Caroline Hesby on Reproductive Rights and the Power of Writing

This is an unedited transcript of s1e8 of the Intuitive Writing Podcast. ©2026 The Listen & Be Heard Network. all rights reserved.

00:00:00 – 00:00:28
Hello, and welcome to the Intuitive Writing Podcast, a production of the Intuitive Writing Project, a writing-based empowerment program for girls and gender expansive youth. We are dedicated to giving young writers a safe, encouraging, non-critical, unconditionally supportive space to write their story, speak their truth, and assert their voice, both as writers and as leaders.

00:00:29 – 00:01:21
For a bit of background, my name is Elizabeth and I created this program 11 years ago because it’s what I wanted and needed when I was young, a supportive place to be truly seen and heard. That’s why we use the Amherst writing method, a radically nurturing and empowering writing methodology I wish everyone learned in grade school. You can read more about the Amherst method on their website and in Pat Schneider’s groundbreaking book, Writing Alone and With Others. But the basic principles and the ones that guide all of our classes are number one, everyone is a writer with important stories to tell. Number two, everyone has their own unique voice, a voice that needs to be heard. And number three, our voice will grow stronger and clearer.

00:01:21 – 00:02:08
the more it is supported and positively affirmed. In our classes, everyone writes together, everyone shares their writing, and then everyone takes turns giving each other grounded, positive feedback. By that, I mean we repeat back and lift up the words, lines, phrases, or concepts that really resonated for us. Since we can’t violate the sanctity of our classes by reporting what goes on there, These one-on-one or three-people conversations are designed to provide a little glimpse, a microcosm of what happens in the classroom. You can also read about our org and read our students’ words as they were published on our blog, The Intuitive Voice, with the links below.

00:02:08 – 00:02:36
If you enjoy listening to one young reader read their words and talk about it, imagine how powerful it is when six young writers are reading their words and giving each other positive, affirming feedback. It’s pretty life-changing, and there’s a lot more I could say about it, but I’ll let these young writers speak for themselves. On behalf of all the writers at the Intuitive Writing Project, I want to thank you for supporting their voices.

00:02:36 – 00:03:34
for being present and really listening to the wisdom, insight, and brilliance of young people. Today I am so excited and honored and happy to be talking with our very own Caroline Hesby, who is going to be reading a beautiful piece that she wrote a year ago. We’ll start by introducing you, Caroline, if you would say your age, your pronouns, how long you’ve been writing with the Intuitive Writing Project, and if you have a story or a little anecdote about your first memory of writing a story when you were a kid. Yes, hello. I’m Caroline. I have she, her pronouns. I’m 19. I’m currently at University of Washington in Seattle. An early memory I have of writing goes back to when I was like six. I remember just writing a little short story in my room.

00:03:34 – 00:04:26
was called kate maxx and the big boat and it entailed a sibling duo on a boat journey and um yeah it was a big deal in my family i remember writing a lot after that um just to myself our little anecdotes but um ever since then i would say it’s been a part of my life so That is so cute. It’s so fascinating. The reason I ask everybody when they started writing is usually people who love writing, you start very early. And it’s like a precociousness around writing that is exceptional. Most kids don’t write until they absolutely have to write. But if you’re a writer, you start young. And you clearly started young. I love that.

00:04:26 – 00:04:56
When did you start? I can’t even remember now. Did you start your sophomore year or your junior year with us? Yeah, I started February of my sophomore year, so it was right before COVID started. Oh. And then we moved on to Zoom for a while. That’s right. That’s right. I think we had like one or two classes, and then it was on Zoom for two years. Yeah. You were a trooper. I should go through that.

00:04:56 – 00:05:53
um yeah and then you are writing you wrote all through high school and now you’re writing with us this summer which is so amazing and the piece that you were going to talk about today that we’re going to have you read and we’ll have a link to it the underneath um june 24th 2022 that was when um the supreme court overturned robie wade um that was the exact day i think that it happened and then we wrote about it a couple days later so I was going to see if you could read it for us. Yes. Okay. Yesterday I had a conversation with a friend who’s trying to get birth control. I stood next to her in line at a counter service restaurant exchanging the side effect horror stories that have passed by our ears, deciding between haunting hormonal changes or unwanted pregnancies, bearing the weight of choosing a doomed fate, just because we want to date.

