Live • Interactive • Online
A Healing Writing Workshop with Dr. Lissa Rankin and Nancy Slonim Aronie.
Saturday, April 18th & Sunday April 19th 2026 | 10:00 am to 4:00 pm Pacific Time
“This workshop will invite you to write your Dear John letter to your klingon, the story you've carried far too long and are ready to put to rest- for good.” – Nancy Slonim Aronie
Do you have a painful, empathy-inducing, resilience-proving story you’ve been telling for decades, one that you’ve shared with therapists, revealed in healing circles, and maybe even written in your journal or in a memoir?
Is there a particular story of trauma, victimization, and creation of limiting beliefs that you’re weary of, one that you’ve had witnessed, compassionately mirrored, and had lovingly held space made for grieving, fear- and yet you can’t seem to let it go?
Are you sick of tired of how whiny you sound when you tell the same story, over and over, and people’s eyes start to glaze over because you’ve been telling the story on repeat for year after year?
If so, you're not alone. Help is here. Kick off 2026 right with putting your story to rest- for good, while celebrating creativity, joy, togetherness, empathy, and Internal Family Systems.
Join writing teachers Lissa Rankin, MD and Nancy Slonim Aronie as they reunite for one of their popular writing workshops. Lissa & Nancy will again combine forces for two 6-hour live (and recorded) online video sessions.
This healing writing workshop will help you write that story (you know the one) one last time- to honor it, witness it, have it witnessed by others, and then ritually let it go, without bypassing the pain or exiling the parts that have held that story for so long, as they wait to finally, finally be healed.
“You can honor your history and have compassion for your “parts” without being loyal to your suffering, as if it’s an albatross you’ve adopted as your best friend.” - Lissa Rankin, MD
The Woman Who Was Loyal To Her Suffering
This workshop was inspired by Nancy’s cousin Zelda, who told her when she was a kid that she remembers hiding and listening behind the kitchen door to her mother and her aunt.
Her aunt did all of the talking, complaining about her arthritis, her husband Irving, her varicose veins, her cough that came out of nowhere, her best friend Bessie’s heart murmur, her best friend Esther's dumkuph of a husband, the high price of ground beef- and then she’d cycle back to her aches and pains.
She could tell you when it was going to rain precisely 37 hours before the first thunderclap sounded.
Here’s the story, as Nancy tells it:
My mother, Zelda continued, finally exasperated, having gotten not one word in edgewise for the entire afternoon, would yell, "ENOUGH ALREADY!" It would stop Sadie in her tracks, and she’d leave in a huff shortly after. And then her mother would say the same thing every single time.
“That woman, I swear, is loyal to her suffering.
The huff didn't last long and there would be a repeat of the little theater piece in a matinee the very next day .
Zelda would eavesdrop and Sadie would complain and Zelda’s mother would say “Enough already,” and when Zelda’s mother’s sister would leave in a huff, Zelda's mother would say, "I swear that woman is loyal to her suffering." Rinse and repeat.
Ex-Lax For Stuck Stories
For the last forty years Nancy has facilitated writing workshops where she has been called “the midwife for words that want to get out.” She jokingly calls herself *Ex-lax for stuck stories.” One student described her writing workshops as “Isn't it that writing thing up in Martha’s Vineyard where, after women take it, they leave their husbands?”
Nancy remembers laughing, then wincing. Or was it wincing then laughing?
But her work for all these years has been to encourage people to take the chance of writing the tough stuff that happened to them, their traumas, their “tiny murders,” their deep sorrow- to get those stories out of their bodies and onto the page.
But whether you’ve written your story or not, some stories have staying power. We just can’t seem to put them in the past and move on beyond them.
Our hope is that this workshop will serve as a guide to help you, the writer, the complainer, the victim, the wounded, the hurt one, the empaths, the one who was called Sarah Bernhardt, the one who felt all the emotions for the whole family, who got sick because of what wasn’t said in the home, who carried the family shame or the town’s scarlet letter or the weight of the world on your shoulders- to finally once and for all turn the page on your old story and create a new narrative that suits The New Year, New You.
