Sign Up For Lost And Found

woman on bed with photos

Young adult cancer survivors often worry about returning to the dating world, to their established intimate relationships, and to themselves.

Jean Rowe, Certified Journal Therapist, returns to facilitate this meaningful and powerful program. This workshop has helped past participants dip their toes back into the water of intimacy after diagnosis and treatment. Lacuna Loft and Jean are excited to offer this journal workshop online to young adult cancer survivors (women only) of any diagnosis.  Using journal techniques and cultivating an action plan for self-care, in 8 weeks you will have the opportunity to emerge from the water renewed, informed, and ready to reconnect.

Join other young cancer survivors (women only) who understand what you’ve gone through while learning how to reconnect, welcoming a compassionate understanding of your body now, and creating ways to open your heart to intimate opportunities after cancer.  Sign up below!

Where: Online video chat. We’ll send you more information about joining after you register. Please have a microphone headset and a webcam.

Who: Young adult cancer survivors (women only).  *If you’ve taken this workshop before, we will be prioritizing survivors who have not yet had the opportunity.*

When: The writing group meets on Sundays at 1 pm PT / 3 pm CT / 4 pm ET for 2 hours each week, for 8 weeks starting on Sunday, April 18th and ending on May 23rd.  A commitment to attend each week is important to group continuity and in creating a safe space. Please be on time 🙂

Beginning Again

rose budding

March is a time which includes celebrating women, the vernal equinox, springing an hour ahead and wearing green on the 17th. Some may moan at the time change, and I encourage us to welcome the longer light. Depending on where you live, you may already be seeing evidence of spring with new blossoms surfacing. Daffodils were the first to wave at me followed now by Redbuds. New life. Rebirth. Beginning. Again.

These latter signs point to opportunity. To fling open the windows and let in fresh air – literally and within your being. To breathe deeply as the earth shows off in its seasonal glory. To rise from hibernation and start down the mountain as the splendid Mary Oliver’s bear is described in Spring (“this dazzling darkness”). To take chances, risk as some of the characters do in the movie Begin Again.

How might it feel to rise, to stretch, to move down the mountain, to sniff the air, to listen to the sounds around you, to taste, to touch, to feel – as if a brand new experience?

Absorb this idea and write for five minutes. Stay curious.

Let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear from you!

Some old-fashioned things like fresh air and sunshine are hard to beat.
Laura Ingalls Wilder

Write Now With Jean Rowe: Grounded

rock structure

Lacuna Loft is proud to present our newest blog initiative: Write Now with Jean Rowe! Each month, come on over to Young Adult Voices and read everything Jean Rowe, Certified Journal Therapist, has to say! Love what you’re reading? Check out the many programs Jean is facilitating (including 30 Minute Tune-UpLost and FoundLacuna Loft’s Weekly Journal Prompt, and It’s a Wonderful Life) and sign up to join one today!

2021 has started with a bang.  Let’s focus on how we can stay grounded no matter what is swirling around us.  Let’s invite ways to hold our center and remember to chuckle when, as Betty Davis said, “fasten your seatbelts; it’s going to be a bumpy night.”  The hopeful news is that there are simple ways to help ourselves.

Some of what is recommended is common sense and what we already know, and, yet, it is okay to return to this good direction when we need help.  There is no requirement here.  These are options for you to ponder.  Notice what feels right for you.

Connect with others.  You know who your people are.  Remember to share how you are doing and check in on others (even if they appear to be fine).  Take a break from the news.  Take a break from social media.  Get outside.  Get more sleep.  Consider making a daily, small gratitude list.  Try meditation for five minutes.

Journal!

Try this: make a list of the ways you stay grounded (and maybe already are!).  Write for five minutes and see what surfaces.  Are you doing these things?  Might you return to them to help feel grounded?  Did something new appear?

Let me know how it goes.  I’d love to hear from you!

You never know what someone else is going through.
Be kind.
Always.
[Quoted often; Claimed by many]

Join The Survivorship Series

woman at laptop

Welcome to the Survivorship Series!

Together, 25 young adults facing cancer (patients, survivors, or caregivers) will go through a 6-week, online program experience where you’ll hit the highlights of our workshops!  You’ll form a tight-knit community and every other week, you’ll take part in a different 2-hour program with the same group of young adults moving together through the series.

In week 1 you’ll join a Creative Art Workshop, in week 3 a Young Adult Cancer Hangout + Game Night, and in week 5 a Creative Writing/Journaling Workshop.  In between workshops, you’ll have access to a private Facebook group for your cohort of 25 young adults where you can connect and communicate.  You may only take part in the series once, and when you sign up you are committing to taking part in all 6 weeks.