00:05:53 – 00:06:23
knowing he could get with a million women and walk weightless down the street. We sigh and share a disappointed laugh in the name of celibacy. They don’t even have to think about it, I say. A female frustration fills the space of the car and there’s a simultaneous drop in the stomach, a surrendering of muscle, a blank, foggy stare. Today confirms what I feel as a teenage girl surrounded by the degrading, dehumanizing whispers of male peers, that I am woman.

00:06:23 – 00:07:22
and I am seen firstly as woman, firstly as female, as uterus, as mother, as expected mother, as only a mother, something to bed, something to wed, a Saturday night, an option, as waste, as slut, as womb, as wife, as weak, as baby carrier, as vessel, as a means to an end, as sinner, as less than, as object to be kept pure, innocent until useful, as machine, before I am just person. It’s a world where the tragic stories of millions of women are still swept under rugs, under male voices, under pressures and underlies. A world where birth trauma silently haunts mothers. A world where confident, capable women must give up dreams to fall to a future that was chosen for her. A world where sex education is discouraged.

00:07:22 – 00:07:50
and the same naive children are punished and ridiculed and unsupported once the consequences of the adults’ decisions transpires. Today a girl my age has her future ripped away from her, a future that dense layers and generations of women fought and died for. Today a girl my age has looked in the eye and told that her autonomy is meaningless, has been deleted, was never hers and never will be.

00:07:50 – 00:08:19
that the hours she spent head down in her textbooks, head up in the hallway, blinking tears away from prejudice, from shame, from abuse, the job she worked after school, that the time she was brave, and the time she persevered, that the time she was told she could not, but she did, have dissolved into dust at her feet. And all that remains is the outline of her body, the shadow of her abdomen, the mocking laugh of her oppressive fate.

00:08:20 – 00:08:50
Yesterday I drove in silence with my friend to the sound of our favorite music and the noise of the busy streets. Loudest was the silence after we detailed the laundry list of Nexplanon, IUD, birth controls, pills, side effects. Gain 60 pounds, lose your hair, lose any speck of libido that hasn’t already been liquefied by merciless men. Lose sleep, lose self, lose and lose some more. A protective task that feels pointless.

00:08:50 – 00:09:19
This pile of bricks sitting on a girl’s shoulders. The fear, the guilt, the pain, the pain. I didn’t want to break her heart more, but when we locked eyes, I knew she heard my defeated whisper that this battle would never be victorious for us. That men will roll over like sacks of potatoes, ugly and heavy, with empty words and careless hearts, cruel ignorance and betraying indifference. And we must tiptoe around sex like a field of nails.

00:09:19 – 00:09:48
hoping not to be stabbed, flesh hesitating to relax amongst the blades, untrusting of trust, that in this two-part act we walk alone. Today I understand that the battle was already over, and our uteruses sat bleeding on metal stakes in the ground, slathered with the handprints of measly old men. Today I understand that when I stand in the eyes of males, I am hunted, chased in a daze of hunger.

00:09:48 – 00:10:18
Chased with intent to be killed. Oh my god. It’s so powerful. So beautiful. This may be the most powerful summary of the female experience in patriarchy I have ever heard in my life. So beautiful. Part of me wants to scream, part of me wants to weep. It’s so incredible what you have done with language to articulate something that most of us feel but can’t articulate.

00:10:18 – 00:10:45
I think the thing about this that’s most impactful, I mean, I know I’ve read this before and heard it before, but hearing it this time, it was so clear that it’s not just about abortion rights. And in fact, abortion rights is not about abortion rights. It’s just a symptom of a much deeper cultural-wide misogyny, this hatred of women.

00:10:45 – 00:11:44
this idea that women have to be controlled. And it’s in every aspect of life. And I feel like the writer did such an incredible job of expressing it, the complexity of it, and how it is everywhere. I want to jump towards the end. The second to last paragraph was, oh, that was the mic drop, mic drop, mic drop. But when the writer was talking about the horrible, quote, laundry list of symptoms, side effects, from actually trying to prevent a pregnancy. And then there was that line, um, lose and lose some more. It’s just this constant chipping away of the self. And that, that line, um, I knew she heard my defeated whisper that this battle would never be victorious for us. That they’re basically, as women, we must tiptoe around sex like a field of nails.