This workshop is for those who will declare “I’m done. This is the last time I will write this and the last time it will have a hold on me.”
Why Nancy Wanted To Teach “ENOUGH ALREADY”
“Personally, I have been writing about my father’s dropped-dead-in-a-minute-in-front-of-my-15- year-old-self a thousand times. I have written a million poems from my father’s point of view, my innocent teenage girl's point of view, and even from the blades of grass that he fell on. I have written story after story, fiction and non fiction, and I have told it in classes, at parties and on stage in lecture halls. I have cried, sobbed, and pounded on the floor “How could you have left me? You don’t even know me!”. I even went to a holistic retreat center called The Meadows in Arizona and wrote a 17 page letter to him and read out loud to an empty chair with his supposed ghost sitting there.
Then, about a year ago, I started to realize how done I am with this wound, the wound that shaped me, that made me who I am but no longer defines me. Yes, I see fathers and daughters everywhere. And I start to tear up- but I stop myself, because I DO NOT WANT TO GO BACKWARDS anymore. Like spackling compound, the crack is still there, but I smoothed it over with time and grace and yes…WRITING. And now I am finally finished. That dog don’t hunt no more.
And I decided to offer a workshop where participants agree to write the last personal narrative about their story that no longer serves, the one they are done with.
But don’t worry if you haven’t already written your “This is who I am, this is what happened to me ‘Poor me’ story.” Maybe you’ve been telling it or just holding onto it as your identity and you're ready to honor it as part of what shaped you. But now you're ready to put it in the rear headlights. I like to say “Look at the past, but don't stare at it”. This time you're gonna look, you’re going to feel, you’re going to cry one more time if you need to- but you’re not going to linger. You’ll honor it, acknowledge it, maybe even feel grateful for how it shaped you and made you the person we all know and love. And then you’re gonna say buh bye to it- ritually, lovingly, honoringly, and with a sincere desire for completion.
I asked Lissa to do this with me, not only because Lissa has written her final story on some painful hurts- and even published them, but also because Lissa will help facilitate this process using Internal Family Systems, so that you’re not exiling your exiles, as they say in the IFS world. Lissa and I will help you write your story and witness your story- and then Lissa will be your guide in helping to make a peaceful closure, to honor your grieving, to make altars and bonfires and whatever else you need to make to make peace, to let go, to help ensure that the end is really The End. Finito. Curtain closed. Applause!!!”
"Everyone has a story to tell and telling it is important. Sharing 'this is who I am, these are the things that shaped me, this is where I am now' allows a kind of magic and healing to happen." - Nancy Slonim Aronie
Why Lissa Said “Hell Yeah” & “I freakin’ love this idea” When Nancy Invited Her
I had my “Medicine hurt me” story. I had already written a 120,000 memoir about it before I met Nancy at Esalen Institute in 2008, and then I wrote it again- and again- and again- in class after class with Nancy. For fifteen years, I sat in a circle of doctors under the mentorship of pediatrician and healer Rachel Naomi Remen, MD, and I cried for years while I tried to gasp out my story. I wrote blogs about how medicine hurt me. I gave four TEDx talks about it. I gave a hundred keynotes that made me cry, just retelling the story to a live audience. I told the story to four therapists and took dozens of healing workshops where the story got witnessed. I played it on repeat to anyone who would listen for years after I had chosen to leave the hospital- and my medical practice- for good. And then I finally published a memoir about it The Anatomy Of A Calling, which meant I had to tell the story over and over on podcast after podcast, reliving (and retraumatizing myself) each time.
It wasn’t until I found Internal Family Systems, though, that the parts of me that got hurt in hospitals and clinics, especially during my medical training, finally got the witnessing they needed, to move beyond those stories- and stop telling them. Over the holidays this year, I met many new people because we just moved near Bodega Bay, California, away from my home of 17 years in Muir Beach. And I realized that when I introduced myself, I didn’t even tell anyone I used to be a doctor. Because that story is over. Now, I’m a full time writer, a mother, an artist, a chef, a gardener, a do-it-yourself “makerly” type who likes to host dinner parties. I am no longer the girl whose father abandoned her to go to the hospital, the young woman who got hurt in hospitals, the new mother who wasn’t allowed to take a postpartum leave or grieve the loss of her father because doctors wouldn’t let her. I am over it.
