Flexing Your Creative Muscles: Using Storytelling to Stretch & Release
Week of September 26, 2020
Jennifer Harris “Flexing Your Creative Muscles: Using Storytelling to Stretch & Release” is a writing workshop inspired by Jennifer Harris’s diverse experience as a writer, educator, organizational storyteller, and fitness enthusiast! In an era where every day storytelling has been reduced to 280 characters or less, Jennifer sees a growing need to reframe its intrinsic value. She compares writing to running, resting, and eating well, and suggests that writing as a form of storytelling is, in fact, good for our health and wellbeing. “We share a basic human need to flex our creative muscles,” she says, “to move, stretch, and release our inner spirit.” Jennifer likens her workshop experience to an energizing workout: “It may seem hard to get into at first, but if you surrender you can hit a stride, and you will feel empowered after.”
Jennifer believes that storytelling is primal, that we are wired for story, and that writing is a wellness practice we can all access. By designing exercises that warm up the mind and root writers in their bodies, Jennifer takes participants inward in an effort to draw stories outward. Her philosophy is simple: every person is a writer and every writer deserves a safe place to learn, experiment, share, and receive. Writing in this way will ignite connection and community, and will nourish your mind, body, and spirit.
Jennifer Harris is a San Diego-based entrepreneur who has spent nearly two decades writing and storytelling across sectors. A graduate of University of Chicago’s Master of the Arts Program in the Humanities and UC Davis’s undergraduate program in English and Creative Writing, Jennifer has built a career applying creative thinking and writing techniques to the fields of education, arts and culture, health sciences, and philanthropy. Today, her consultancy, JH Collective, Inc., fuses her personal and professional ethos—an ethos centered on the power of stories; that stories can serve personal growth and healing, develop organizations and business, and preserve communities and histories. On the Web jhcollectiveinc.com.