The first round of the Survivorship Series has been scheduled and starts on Wednesday, Feb. 17th! 

Week 1:  Wednesday, February 17 @ 4 pm PT / 6 pm CT / 7 pm ET – Creative Art Workshop (a very cool, cactus paper mosaic)
Week 3:  Wednesday, March 3 @ 4 pm PT / 6 pm CT / 7 pm ET – YAC Hangout / Game Night
Week 5:  Wednesday, March 17 @ 4 pm PT / 6 pm CT / 7 pm ET – Journaling/Creative Writing Workshop

Write Now With Jean Rowe: Take Aways From 2020

Lacuna Loft is proud to present our newest blog initiative: Write Now with Jean Rowe! Each month, come on over to Young Adult Voices and read everything Jean Rowe, Certified Journal Therapist, has to say! Love what you’re reading? Check out the many programs Jean is facilitating (including 30 Minute Tune-UpLost and FoundLacuna Loft’s Weekly Journal Prompt, and It’s a Wonderful Life) and sign up to join one today!

The extraordinary year of 2020 has come to a close. As I reflect on the glorious work Lacuna Loft journaling workshop participants have shared with me during this past year, I am struck by how wise you all are. Here are some take-aways from our time together which I hope you will see as a wisdom list. You are the authors.

You are a Rock Star
Home is not necessarily a physical space
I know my value
Rain can start things over
Love permeates boundaries
The small things count just as much
Enjoy the moment
Wear the bikini
Don’t be afraid to roar
I am enough
Happiness is relatively free, and love doesn’t cost a thing
It’s my time to shine

Think about placing this list where you can see it. Choose one phrase or one word and journal about that for five minutes. See what surfaces! Let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear from you!

Follow your heart, listen to your inner voice, stop caring about what others think. -Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart

Write Now with Jean Rowe: Generosity

Lacuna Loft is proud to present our newest blog initiative: Write Now with Jean Rowe! Each month, come on over to Young Adult Voices and read everything Jean Rowe, Certified Journal Therapist, has to say! Love what you’re reading? Check out the many programs Jean is facilitating (including 30 Minute Tune-UpLost and FoundLacuna Loft’s Weekly Journal Prompt, and It’s a Wonderful Life) and sign up to join one today!

Generosity

We are fully entering the holiday season in an entirely new way. Many of us will not gather with those we love as we normally do. The reframe is this: how can we gather with those we love under the circumstances? Who can we call to our virtual or heart-centered table? How can we invite the energy of those who matter to us into our hearts even if we’re not going to be with them? How can we send this expansive-like spirit into the world so that others can benefit from this generous thinking?

I’m not suggesting that this will make everything okay. Of course, it won’t. It’s a weird time, and, while the holidays bring up all manner of feelings, this year is an extra helping of managing our own.

I recently listened to a journal workshop participant share about how she and friends all cooked the same meal (on their own) and then gathered virtually to dine together and talk about how it went, what they enjoyed, the process. This is a supper club with a twist, and it accomplished a variety of things: creativity, flexibility, finding a new way to be with one another, and a delicious meal.

What comes up for you in thinking about choosing differently to be with the holidays this year? Write about that for 5-7 minutes and see what surfaces. Let me know how it goes! I’d love to hear from you.

“For it is in giving that we receive.”
― St. Francis of Assisi

Write Now With Jean Rowe

candles

Lacuna Loft is proud to present our newest blog initiative: Write Now with Jean Rowe! Each month, come on over to Young Adult Voices and read everything  Jean Rowe, Certified Journal Therapist, has to say! Love what you’re reading? Check out the many programs Jean is facilitating (including 30 Minute Tune-Up, Lost and Found, Lacuna Loft’s Weekly Journal Prompt, and It’s a Wonderful Life) and sign up to join one today!

As we all continue to navigate the swiftly moving landscape of life, I notice a recurring theme surfacing throughout these times. It is the opportunity to celebrate what is. There is much out of our control, and, yet, when we make a list of what we are doing, it can be fulfilling and empowering.

Take some time to make that list especially when things start to feel overwhelming. We can be so hard on ourselves to “do it all,” and a rather harsh internal voice can emerge when we perceive we have failed. When we make a list of what we are doing, it can be relieving, rewarding, and enlightening. Do know that naps absolutely make the list because they are a form of self-care! Consider setting a time on your calendar each week to make a list of what you are doing and see what happens. How does it feel? What do you notice?

Think about writing for 5 minutes on celebrating what is. Even as life surely looks different these days, there are avenues to find our way. Here’s an example: you can still decorate for Halloween even if trick or treaters will be safely keeping their distance. What might you do? Carve pumpkins? Hang orange string lights? Watch a scary movie virtually with friends? The possibilities are there. It’s up to you to grab on to them!