And Nancy is part of the reason I got over it- because I credit her with giving me my writing voice, the one any of you who have been reading my writing for years would recognize as “Lissa’s voice,” the one ChatGPT tries to emulate but still can’t quite sound like me, because my voice is mine alone. Nancy gifted me that, as she gifts many people their authentic and unique writing voice.
If anyone else had asked me to lead a workshop about getting over your story, I would have said “Hell no.” Because I never want to bypass our stories. I never want to bully parts that aren’t ready to let go. I never want to put a time stamp on wounded parts that just aren’t done yet. It takes however long it takes- and it can’t be forced.
But if anyone can create a healing space expansive enough to support parts moving past their stories without bypassing the trauma, it’s Nancy. So I said yes- because I trust her ginormous heart, that’s big enough, wise enough, and kind enough to contain all of our stories, so we can all grieve and let go and empathize- together.
"I really needed and enjoyed the excuse to write regularly and in a community of like-minded, loving, badass people.
And it is so medicinal to me to continually be exposed to the unique and beautiful way Lissa and Nancy articulate a nuanced perspective on how to heal, at the personal as well as societal level, melding wisdom about the connections between mind, body, and spirit without spiritual bypassing and abandoning social and eco-justice principles." - Kaeley
The Workshop Program
TWO FULL DAYS with Lissa Rankin & Nancy Slonim Aronie
All sessions will be recorded and are available within 24 hours of each session.
* Session content subject to adjustment.
Session One
Saturday, April 18th. 2026
10:00 am - 4:00 pm Pacific Time
10:00 AM -12:30 PM
What is your "ENOUGH ALREADY" Story?
12:30 PM -1:30 PM
LUNCH BREAK
Once Lissa & Nancy have had a lunch break, one or both of them will be back for Q&A, so you can take a full lunch break or ask your burning questions and listen to the recording later.
1:30 PM -4:00 PM
GET IT OUT OF YOUR BODY AND ONTO THE PAGE
This is your chance! Now that you’re clear which story wants to move, you’ll bring it to life and honor it beautifully. It’s all welcome- the raw, the edgy, the disturbing, the glory, the humor, and if you’ve ever studied with Nancy, you know we won’t let you forget the urine bag! (The urine bag IS the story.) We’ll be coaxing out the brutiful truth, helping you make meaning of it in your own way (without spiritual bypassing), and facilitating you to get your issues out of your tissues and onto the page. We’ll use music, movement, and breakout sessions to help you feel embodied, seen, witnessed, mirrored, and supported as you journey through a process that leads to feeling like you’d laid down your burden, preparing the way for Sunday’s continuation of the ritualized journey space.
Session Two
Sunday, April 19th. 2026
10:00 am - 4:00 pm Pacific Time
10:00 AM -12:30 PM
Make Your Story Mythic
12:30 PM -1:30 PM
LUNCH BREAK
Once Lissa & Nancy have had a lunch break, one or both of them will be back for Q&A, so you can take a full lunch break or ask your burning questions and listen to the recording later.
1:30 PM -4:00 PM
GET IT OUT OF YOUR BODY AND ONTO THE PAGE
As you complete your “enough already” story, having made it mythically beautiful, we’ll be ritually sharing, mirroring, witnessing, gushing, and finally, ritually, letting our stories go.
Then…we celebrate! We don’t want to spoil any surprises, so we’ll leave it at that.
+ Plus
Memoir as Medicine Companion Workbook
This workbook is designed to be a companion piece to the live workshop, but it can also be used as a standalone resource.
Writing a memoir can be a powerful and transformative experience. It allows us to process and make sense of our own experiences, and can provide us with a deeper understanding of ourselves and our place in the world. It can also be a cathartic and healing process, helping us to work through difficult emotions and experiences.