00:11:44 – 00:13:08
hoping not to be stabbed. This is all aspects of life. This is not just around sexuality. It’s every single part of life this is true for the female experience. I want to go back to the very beginning. I love how the writer started with a story, taking us into this moment between two girls. I think I mean, we’ve talked about this so many times, but humans are so deeply affected by storytelling way more than facts. If there was just a bulleted list of facts, it would have been impressive, but not nearly as impactful as telling this as a story, a story about two girls are trying to get, talking about birth control and all the dangers of sex and how men don’t have to worry about any of it. There’s no consequences for men, which is why then of course later on there’s all these great references to how men are just like imposing their will because it has zero impact on them and 100% all the impact, all the danger, all the pain, all the suffering is carried by women. I also just blown away

00:13:08 – 00:13:36
The second paragraph, when the writer reduces women to how we have been seen and treated, it basically just rolls as a uterus, as mother, as expected mother, oh my gosh, as a Saturday night, an option, a waist, a slut, a womb, a wife, as weak as a baby carrier, as a vessel.

00:13:36 – 00:14:05
Like every single one of those lines, I think any woman who reads this would feel the truth of it in her soul, whether or not she would ever have thought of these beautiful words. Every line in this is incredible. But before I say anything else, I wanted to ask you about your creative process in writing this. When you started, you obviously knew what your theme was going to be, but did you have a sense, did you know it was going to come out the way it did?

00:14:05 – 00:14:36
And this is kind of a bigger question about your creative process in general. When you start writing, how much do you know before you start? And how much is sort of a discovery process? Yeah, I would honestly say in general, when I go to write, I have little to no idea where it’s going to take me. And yeah, I mean, that’s kind of the exciting part.

00:14:36 – 00:15:37
There’ll be a general idea or theme or feeling, but often I just kind of let myself go wherever I want to go. With this piece, I would say the same. There was no, like, in terms of structure or really, you know, design, like, no real goal, especially because I wrote this at such a time when my feelings and thoughts were so raw, it was like, especially easy to just kind of let my pen kind of go because, you know, I probably had so many feelings just kind of sitting, you know, in my mind, and this is just how they came out. And also,

00:15:37 – 00:16:06
with this piece in particular, it was genuinely based on like a real anecdote, like a real experience, a real conversation I had had recently. So that allowed me to kind of sandwich the conversation between a real experience I had. So I could start with that and then kind of see where that led me in a more general sense. That’s interesting. That’s interesting. It does help to have that.

00:16:06 – 00:16:59
story as sort of like an entry point. And then you can go from there. I mean, this is just such a tribute to your talent and genius as a writer that like, it just pours out of you. Like these words, every line in this, it’s written as a narrative piece, but honestly we could throw in a bunch of line breaks and it would be a poem. It’s so poetic. Every line, Like, oh my gosh, treating women as an object to be kept pure, innocent until useful, as machine before I am just person. Poetry. All of this is poems. I mean, you are a poet. You write incredible poetry, but even your narrative pieces have poetry in them. And I think it’s so incredible.

00:17:00 – 00:17:29
again, your talent as a writer, that each paragraph flows into the next as if you had planned it out in advance. I think that at a certain point, would you say that in all the years that you’ve been writing, you sort of developed an intuition, this is intuitive writing, so I think there’s an intuition about writing, that you’ve developed an intuition where you don’t actually have to think about it, but just naturally things kind of organize themselves.

