Trauma Kitchen: 10 Prompts to Turn Your Struggles Into Stories
If you’ve seen my portfolio, you know my writing life ping-pongs between Queen of the Sad Girls and Most Ridiculous Goofball Alive. That’s essentially what led me to make this funny skit about the least funny things that happen in our lives.
When life is worse than we want it to be, writing is the process that gets me back to a place where I can joke. Writing my most shameful mistakes has freed me from the haunting ghosts that followed me, whispering the story.
Turning my deepest pain into art has helped me find purpose, and provide a haven for others going through something similar. That’s what we aim to do every day during A Very Important Meeting, a place to gather virtually and put words on the page together.
If you have events in your life that you can’t stop thinking about, that still confuse you, that still hurt, writing can be a way to heal. When life turns dark, it gives us the opportunity to make light.
These 10 writing prompts will guide you in starting to turn struggle to story:
What’s a moment that still replays in your head, even years later?
What’s the hardest thing you’ve been through?
What’s something no one knows you struggle with?
Who helped you through the darkest times in your life, and what about them made the difference?
What would it have meant for you to read a story like yours while you were going through the same thing?
What are some gifts your trauma gave you, even if you still wouldn’t have chosen for it to happen?
What would it mean for you if people knew about the most difficult events in your life?
What’s a memory that used to hurt but now makes you proud?
How has your pain shaped the way you show up for others?
What would it take for you to feel safe to tell your story?