Thrice monthly stories for humans seeking depth and meaning.

I'm Janelle Hardy and at some point you signed up for this weekly (ish) newsletter on memoir-writing, somatic (body) healing and stories. If you'd like to unsubscribe, just click the unsubscribe link at the bottom.

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​Heads-up: until January 18th, you'll be receiving a number of e-mails with stories and helpful writing and healing tips, which are also encouraging you to sign up for my Art of Personal Mythmaking course.

If you want to remain on my newsletter list but you don't want to receive these e-mails, just click here (no other action required).

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​A story about dog-sledding + 4 ways writing your life-story will transform you

Hi :-)

Life is a trip! If you missed it, click here to read my 'hot mess life' 2023 recap.​

What a difference a year makes. Last year at this time I wrote "I’m pretty cosy in my life and routines right now. Perhaps I’m practicing for when I’m an old woman. But maybe when I’m an old woman I’ll be the opposite. 🤷🏻"

Little did I know in just a year I'd be out of the cosy life, and 45 would mean deep diving into learning social dance, making new dance friends and having a great time with west coast swing and salsa.

It would also mean fever dream time-warp adventures as well as dating, weight training and, in general, feeling freer, lighter and happier than I ever have.

Joy. Hot, messy joy.

I'm here for it all, but I'm also here to share a personal story.

One of my medicine stories.

And to share invitation to join me in my transformational memoir-writing course, The Art of Personal Mythmaking, live, which starts January 23rd.

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Dog-sledding with bear dogs

When I was 10 my parents got two purebred Akita puppies, a breeding pair.

We named them Umi and Ki. Japanese words. Umi for sea, Ki for spirit. I grew up in the far north of Canada in a karate-club family, run by my black-belt parents who were mentored by their Japanese sensei (teachers), so Japanese culture surrounded us.

My parents started training in the local club as teenagers, mentored by my mom's eldest brother, which, in many ways, saved them from their tumultuous upbringings, so they kept with it well into adulthood (at one point my father and my uncle were both on the Canadian National Karate Team.)

My father revered all things Japanese, including Japanese architecture, food, aesthetics and Samurai culture (oh, the black and white Kurosawa movies we watched!!).

So when it came time to spend money on pups rather than rescue them, of course my dad wanted Japanese pups. They were so cute. Fluffy, with bear cub faces and sharp ears, their fur was thick, plush, and their skin puppy-loose. So cuddly.

As the eldest at 10, it became my responsibility to take them to dog obedience classes.

I was particularly close to our male Akita, Ki, and loved him in that poignant, fierce and devoted way that 10 year olds love. Like all Akitas, he had a coiling tail. But the Akita tail, usually precisely perky and twisted into a perfectly corkscrewed seashell, for some reason, on him, always hung at half mast.

When our dogs were two and I was 12, a traditional dogsled showed up in our yard in it's light, bent-wood glory, then two dog harnesses, a gangline (the line from the sled) and tuglines (the lines attaching the dogs to the gangline). I decided to give it a try.

Because a dogsled + two dogs = obvious dogsledding fun right?

Now, despite being born and raised in northern Canada I hadn't dog-sledded before.

Even though it was a common enough activity, it wasn't a thing downtown folks did, because a true dogteam has 4-12 sled-dogs and needs space and a commitment to their welfare - sled-dogs require so much of exercise!

However. I had the gear, two dogs and three siblings to pile into the sled.

This was 1990, before internet/smartphones/social media and I was a 'deprived' child - my parents were strict about TV. When I turned seven they got a TV, but not cable. We had the one free public channel (CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) North) and four allowed shows per week (one for each of us kids.)

This gave us plenty of time to get bored and work on entertaining ourselves.
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Even though we lived downtown, we lived in a neighbourhood that was quiet, with roads covered in snow - the streets were still dirt, no sidewalks - and we had a lot of freedom to play outside on the streets.

So, knowing nothing, I geared up my two dogs, attached them to the sled, stood on the runners at the back of the sled (they look like long cross country skis) and urged them on.

To no effect.

Umi and Ki just wagged their tails, sat their rumps down and craned their heads back at me, sharp pointy ears perked, tongues out, smiling and panting. (Oh how I loved them! Even writing this description makes the image bright in my mind's eye, and my heart smolders.)