00:17:29 – 00:18:58
as you move through the ideas in a piece, they’re kind of self-organizing. Like this, I feel like anybody who wasn’t a writer would have had to labor over this piece for days and they would have had to do an outline and they would have had to maybe erase things and do all these arrows to suggest to move things in different places and yours just fell into place perfectly. So yeah, I guess my question is, do you feel like the arrangement of the flow of information comes out organically, intuitively? I would say yes and no. After I would say the structure of our class itself kind of allows that to happen knowing that I have to wrap it up at a certain point almost like a very vague path forward knowing I’m kind of on a time schedule and I’m like all right, you know, I could go off on much longer tangents if I had them. But it’s like, all right, what do you really want to say? What are your main points? What do you really want to like drill in here? And how are you going to, you know, take it and wrap it back up? And well, obviously I could have the freedom to kind of, you know, end it in a place where it wasn’t really finished, but it must be just ingrained in me somewhere to kind of, I mean,

00:18:58 – 00:20:30
feel like I want to kind of wrap it up and end it on a note that’s gonna just kind of nail in the the theme. But that’s not to say that, you know, I’m sitting there writing, and with like, one change of a sentence, I could have gone in a totally different direction. And I like things where, you know, there’s an infinite amount of options that could have happened with this piece. And it just happened to go in this way and be structured in this way and it’s like especially with this piece where there’s you know so much content to be talked about um i feel like i could take a lot of these sentences and write a whole new piece just you know with the aspect of it so there’s certainly like while it feels like uh a complete piece just because of the way I sandwiched it with real life anecdotes. From my perspective, I can see things that could have been easily changed. When I look at it, there’s still a large array of possibilities that still exist in it, if that makes sense. That’s so interesting. Yeah. And by the way, I know it is hard to

00:20:30 – 00:20:58
as a writer to ever feel like something is finished because you can always revise it. But I do think, yeah, every single line is like a sliding doors moment where you could take from each line, you could spin off a whole other piece. They could go in any direction or just drill deeper. Every line contains the potential for more to go further and to write something else. I love that. And I love what you said about the time constraint.

00:20:58 – 00:21:51
I’m trying to remember I think with when we were around the time that you wrote this piece I think we were writing for like about an hour like 50 minutes to an hour generally every week which is exceptional I have to say most of our classes girls are pretty comfortable and feel finished after 30 minutes and your class was very exceptional, very advanced writers. And so everyone was very easily filled an hour. So an hour is, on one hand, it sounds really long, especially for younger writers who maybe would prefer 10 minutes or 20 minutes. An hour sounds really long, but it’s also short and you do have to tie it up. You do have to, you’re like, oh my God, I’m running out of time. And I got to bring this to a close and you want to have some kind of incredible ending.

00:21:51 – 00:22:21
So that’s interesting. It kind of does that having a limited time sort of forces you to go through that heroine’s journey quicker, like you got to have a beginning and a middle and an end. Whereas if you were writing on your own, although it sounds like your first story was also the heroine’s journey naturally, but I think any one of us who writes on our own, if we’re working on a longer story or something, it can go on forever because there’s no time frame.

00:22:21 – 00:23:14
So I’ve heard this so many times, people say that limitation breeds creativity. Yes. If you are unlimited, it’s almost like you’re more likely to get stuck. Or give up. Or give up! Trail off and did nothing. Right. It’s really discouraging when you have all the time in the world, you know, that puts the pressure of having to come up with something that you were given that much time to create. It’s like. Right. It better be amazing because I worked on it for 500 hours. Yeah. Right. No, that’s true. There’s like a practicality to having like a time limit. And I think, yeah, I would encourage anyone who is just getting started on writing.

00:23:14 – 00:23:42
obviously don’t tell yourself you’re going to write for an hour because that’s going to feel overwhelming. Anne Lamont in her famous and brilliant book Bird by Bird said just write enough to fill a little, a small little square that would fit in a picture frame, like five minutes of writing a day and start with that and build up. But as we learned in the beginning of this episode, this particular writer has been writing for years, so your writing muscle is so strong that an hour flies.

00:23:42 – 00:24:12
And this piece was written in an hour. When you wrote this piece, I feel like this is pretty close to the original. I know you could, you could infinitely edit it. We could all infinitely edit our work. But I think this is, this was somewhat close to the first version. You edited it before you submitted it to me. But this, it kind of came out in this form, right? Yeah, there was no major edits or revisions.

00:24:12 – 00:25:10
I am pretty sure. Yeah. I mean, there’s certainly like could be with just small things, but. Oh, I think it’s it’s great. Don’t touch it. It’s great. Yeah, I think the other piece of this and you mentioned this earlier is that when you were writing about this, you felt very strong emotion about it. And this is something that I think is one of your gifts as a writer is you’re able to take emotional pain and describe it metaphorically, often using nature metaphors, but like all kinds of objects that you use to describe physical pain. And it makes it visceral, and it makes it like everyone can understand what you’re talking about. Like at the very end, talking about, I understand that when I stand in the eyes of males, I am haunted.