Tell me how it goes! I’d love to hear from you.
-Jean

“Anyone could see that the wind was a special wind this night, and the darkness took on a special feel because it was All Hallows’ Eve. Everything seemed cut from soft black velvet or gold or orange velvet. Smoke panted up out of a thousand chimneys like the plumes of funeral parades. From kitchen windows drifted two pumpkin smells: gourds being cut, pies being baked.”
-Ray Bradbury
The Halloween Tree

Loch, A Love Letter To Water

woman staring at lake in mist

Lacuna Loft’s Journaling program sends a journal prompt directly to your inbox.  Participants are encouraged to write for a specific amount of time (usually between 7-12 minutes) and are always invited to submit their writing for publication here.  This piece was written by Tori T. in response to the prompt: Write a love letter to water.

I’ve been waiting to meet you wildness;

I sought you,

On long and stormy nights.

I clung to your rocky shores,

Waiting for your pull to drag me under.

But instead your landscape drove me,

To a land of contradictions.

One of rugged mountains,

gouged out canyons,

covered in the softest grass and freshest air.

A swirl of mist fog,

And icy dredges.

Darkest waters,

Greenest pastures,

Pillows of heather,

Giant granite boulders standing tall.

Amongst these rivals,

I felt claimed by all.

by Tori T.

This was a written submission from Lacuna Loft’s weekly Journal Prompt Program.  Sign up to get on the list, receive weekly journal prompts in your inbox, and submit your own piece of writing to us by emailing aerial@lacunaloft.org!

Write Now With Jean Rowe: Journal Writing Is Good For You!

journal on table with flowers

Lacuna Loft is proud to present our newest blog initiative: Write Now with Jean Rowe! Each month, come on over to Young Adult Voices and read everything Jean Rowe, Certified Journal Therapist, has to say! Love what you’re reading? Check out the many programs Jean is facilitating (including 30 Minute Tune-Up, Lost and Found, Lacuna Loft’s Weekly Journal Prompt, and It’s a Wonderful Life) and sign up to join one today!

—-

Journal writing is good for you!  I am not just providing lip service for something in which I truly believe. The benefits of expressive/journal writing have been studied for over 30 years. Journaling as a coping technique for cancer patients is among them.  If you have taken part in any of Lacuna Loft’s programs, you already know the changes for good, aha moments, and important internal shifts that can and do take place.

Research performed by James Pennebaker concluded that “physical health and work performance can improve by simple writing and/or talking exercises.” Simple. Writing. Exercises. 

Kay Adams, the Founder and Director for the Center for Journal Therapy, calls the journal the “79¢ therapist.”  If you knew that the anxiety, the worry, the insomnia, the punishing voice in your head, the [you fill in the blank] would lessen, subside or even stop by spending 5-7 minutes writing in a journal on a regular basis, would you?  As Glinda told Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, “you’ve always had the power.”  

You might ask, how can journaling help you?  Have you felt triggered by the smells of the infusion room?  Experienced scanxiety?  Wondered who you are with/after cancer?  The journal is your ally towards working through those experiences.  You can write anything you want.  No one is going to judge you.  It’s a personal, private space.

Here is a prompt to try.  Write for 5 minutes.  Then, read back over what you wrote and give yourself an impression of what you feel or think about what you wrote (i.e. I notice…)

Describe a place in your home where you feel safe.  What makes it comfortable?  How do you relax there?  Is there a certain time of day you spend there?  What is the view outside the window?  Is anyone there with you?  Where are you in the room?

Tell me how it goes! I’d love to hear from you.

-Jean

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.

-William Wordsworth

30 Minute Tune Up: A Journal Drop In

writing on desk

We have a brand new program forming!  Join us each week for a 30 Minute Tune Up: A Journal Drop In program!

Jean Rowe, LCSW, OSW-C, Certified Journal Therapist returns to Lacuna Loft for a new program.  This journal drop-in is designed to help you tune in and reset during a chaotic time.

In the chaos of our everyday lives, with COVID anxiety and racial tensions at an all-time high across the country, we want to extend the opportunity to spend 30 minutes each week in a drop-in journaling workshop. Come, journal with a group of young adults facing cancer (young adult cancer patients, survivors, and caregivers all welcome), and get tuned up for another week.  You are welcome to drop in once or come as often as you like.  These journaling techniques will be short, concrete, and time-contained.  Sign up below!

Where: Online video chat. We’ll send you more information about joining after you register. Please have a microphone headset and a webcam.

Who: Young adult cancer patients, survivors, and caregivers.

When: Thursdays, July 16 – Oct 1.  9:30-10 am PT / 11:30 am-noon CT / 12:30-1 pm ET.  Please be on time 🙂