When Writing Feels Like Group Therapy

Group settings make me really nervous. I’m not talking about mingling at a party or laughing with a group of girl friends over margaritas. I’m talking about sitting in a circle, candle burning, pouring out your heart in a small group while the upwards of ten people stare wide-eyed into your soul. These kinds of settings make me want to hangout by the coffee maker and pet the cat while reminding the group periodically that I’m good not volunteering to open my deepest wounds today, thanks.

I had a recent experience in a small group setting, a place I ironically pay a lot of money to open my deepest wounds in, where I was rambling on about some kind of feeling I was having and heat started rising up through my stomach and splaying out all over my face. I became really nervous about the eyes that were looking at me and the eyes that were looking at the floor and I started catering my words towards the people in the circle. Is everyone engaged? Make it more interesting! Is this too intense? Tell a joke! My words stopped being the truth of what was happening inside of me and started being a desperate plug to get people to like me.

Halfway through my rambling, a leader in the group said, “Chelsey, will you close your eyes while you talk?” Close my eyes while I talk? Are you crazy? How will I be able to gauge the reaction of the people I am talking to if I close my eyes? I knew what he was getting at, though. He wanted me to stop paying attention to the faces around me and start communicating what was actually true, the feelings that were actually happening inside of me. I quickly declined his invitation, but I started to think about the depth of this invitation, and how it speaks directly to the artist in me.

Isn’t this a picture of the creative process? Isn’t this a picture of the way I am always tempted to write? Sitting down at my desk often feels a lot like sitting down in group therapy. I am being asked to share my heart, to tell my truth, so I begin to. I start putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) but then I make the mistake of looking around. That person looks engaged, but do they have questions? Maybe I should extend this point. This person may need a little bit of humor; let me go ahead and throw in a random anecdote. What if Sally likes poetry and extended metaphor but Joe likes short sentences? Better throw in an abundance of both!

And it starts becoming more about the audience, more about pleasing the people who are staring wide-eyed at me while I pour out my heart than it is about me and my story. I don’t know about you, but I have no interest in dealing with artists or writers or friends who are manipulating me with half-truths just to get me to like them. I don’t want the kind of friend who is just a product of who they believe I want them to be; I want a friend who is unafraid to show up as herself. Who invites me into her story with authenticity and a type of realness that says, “I am a human and here is all my human junk, you are not alone, I swear.” When we make our writing about our audience and not about our truth, we become robots built by what we think others will approve of and we strip our art of its humanity.

Of course, there is a time to edit. There is a time to expand on this point and edit down that sentence for the sake of the audience, but we often jump straight to this. We forget that our creative process must begin with the invitation to close our eyes and just offer our hearts to a piece of paper. To forget about the people who exist around us and be with ourselves enough to tell the truth and give our stories a life that is honest and real.

At the end of the day, your creativity is for you first. Just as your feelings in group therapy are for you first. They can be bridges that connect you with people and allow you to share in community, but if you are not listening to your heart and making telling the truth your number one priority, it is impossible to invite people into your space, into your art. This is your invitation to stop looking around, stop listening to the voice of fear that tells you to cater to everyone around you, close your eyes and just create.

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The End of An Era: Saying Goodbye to Windrose

Hi friends,

Announcement (sounds so formal, doesn’t it?):

It's the end of an era.

I’ve decided that, after nearly 8 years of telling stories of navigating life, this season of Windrose is drawing to a close.

Even Here: Words for When You're Wandering

When I was 22 years old, I visited the desert for the first time.

A metaphorical desert, if we’re getting technical.

I was fresh out of college, starry-eyed and eager to begin my post-grad life. I had big ‘ole me-centered dreams: a shiny, brag-worthy PR job in the music industry! An apartment with an exposed brick wall that (somehow) would fit an upright piano! A committed relationship with a kind, goofy man!

I got exactly none of those things.

To summarize an entire year’s worth of emotion: I was devastated.

What is Home?

Late last night, I flew back into town after a week away, the city lights covering the Valley like a blanket of incandescent flowers. I’ve flown into Phoenix at least a dozen times at this point. Usually, I can identify a handful of landmarks, like my antenna-scarred South Mountain or the twinkling lights of the bridges spanning Tempe Town Lake.

Flying into Nashville, however, was always different.

I Don't Live Here Anymore

I recently returned to Nashville for the first time since moving to Phoenix five months ago.

Before my reunion, I often said that the word “home” could apply to both Nashville and Phoenix. Nashville is my home. Phoenix is my home. I could find that home-sweet-home feeling in both cities.

During my 8 days back, I frequented my old haunts. The brickwalled coffee shop still serves the meanest mocha in town. The hillside winery still proves to be a worthwhile spot to sip away a sunny Sunday afternoon. The hip burger joint still offers a lovely evening to dine with friends, new and old. The lime-green Mexican restaurant on the corner of Whitebridge still feels like a queso-soaked refuge.

There were many “stills,” but there were changes, too.

Why did you move?

A cardstock print sits propped against the lamp on my desk: a taupe watercolor swipe outlining a peakside Saguaro, the sun a tiny ring above. Beneath this minimalist illustration are these words in typeface: “I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”

I happened upon this notecard-sized print on the way out of a shop last weekend, after already having completed another purchase. It was the last print of its kind in the pile. I had to have it. I returned to the cashier: “This one, too.”

You see, this verse has been a thread weaving through my story, simple words spoken by a prophet long dead, a passage of comfort I’ve returned to again and again since my pilgrimage to the desert four years ago, when I inked a cactus on my wrist.

The Good Old Days

Last week was National Margarita Day.

I did not, however, celebrate the holiday. Truthfully, I’ve yet to find THE Mexican place here in Phoenix. You know the one: gaudy decorations, cheap food, even cheaper margaritas.

But there’s a Mexican restaurant at the corner of Charlotte and Whitebridge in Nashville, TN.

You may have heard of it.

Witching Hour (or, Fighting Off Demons at 3 am with a Box Cutter)

Between the hours of 3 - 4 am, I find myself awakened by nothing in particular. The room is silent. There is no sound outside. No loud car horns. No dogs barking.

I’m upset.

I wish it was something other than just me. Then I could stop it. Nothing is to blame. It feels like moments have passed since I closed my eyes. The moments of a long dreamless sleep last about 4 hours.

10 Life Lessons This Cross-Country Move is Attempting to Teach Me

There are a few lessons life has attempted to teach me since my move — all things that I haven’t yet spiced up into a full essay, but deserve to be memorialized by my metaphorical pen nonetheless.

So I present a collection of lessons I’ve learned — and am still learning — in the last 3 months.

What Will Your Life Look Like?

Tomorrow marks 3 months.

Three months here, sharing a zip code with Saguaros.

“So how is Phoenix?” a friend asked me over the phone as I sat on my balcony beneath glowing string lights, a pour of raspberry wine in my hand. The sun was setting, painting the eastern mountains with rosy swipes of redemption.

How has Phoenix been these last three months?

Dreams, LifeChelsey SatterleeApril 2, 2017FeaturedComment

When Writing Feels Like Group Therapy

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