00:25:10 – 00:25:36
Chased in a daze of hunger, chased with intent to kill. Like this is coming from an emotional experience that I as well, many women feel this experience of being kind of prey, objects that were always in danger, but I couldn’t have explained it. That emotion is really hard to put into words. Like I’m scared.

00:25:36 – 00:26:29
That’s not very helpful, but saying that I am haunted, chased in a daze of hunger and then chased with the intent to be killed. That’s misogyny right there. But you didn’t have to say misogyny. You said the metaphors just are incredible. And there’s a lot of like the flesh hesitating to relax amongst the blades. There’s a lot of violent images which perfectly capture what we experience emotionally and psychically and energetically and physically on every level and every aspect of life when you’re female presenting in the world. It’s really not safe and you’ve captured that. There’s so much power in writing from the heart, from emotion, in our culture, misogynistic culture, of course.

00:26:29 – 00:27:25
does not value emotion, but actually so many scientists and philosophers and Brene Brown, many people talk about the power of emotions that they have intelligence in them and that they recognize our emotions help us recognize injustice and violations and we need to listen to our emotions. So I love that the writer really spoke from that place. It’s emotion, but it’s not emotional. It’s the emotional intelligence, I think, of the piece. This is just incredible. Okay, so the last thing I wanted to ask you, and this is the big meta question for all writers, because we all get stuck at certain points. Sometimes we get stuck before we even start, like you think you had an idea and then you realize it wasn’t really an idea and you got nothing, or you are halfway in and you feel like you lose the flow and you don’t know what to do.

00:27:25 – 00:28:28
What do you do to work through those moments when you don’t have an idea or you’re just creatively stuck? Yeah. Um, it can be really tough. Certainly happens to me a lot. I think, for me, I do do a lot of poetry, which is, this piece is definitely, you know, more towards one theme than I usually go for and like the structure is definitely different than what I usually go for. And I think that’s because a lot of the time when I go out to write, I take a lot of inspiration from just like my five senses almost. I almost feel like breaking my thoughts and feelings down to like, literally, you know, what am I seeing? What can I touch? What can I, you know, all

00:28:28 – 00:29:32
the senses that are like your most simple experiences actually have a lot of meaning in them, I feel. So a lot of the time, I set out to write poetry, you know, when, when I don’t have an initial idea or feeling that’s already something I want to write about. You know, write, you know, what you can hear at the time or write what you, you know, is there like a scent in the air that’s like um just like your senses i feel like have so much power in writing because uh they’re so like accessible and just truthful and i think uh that’s really like you know what i feel is the core of a good piece of writing is a just like truth and b

00:29:32 – 00:30:38
uh you know things that are really tangible but simultaneously i think those things are really uh you know like special and and i don’t know what the word would be but like uh magical and like those things are deep too even though they’re just these simple little you know feelings and so if you were to get stuck i mean maybe that’s more advice for if you you know, don’t have an initial idea. Just kind of take it down to those simple kind of human like experiences. And I just love writing about sensory experiences. So a lot of my poetry is based on those things. And I almost feel like in writing, we can get a little carried away with trying to be, you know,

00:30:38 – 00:31:43
too philosophical and too, uh, it can get a little vague with what we’re really trying to convey, even though, I guess my point would be like big feelings can be conveyed in really simple ways. And, um, I don’t know if this is exactly advice for getting stuck in the middle of the piece, but I guess if you’re feeling stuck and you’re like, where am I going to go with this? I’m not making sense. Like you’re always going to make sense if you’re talking about, you know, those really simple senses or even just like, you know, describing where you are, describing a scene, describing an image you have. That’s where I often go to. I would say like in the middle of a piece, like the one I read where it’s a little more, you know, not just talking about a scene or an image or like simple things.

