear, and frustration; likewise, feelings of being muzzled, restricted, devalued, unheard, or dismissed. Research also shows that moral distress has long-term consequences, such as burnout, exhaustion, numbness, disconnection, and diminished moral sensitivity (also called “compassion fatigue”).
That’s where the ResilientU for Moral Resilience course comes in.
ResilientU has helped countless people transform their pain from moral distress into power, peace, purpose, and possibility. It a source of strength and structure. And, as our testimonials below will attest, it’s a tried and trusted way to reclaim your soul and spirit — your life — when moral distress has taken over.
—Oh, and did we mention that it’s one of the few scientifically backed writing programs out there? ResilientU grew out of Michele’s two decades of research in trauma, neuroscience, and creative arts therapies, among others, including a writing therapy she developed entitled Embodied Disclosure Therapy (EDT).
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Moral distress can be terribly disorienting.
Yup, and it makes perfect sense. Research has shown moral distress disrupts our sense of global and situational meaning and can have long-term consequences, such as burnout, exhaustion, numbness, disconnection, and diminished moral sensitivity (also called “compassion fatigue”).
Moral distress can also be terribly exhausting.
Simply put, “soul wounds” can suck the life out of you. There’s nothing like carrying the weight of the world — of what’s right and wrong and what you’ve been forced to compromise or endure — upon your heart. Even when others mean well, offering “happy thoughts” and positive platitudes, maybe you’d like your experience to be honored for what it was: suck-worthy, at best. Maybe it would be nice to not have to answer the question, “What’s wrong with you?” — as if you’re the weirdo, downer, or crank in the room. Maybe it would be nice to stop “keeping up appearances” for the sake of family and friends, work or your job, or your own sense of pride. Been there? Yup, the burden of moral distress can be hefty.
You’re not alone.
If, like many people with moral distress, you have found it hard (or impossible) to talk about your experience, burrowing your pain deep inside, then chances are you’re not saying much at all. And that’s also not good.
Research has shown that recalling, reflecting on, and renegotiating a distressing experience, is a vital part of the healing process. Likewise, that holding back or suppressing negative emotions can make your “rational brain” go offline, causing you to become more anxious, depressed, and easily set off, among other “not great” things. It can also lead to poorer health.
On the flip side, research has also shown that expressing one’s deeper thoughts and feelings through writing can result in significant physical and psychological health benefits in the short and long term.
The Whole Soul Living 28-day, self-guided course gives you a way to safely and creatively explore the beliefs, values, and experiences that may be contributing to your moral distress and holding you back without the need to “burden” others, pretty it up, or edit the contents. It allows you to engage slowly with what is deepest inside you and what is most important for you, assessing your moral strengths and areas for growth. In doing so, new understandings about the pain are revealed, as are opportunities to transform that pain into moral resilience by rediscovering trust, confidence, wisdom, energy, and connection with the people and things that matter most — including yourself.
Whether your morally distressing experience happened only recently or else has been festering for decades, this course is for you.
How It Works
Each day for 28 days, you will receive a writing prompt from Michele. The prompts are organized into categories to align with the Seven Pillars of Moral Resilience (DeMarco, 2023):
Self-mastery
Self-awareness
Self-expression
Meaning-making
Connectedness
Forgiveness & Reconciling
Dynamic Balance
There is no “set time” to write, so you can write whenever works best for your rhythms and routines. Most importantly, no writing experience is necessary! This course is for novices, seasoned writers, and anyone in between. More details are provided below in the “What You Need to Know” section.
Through this course, you will …
- Learn about yourself and how moral distress is living inside you and influencing your identity and life and affecting your relationships.
- Recognize your moral strengths and areas for growth.
- Discover how to care for yourself beneath the burden of pain and emerge stronger and more resilient.
- Feel supported and inspired.
- Be able to honor the “wrong,” at the same time emerge from under its control.
- Lessen the loneliness and feelings of separation or isolation.
- Reconnect with your body, mind, spirit, and soul.
- Be more able to connect with those you love and others who matter.
- Engage deeply, safely, and creatively with your pain—not as a crutch, but as a source of inspiration.
- Be part of a growing community of “flourishers” of moral adversity and moral trauma.
