How this work changed me...
Who am I?
Here's the thing: I never imagined or planned to be a confessional community facilitator or story-based coach. I was just someone who discovered I was deeply questioning "Why am I stuck like this?!" and felt heartbroken about the state of my relationships. I read The Soul of Desire by Dr. Curt Thompson in a book club, and I have never looked back. I began chasing healing; honestly, I got a little obsessed. I read dozens of books, listened to hundreds of hours of podcasts, took classes, did 1:1 storywork myself, joined membership groups, and have participated in and led confessional communities in person and online for years.
I realized I wanted it for more than just myself; I longed for others to experience what I have.
I provide space for people to find community. The community I ached for when I started this work years ago and didn't really believe existed. A place where people learn to listen well, to hold space for feelings, speak kindness with love, and most importantly, are committed to "staying in the room"? Even when it gets hard? When it gets uncomfortable? When everything in them wants to run? Yes! Because the truth is, that's where healing happens and transformation begins. It's where my spirit and nervous system ultimately found comfort and my anxious mind learned to steady.
Story-based community isn't about crafting a new persona or social media narrative; it's about naming the truth of where we come from and being willing to face the places we've been missed and have missed others with honor, integrity, and the courage to be vulnerable. It's scary, sometimes exhausting work. But it's sacred. And so worth it. YOU are worth it. Let's find healing together.
+100 hours
CC Facilitator Training
3+ Years
Confessional Community and
Trauma informed Story-Based Work
Called to support people in their desire to be seen, soothed, safe, and secure.
What's my story?
After a career of homeschooling, online education administration and creating meaningful virtual spaces for people to feel connected and seen, I began pursuing a new season of creating spaces (virtual and in-person) where people can find healing. I love spending time with family and find delight in trying new things where we live as I learn to balance renewal with play.
My Story – Work in Progress
My Breaking Point
This site exists because I believe Story Work in confessional community is so much more than therapeutic – it’s how we can become more human, more kind, and ultimately are transformed.
I came at this work through a long and windy path. Starting in about 2015 I noticed I was having some significant inexplicable health issues that manifested in all over body itching that was finally just diagnosed as a “stress response”. I knew I was too sedentary and that life was hard, but was determined that faith and sheer will power was enough to make everything alright. My body was telling me this was a lie. This led to exploration of essential oils, and a gradual integration of healthy movement, supplements, improved food choices, and self-reflection that made slight improvements, but it was still glacially slow. I reminded myself that “small hinges swing big doors.” It took me 45 years to get here so it won’t be fixed overnight. I kept showing up. Stressed. Trying to care for my marriage, my family. Walking through peri then post menopause, working full-time, homeschooling, teens experiencing crisis, adult children estrangement, COVID, then moves and financial difficulties, and I was just baffled about why “doing all the things I was supposed to wasn’t helping.”
Humaning is hard.
The Longing for Real Connection
Then, in 2021 and 2022, I heard Dr. Curt Thompson speak at the IF conference about confessional communities. The concept was a bit mind blowing and after a lifetime of "not being a people person" and a committed introvert, suddenly, l dreamed of a group of people who would “stay in the room” and just accept me for who I was with all that I brought to the table. But how does one find these mysterious and elusive groups of people? I had stumbled into these relationships once or twice in my life, but how to cultivate, how to form something like this with intention? Preposterous.
Sigh…Humaning is SO hard.
Finding Language for my Suffering
In early 2023, I joined a book club at work where we read The Soul of Desire. I didn’t connect the dots until later that the book was written by the same person I’d seen talking about confessional communities, and reading this book changed my life. It fit together all the pieces I’d been gathering for the past 8 years into a framework that finally made sense to me. The intersection of psychology, neuroscience, spiritual formation, all through the lens of a community of empathetic witnesses. This was what everything in me had been longing for and I became eager for more. I read every one of his books, stalked the websites, listened to every one of the available podcasts from him and the Center for Being Known, which led me down a rabbit hole of other podcasts like Adam Youngs “The Place we Find Ourselves”, and then The Allender Center, Lora Kelley's Storied Living, and then Freedom Movement, all of which continued to support and build out a framework of engaging my own personal story. Hundreds (thousands?) of hours of books, podcasts, and blogs allowed me to discover and understand how the key to my present was my past experiences.
Does Humaning have to be this hard?
Digging Deeply into Story Work
Over the past couple of years, I have participated in and led confessional communities, done 1:1 Story Work, and talked to a counselor and spiritual director to try to make sense of my story. Now, I'm working through the Confessional Community Training Program and I’ve learned that every aspect of my past experiences are brought into every minute of every day. It shapes and forms my choices, as well as my interactions at the grocery store, at work, with my family, and even online. I’ve seen transformation with how I bring myself with curiosity to conversations, new experiences, and all of my relationships. I am able to be more confident in sitting with others in their grief, in accepting my own discomfort when I don’t know what to do or how to do something, and to more intentionally repair when things go wrong. Which they just DO! I can allow others to have opportunities to grow without feeling required to fix or even participate in every aspect of their experience or journey. And best of all, I am learning to ask for help, to accept it, and to be kinder to myself as I learn.
What if Humaning wasn’t meant to be done alone?
How Sharing Story in Community is Transforming Me
In the midst of life just continuing to move on with or without knowing how to cope, what can we do to build our own understanding and capacity, while still supporting the people in our lives with kindness and compassion? What does kindness even look like? How about when we keep making mistakes once we know how we can do better? How do we learn to accept the state of where things are even as we realize our contributions (conscious and unconscious) to the relationships we have been entrusted with? These are all questions I’ve asked, some answers are works in progress, others are deeply enstoried and hold treasure troves of meaning and emotion. All steps toward helping us see how to reframe and rewire our brains to love ourselves and others more fully, find peace and contentment where shame and contempt once lived, and to build lives that bring glory to our Creator and His Kingdom.
My Invitation to You
If you’ve ever felt alone in your story, I hope this space helps you feel seen. The truth is that there is no hope without suffering. The beauty is that if we are together, suffering can bring intimacy and the joy and hope that forms is unlike anything I’ve ever imagined and is truly transformative.
I’d love to know your story. Let’s stay in the room for each other.
Let’s learn how to Human together.
ADDRESS
PO Box 913 Bethel St. #391
Clover, SC 29710
CONTACT
lita@storyworkinprogress.com