I walked back over and grabbed a collar. I started running alongside them, the dogsled bouncing along behind. Once we picked up our pace I let go of the collar, ran back and jumped on the sled runners, and, as I hollered at them to 'go, go, go!!!' we slowed to a swift stop. Umi and Ki sat down again, ears perked, and craned their heads back at me, grinning.

I'd hoped, like teaching a kid to ride a bike, that the momentum would carry them forward and we'd keep going.

And repeat. Repeat. Repeat again.

The only time we got any forward movement was when I ran alongside them.

Every dogbreed has certain traits and characteristics, strengths and weaknesses, and, particularly when they're purebreds, these traits are very, very predictable.

For example, sled-dogs are known for an insatiable desire to pull and run. Newfoundlander dogs are known for their docile nature as well as their swimming and water rescue abilities. Akitas, bred for guarding Japanese nobility, are known for their loyalty, dislike of strangers and skills in tracking and hunting boars and bears.

Akitas are not sled-dogs. They're not motivated to run and pull. Instead, they're motivated to accompany, so they'd run with me, but not ahead of me.

Around that same time we got an actual sled-dog, a rescue husky from the local animal shelter. When I'd hook Simba up (Disney's The Lion King had just come out) we'd fly! Nonstop, running and pulling and running and pulling.

She'd never pulled a sled before, but the second she leaned forward into the harness, her drive to pull kicked in, and she was off, no urging needed.

The Akitas were happy to follow along. She was happy to lead.It worked.

And here's the story medicine.

Picture you and your life-story, before doing any (or much) writing, as the two Akitas, harnessed to the dogsled, not knowing, maybe not being interested, in pulling the sled forward.

Picture you/your life-stories, hanging out, sitting on the snow, each looking at the other, hooked up to the tools that will provide movement, momentum and transformation, but going nowhere.

Picture you, getting frustrated, aware of this lack of movement, this absence of momentum.

One part of you might start yelling at the other. Pleading and attempting trickery as you try to get those dogs/other parts of you to move in tandem in the same forward direction.

To no avail. Inertia prevails. Frustration develops. Everything stays stuck in a loop, not moving.

Now, picture yourself and your life-story during and after the writing process, as the husky, leaning her shoulders into the harness, digging her paws/claws into the snow and pulling, while you stand on the runners at the back of the sled, directing her.

You move! Flow starts to happen and your direction and destination emerges, sometimes predictable, sometimes a complete surprise.

Before we examine our lives, we often feel like I did at the age of 12 with my dogsled and my dogs that wouldn't pull.

Before we get the right kind of support, we feel the same way.

Longing for creative movement but feeling stuck, sitting in the snow with your gear and your dogs, going nowhere.

There's a reason for this.

The transformational process is different than the thinking process, different even than having self-awareness. It's possible to think a lot about your life and have awareness, but still be trapped in loops of inertia.

But once we invite the right kind of support and tools into our lives (like writing, story and our bodies) we glide. We go!

We stop feeling ruled by what-has-happened. We stop accumulating the not-quite-right tools.

We move forward. We become astonished by how writing about our stories not only supports healing and movement, but also supports revelation - new ways of understanding our past, and what-has-happened.

We get to rewrite our stories.

We get to transform ourselves.

We discover our medicine stories.

We become personal mythmakers.

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Here's how. 4 ways writing your life-story will transform you

1. Writing your life-story will free up any energy devoted to just-coping and protective inertia.

Much like me trying to run a dogsled team down Jarvis Street with dogs that aren't bred to pull, when we're living an unexamined life, we're caught in loops of coping. Thought-patterns that keep us stuck in habitual ways of understanding ourselves and the world.

We're trapped in old, unhelpful narratives that spin us in place. We use all of our energy to cope with life instead of feeling alive with flow.

With the right combination of elements (ie: a dog that has the desire to pull and run) we can shift out of inertia and start to transform. Rather than sled-dogs, our personal transformational elements are our life-stories, our bodies, our desire and the writing process.

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2. Writing your life-story will heal any pain and confusion you have about who you are.

There is a tremendous kind of synergy when we start writing our thoughts, memories and stories. The act of writing is an enchanted key, unlocking stories, memories, insights and a kind of otherworldly wisdom.

The act of writing helps us get out of our own way and trust our internal creative process.

Because it takes so much effort to keep the door locked, to just coping and spinning in our habitual ways, there is a tremendous relief to finally turning the key in the lock, opening the door, and letting it flow into our writing.

This relief releases energy.

When we allow our writing to flow, healing also flows.