- Get access to resources, support, and “members-only” materials, including Michele’s Distress Tolerance Techniques book, Creative Arts Kit, and “psychoeducation” about trauma, moral distress and moral injury, and somatic therapy.
What you need to know …
- Learn about yourself and how moral distress is living inside you and influencing your identity and life and affecting your relationships.
- This course is wholly in written format (other than a welcome and thank you video from Michele). There is also no set time to write; you set the schedule. It’s totally up to you when works best.
- While writing can be therapeutic, this course is not psychotherapy, and should not be considered to be. This course is also not a substitute for psychotherapy. It can be used alongside any counseling or treatment that you may be receiving; and you may wish to consult your therapist or other professional prior to beginning the process.
- There is no requirement to write or share, but if you’ve made it this far, why not give its due. You’ll get so much more out of the course if you engage the material.
- At the end of the course, you will become part of the Soul Console Community, where you’ll find ongoing resources, a monthly writing prompt for a year, and access to new writing courses.
- If you have lingering questions, be sure to check out the link to the FAQ here. Your time and experience matter most. We want this course to be a good match for you.
One additional thing worth mentioning. While research shows that people who write expressively and emotionally about their challenges have better long-term health, some people have said that the process of writing about their traumatic experience can be itself distressing.
If that’s you, not to worry!
The Whole Soul Living course was purposefully designed to make the writing process comfortable, uncomplicated, and safe. As a part of the course, you’ll also receive tips and techniques that you can use in real-time to keep yourself in an open and relaxed embodied frame.
More Writing to Heal Courses
Coming Soon!
Stay tuned for more courses in how to heal from adversity, lost innocence, and moral trauma, like moral injury and moral distress, and build resilience.
Each course is grounded in the creative arts, particularly writing/journaling. They've helped many people transform their moral and emotional pain into power, peace, purpose, and possibility.
All courses can be done on your timetable. Give them a look!
Writing the Wrongs
Healing Writing to Transform Moral Injury or Moral Pain
Building on Michele's book Writing the Wrongs: A Trauma Survivor’s Guided Journal for Uncovering and Healing Moral Injury (New Harbinger, July 2024), the Writing the Wrongs course expands on key concepts and practices and gives you a private space to unburden yourself of your moral or emotional pain. Writing the Wrongs doesn't ask you to "make lemonade out of lemons" or find a “moral of the story.” It’s about simply and mindfully putting words to a story that is true for you, in a way that is benevolently honest, grounded in truth and hope, and focused on a better future. Whether your moral injury or trauma happened only recently or else has been festering for decades, this course is just for you.
The Write Way to Heal
10 Practices for Transforming Emotional Pain and Re-authoring Your Life
The Write Way to heal course introduces you to ten transformative approaches to “writing to heal.” From the traditional expressive writing framework to more focused exercises, such as mindfulness writing, affirmation writing, and restorative writing, to evidenced-based protocols, including written disclosure therapy (WET), trauma-focused therapy, and Michele's own embodied disclosure therapy (EDT), even a time-honored spiritual approach called scriptio divina—updated for modern readers. The Write Way to Heal empowers everyone—both experienced and beginning writers—to heal their emotional wounds and bloom.
Engaging Conflict Well
How to Tend and Befriend Conflict
Conflict isn't something to avoid or be afraid of--it's actually natural and necessary. Engaging Conflict Well is a powerful course that will change the way you understand, navigate, and engage the conflict in your life. The good news is that it works for all types of conflict: personal, professional, and in the broader community. Learn practical ways of engaging and transforming conflict; struggling well through conflict, including how the body/brain respond to conflict; your (and others') "conflict styles," and practices for engaging conflict well.
ResilientU for Moral Resilience
The course everyone needs right now to transform feelings of powerlessness, hopelessness, and helplessness is here!
The widespread injurious effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on public health, education, and work, alongside emergent social, political, and economic unrest have forced people of all backgrounds and beliefs to confront morally distressing situations. Whether it’s compromising yourself or things you hold dear due to forces beyond our control; feeling the weight of institutional or systemic barriers that prevent you from acting with integrity; or repeatedly not having your values respected, either individually or collectively, we are living in an age of moral distress. Now more than ever, we all require moral resilience. ResilientU is helping people from all walks of life transform their pain into power, peace, purpose, and possibility.