00:31:44 – 00:32:47
I mean, maybe it’s easier said than done for other people or many people to try to come back to their own feelings and own experiences. But I think you’re always going to be able to kind of describe how you feel, even in basic ways. Or, you know, I started with this anecdote, which is just like, this actually happened to me, like, I’m able to just you know, kind of narrate that as it was. And I can take the pressure away from trying to be, you know, really fancy and really deep in like a cool way. Like, yeah. So if that makes sense. That all makes sense. It’s so beautiful. I was jotting down several of the things you said, cause it’s so brilliant. It’s a really deep,

00:32:47 – 00:34:13
and profound insight that simple things and sensory details are magical and sacred and poetic and moving. And I think you’re right. I think everybody feels like because perhaps that we maybe spent a lot of time in high school studying people like Shakespeare, fancy schmancy, 18th century poets that write in a very fancy way that we think that our writing has to be that way. And it’s not true at all. Actually, don’t feel any connection to the classics. I feel much more of a connection to writing like what you do that is sensory and coming from personal experience and also simple. I think we underestimate the power of simple. I mean, what is simple? But simply described things carry a whole there’s like a word that contains volumes is what pops into my mind. Like a simple phrase can go so deep to the heart in a way that a highfalutin fancy phrase doesn’t because half the time people are like, what does that even mean? So I love what you said that you want it to be both the truth and also accessible. So that line,

00:34:13 – 00:35:13
wrote down while you were speaking, you’re always going to make sense if you speak about your own personal experience and include sensory details. It’s going to make sense and it’s going to be deep and it’s going to be powerful because being alive is deep and powerful. So it just is that when it comes out on the page. And I love how you said to try to come back to your own experiences and describe how you feel and Don’t try to make it fancy. Just say it in a basic way and it’ll be deep. It’ll be profound. I always think of, I can’t remember who said that, but the idea that if you speak the truth, it will always be powerful. And I think so many times people lie because they think the truth isn’t that interesting. And it’s like, no, the truth is so much actually always more interesting than anything that we can come up with.

00:35:13 – 00:36:42
Yeah, I think that’s great advice. Sorry, go ahead. Yeah, I was just reminded like the other day in class, we went off to write and I was a little lost because sometimes you have like an immediate idea and you’re like, I want to write about this. Sometimes you’re truly kind of in the dark and I, you know, there is a lot of starting something, scribbling it out multiple times and there’s certainly frustration and the other week at class I was like okay I keep writing these things I keep stopping like what is it that I like I’m really feeling right now what is it I could really talk about and like mean it and it would be important to me and I kind of saw that the theme and what I kept going to write was like based around fear and based around, um, just feelings of fear that day for whatever reason. And, you know, I was frustrated that I wasn’t coming up with an incredibly insightful and unique, like, piece of writing about it. And I’m like, all right, I’m just gonna like, you know, I’m just gonna write, I’m scared of this blank. And, um, and so I wrote a whole three page piece. I mean,

00:36:42 – 00:37:11
Frankly, it was probably more like a journal entry than a piece of writing, but a journal entry can be a piece of writing. And I just wrote all these things I’m scared of and just breaking it down to what was really at the core of what I was trying to say was really helpful. And it doesn’t mean it’s less valuable because it has less metaphors and less cool writing techniques. Yeah.

00:37:11 – 00:38:10
And I can testify, that piece that you wrote blew me away. It was so powerful. And oh my God, that’s a whole other podcast. We could talk about that. But I think when you speak from the heart, there’s a famous line, what comes from the heart goes to the heart. When you speak from the heart, I feel it in my heart. And of course, what is personal is almost always universal. And so when the writer was just speaking, I don’t want to say, plainly because I feel like plain sounds negative, simply. When you were just speaking simply of your truth and it came out as poetry, it felt poetic and it’s so resonant. And actually it wasn’t just me, everyone in the class was like, oh my God, I feel the same. Yes, yes, all of those things, all the fears that the writer had, everyone in the room agreed. So it was incredible. And to your point, it was simple.

00:38:10 – 00:38:40
but so impactful. And I also really like how you said, and I do the same thing, and I think this is such good advice that you’re modeling, and that is that when you start getting tangled up in a piece, sometimes I get tangled up in my words and I have to stop and say, wait a second, what am I trying to say here? What is the true thing that’s coming forward? And that’s what you did. You were like, what needs to come out? Because that’s like the deeper.