Insight too - we learn about who we are, and who and what we come from, which of our inherited stories we'll keep and which of those inherited stories we'll discard or alchemize.

As we become more capable of letting go we're able to rewrite our stories so that they do serve us.

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3. Writing your life-story removes debris so your life's purpose is revealed. Your meaning in life becomes clear.

Imagine that, when you write your experiences and stories down, it's like you're removing debris from a small but strong stream. All the litter, garbage, plastic bags, twigs, logs, backlogged leaves that have fallen in and gotten jammed up - story by story, 15 minutes of writing by 15 minutes of writing - you're pulling it out and removing it from the stream.

The stream's current becomes more visible, more obvious, more clear. The stream's direction and movement becomes obvious. You become more clear.

With this kind of writing, you don't have to strive to 'figure-it-out.' There is no mental energy required. No great efforts. Because the meaning has been there all along, just hidden by debris.

When you keep showing up, writing about your life, clarity shows up for you. Stories show up for you. Your life-force, for that's what that clear strong current really is, it strengthens too, and alongside it - all the meaning that's been muddied up and covered over.

No more searching and figuring-it-out required.

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4. Writing your life-story becomes a gift to yourself and to others - a legacy to loved ones, descendants and community.

When you write your life-stories down you free up energy previously devoted to tiresome old thought-patterns, narratives and loops that have kept you stuck in inertia like my beloved Akita dogs, not wanting to run or pull.

When you write your life-stories down, you turn the key in the lock of your unconscious, the door to your creative energy and memories, and you open the door to healing. You open the door to choice, and to transformation.

When you write your life-stories down, you remove debris, you clear gunk out of the way, and you reclaim your life's purpose.

You reclaim your medicine stories.

You become a personal mythmaker.

By doing all of these things, your stories become a gift to yourself and to others.

You become the gift.

No longer spinning in circles, feeling overwhelmed or stuck or creatively blocked, your presence grows.

By writing your stories down, you're able to offer that gift forward to your loved ones, your descendants (if you choose to have them) and your community.

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Writing your life-stories down transforms you.

For example, when I knew I wanted to write this letter about these topics I didn't know how to start it.

So I said to myself: I want to write about how writing your life-story can transform you.

Then I asked myself: but how will I start writing about this?

I paused. I took a steady breath in, then out. I waited.

The image of myself with Ki at a dog-training class, on the lawn of the S.S. Klondike National Historic Site in front of the paddlewheeler, encircled by the Yukon River, showed up. And the image of myself with Umi and Ki in winter with the dogsled showed up.

The memory of breathless wintry running while holding Ki's collar in my right hand showed up.

So, despite no idea of how my childhood dogs, a dogsled, and the topic of transformation and memoir-writing would connect, I started to write.

I called to mind those beloved dogs, my hometown, and the dogsled, and as the story unspooled itself as I wrote it down.

My memory of trying run a dogsled team at the age of 12 down Jarvis Street in my hometown of Whitehorse - I had no idea it would turn itself into this specific story.

But I trusted the process. I set my intention, paid attention to the imagery that showed up, started writing, and here we are.

This letter, and the memories I'd forgotten - arrived.

My personal story turned into a metaphor for the transformative act of writing your life-stories down.

Give this process a try. See what arrives for you. You'll be delighted. You'll be surprised.

Absolutely no overthinking or figuring-it-out energy require.

xoxo,

Janelle

Join my transformational memoir-writing course, the Art of Personal Mythmaking, live. In it, I'll show you how to write the first draft of your memoir, reconnect with your body, and transform your relationship with your life-stories and reclaim yourself. It's filling up (spots have already been claimed). It's open for registration, and we start January 23rd.

Interested in my course but not sure yet?

Sign up for my free Outline Your Memoir Using Myth and Fairy Tales as Your Guide Workshop. Thursday January 11th, 9am Pacific Time.

In this workshop I'll help you review you’ll review your life so far, clarify patterns and themes and then draw out the structure of your stories in a swift plunge into your own fascinating self. All with the help of an ancient tale (myth or fairy tale).

This is the foundational workshop for my Art of Personal Mythmaking course, and you'll hear all about the live version at the end of the workshop (plus have a chance to ask questions).

PS. Until January 18th, you'll be receiving a number of e-mails with stories and helpful writing and healing tips, which are also encouraging you to sign up for my Art of Personal Mythmaking course. If you want to remain on my newsletter list but you don't want to receive these e-mails, just click here (no other action required). ​
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