This workbook is organized into a series of exercises and prompts that will guide you through the process. Each exercise is designed to help you dig deeper and explore the stories and experiences that are most meaningful to you.
+ Plus
Interested In Publishing Your Memoir?
Recorded Interview with Lissa’s Literary Agent Michele Martin.
Recorded Interview with Lissa’s Sounds True Editor for her book Sacred Medicine Jennifer Brown.
About Nancy Slonim Aronie
Nancy Slonim Aronie has been a commentator for National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. She was a Visiting Writer at Trinity College in Hartford, CT, wrote a monthly column in McCall’s magazine and was the recipient of the Eye of The Beholder Artist in Residence award at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Nancy won teacher of the year award for all three years she taught at Harvard University for Robert Coles.
She gives writing workshops and lectures at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, Omega Institute, Rowe Conference Center, Esalen, Wain-Wright House and The Open Center in New York City. She teaches at Harvard University.
About Lissa Rankin, MD
Lissa Rankin, MD believes that writing and healing can be intimately related and teaches writing workshops infused with trauma healing and spiritual healing, both in person and virtually. Lissa agrees with Nancy Aronie that trauma is memoir-making material, and we can alchemize our pain into the most beautiful story-telling when we feel safe for the muse to come out to play, in a community of other writers who also feel safe and can help us hold our story while we rewrite it as art.
Lissa has been writing since kindergarten and was offered her first book deal when she was 12, which she turned down, since they were her private stories. She was a creative writing major at Duke University and wrote her first fiction book as her thesis on African American women's literature while in college. Throughout her medical training while becoming an OB/GYN, she wrote stories inspired by her patients and used writing to heal the moral injury she felt while working within a corrupt medical system.
When she quit her job as a doctor in 2007, she finally succumbed to her lifelong desire to be a career writer. Her first book Broken, a memoir about her journey through the wounded health care system, never got published because she didn't have an audience. So at the urging of her literary agent, in 2009, Lissa began blogging and publishing The Daily Flame, a daily email love letter from your "Inner Pilot Light" to your wounded parts, based on the healing model Internal Family Systems (IFS), a trauma healing spiritual path which Lissa incorporates into all the healing and writing workshops she facilitates.
Because her blog and Daily Flame emails quickly garnered a large readership, she was able to publish her first book in 2010 and has been blessed to have her last 7 books published. Her third book, the New York Times bestseller Mind Over Medicine, has sold over 300,000 copies in 28 languages.
In addition to putting in her 100,000 hours and writing every day, in 2012, Lissa founded the Whole Health Medicine Institute, where she and a team of luminary faculty train physicians and other health care providers about “Whole Health” and the “6 Steps to Healing Yourself.”
Lissa has starred in two National Public Television specials, her TEDx talks have been viewed over 5 million times, and she leads workshops, both online and at retreat centers like Esalen, 1440, Omega, and Kripalu.
Her latest health equity project is non-profit work committed to democratizing trauma healing and spiritual healing while eliminating the public health epidemic of loneliness, bringing Sacred Medicine out of its current status as a luxury good to anyone who needs it and is open to it, regardless of socioeconomic status, race, or gender identity.
Lissa lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her daughter Mira, who is also a writer, and her puppy Gaia, who would tell great stories if only she knew how.
Early Bird Special
Until Sunday, March 22nd, Midnight
$297
If the cost of this workshop presents a financial hardship, we hope you will contact us for tuition adjustment options. Please write to support@lissarankin.com
Frequently Asked Questions:
Do you offer stipends?
If the cost of this program presents a financial hardship then we hope you will contact us for other options. Please write to support@lissarankin.com
How do I contact customer service?
Please contact us by sending an email to support@lissarankin.com
What kind of technology will I need in order to participate?
All you’ll need is a computer or a smartphone and internet access in order to participate. All live calls will be on Zoom.
What if I can't attend a session when it takes place ?
All sessions are recorded so if you can't attend the live session you'll be able to soak up the juicy teachings, healing intentions, and spiritual energy of this course at any time it’s convenient for you.