00:38:40 – 00:40:14
the deeper idea behind all this and I can’t prove it, but I feel that there are certain things that need to be expressed and need to be written. And they almost have a life force of their own. They’ve got it, they’re inside of us and they’ve got to come out. So it’s almost like a getting out of the way to let them come through. And I feel like that’s what you did when you were like, what am I trying to say? It was like this accumulation of stuff that I mean, it was kind of like a lifetime of fears that needed to get out. And that’s the other thing, of course, about writing is that it is so cathartic that when you can write about an emotion, a painful emotion, and put it into words, it dials down the pain of it or the intensity, because it’s like you’ve made sense of it by putting it into words. In fact, I think we did talk about that. I remember asking you, did it feel like, the intensity of the fears got dialed down just a smidge by the very act of writing about them. Yeah, for sure. And I think, I don’t know, there’s something that is a little bit reassuring about putting it on paper, seeing it, and almost like imagining that if you weren’t the author and you were reading that, like how

00:40:14 – 00:41:41
I mean this doesn’t really make sense but if you were reading that from somebody else you’d be like that makes sense like it’s not this big scary dark horrible thing that’s just haunting this one person like this is a universal experience that is collectively haunting us all if you will yes you know it becomes like simply put that you know you’re not alone in it and you know you assume if somebody read that sentence that it wouldn’t be too crazy to them so why is it like you know freaking you out this much it’s just it almost allows you the opportunity to connect with other people on it and knowing that is reassuring almost yeah right because you know we actually talked about this when i was talking with kelly that because of the structure of the quest you know that everyone in the same way you listen to what is beautiful and relatable in other people’s work that other people are doing the same thing when they’re listening to yours and so it actually helps us be more I think have more empathy for ourselves because we’re like oh it’s just a story that other people understand and relate to it’s not some boogeyman it’s just an experience everybody understands everyone’s with me and I love how you said that if you were hearing this story from someone else your response would be

00:41:41 – 00:42:27
Oh, of course. I understand. I know how that feels. Exactly. Yeah. I love writing. It’s such a powerful tool for self-empathy, I think. I’ll be really mad at myself for something until I start writing about it. And then in the process of writing it, I think, oh. I think it almost takes it. Like they always say, if you talk about yourself in third person, it can be easier to be kind to yourself. And I think it’s the same thing applies to writing. When you put it out on the page, it becomes like a separate from you in a way. It’s on the page. And so it’s easier to look at it and have compassion for it. Yeah, totally. Yeah. That is so beautiful. Caroline.

00:42:27 – 00:42:52
You are so wonderful to talk to. I honestly feel like I could talk with you all day about writing. This is my favorite thing to talk about. Thank you so much for your time and your wisdom and sharing your incredibly brave and powerful and needed words in the world. Yeah, just keep shining your light. It’s so powerful. Thank you.

Thoughts on June 24, 2022 with Caroline Hesby

For our eighth podcast, listen to 19-year-old Caroline Hesby read and discuss her brilliant, feminist piece, “June 24, 2022,” in conversation with TIWP founder, Elizabeth Perlman.  
 
Beginning with a conversation on reproductive rights and the chronic dangers of being female,* this is also a discussion about the creative writing process:  the power of writing from the heart and speaking our truth in a simple way, trusting that what is simple is also deep—and will ripple outward, resonating with everyone who hears it. 

The psychologist Carl R. Rogers once said, “what is most personal is most universal,” and that has certainly be our experience, in every one of our writing classes. This is why writing also cultivates empathy, both for ourselves and others, helping us to regard the world with greater understanding and compassion. 

* This episode explores adult themes and may not be suitable for children.  
 
You can read Caroline’s words on our blog, The Intuitive Voice: https://intuitivevoice.org/2022/06/28/june-24-2022/ 

To learn more about The Intuitive Writing Project, visit us at: 
https://www.intuitivewritingproject.com/ 

Thank you for your time and presence, supporting the voices of girls and gender-expansive youth! 

CREDITS– HOST & PRODUCER: Elizabeth Perlman. FEATURED GUEST: Caroline Hesby. Hosted by Listen & Be Heard Network.