Left / Write // Hook: Survivor Stories from a Creative Arts Boxing and Writing Project

by Donna Lyon (Editor), Claire Gaskin (Editor)

Overview

LEFT / WRITE // HOOK shows that sexual abuse survivors are everywhere, that trauma lives in the body, and it needs to be expressed.

"By no choice of their own, survivors of childhood sexual abuse spend the entirety of their lives 'in the ring', fighting. Left / Write // Hook offers visceral insight into survivors' fierce, compelling and ultimately triumphant stories" --. Dr Joy Townsend, Learning Consent

"Donna Lyon has the ability to get women to open up and reveal all, and in the process begin the journey to healing. Boxing is a violent sport,

but projects like Left / Write // Hook take the violence out of it, so that it becomes therapeutic and gives you power". --Tommy Hopkins, Fitlife Boxing Club, Melbourne Australia.

Fueled with the voices and lived experiences of adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse, whose lives and work have been positively impacted by the combination of writing and boxing, readers will experience:

• a profound understanding of the complexity and depth of trauma through the lived experiences of survivors
• insights into the tenacious long-term impacts of abuse and trauma on the mind, body, and spirit
• personalised and collective accounts of how trauma manifests in the experiences of survivors and their sense of self
• hope and courage as to the resilience and strength of survivors who live with the daily effects of their trauma
• new insight into how the combination of physical, mental, and creative programs of expression are vital to healing
• dozens of powerful writing prompts that unearth hidden feelings, thoughts, and beliefs to recover your true self.

Learn more at: www.leftwritehook.com

From Loving Healing Press www.LHPress.com

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781615995806
Publisher:	Loving Healing Press
Publication date:	08/09/2021
Pages:	298
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.62(d)

About the Author

Donna grew up in Perth, Western Australia and is a survivor of ritual abuse. She has an impressive laundry list of symptoms, after years of battling with the psychological, physical, mental, and emotional effects from her trauma. It led her to a ten-year recovery journey where she found sobriety and God through spiritual and emotional healing. She is now a publicly declared child sexual abuse survivor, along with being a boxer, academic and multi-disciplinary producer. Her production background spans a variety of formats, including television, feature films, documentary and online content. Her film work has been screened nationally and internationally in film festivals in USA, Europe and Australia.Her recent feature film Disclosure (2020) had its world premiere at the 31st Palm Springs International Film Festival and at Adelaide Film Festival (2020). The film is released in the USA by Breaking Glass Pictures and in Australia and New Zealand by Bonsai Films. She is an alumnus of the University of Melbourne and now an academic there, working in the Film and Television department. She is a Senior Lecturer in the Master of Producing program and has just submitted her PhD. Donna is the founder of Left / Write // Hook, and her research interests nowfocus on the intersection of creative arts and sport on the mental health and wellbeing of survivors of child sexual abuse.

Claire Gaskin's first full-length collection of poetry a bud was completed in the receipt of an Australia Council Literature Board grant for 2003. "A bud" was released by John Leonard Press in 2006 and shortlisted in the John Bray SA Festival Awards for Literature in 2008. Her subsequent poetry collections are Paperweight (2013), Eurydice Speaks (2021) and Ismene's Survivable Resistance (2021). Her first poem, 'Woman' was published in 1985 in Poetry Monash no. 18 and since that time she has had over 100 poems published in major literary journals and newspapers. Her poetry has been widely anthologized and critically reviewed. She is a long-term teacher of creative writing across the university and community sectors.

Table of Contents

Introduction 13

The Project 16

Group positioning statement 17

A note about our writings 18

A note about our temporal (temporary) self 19

Common terms used in this book 20

The experience of Left/Write//Hook (LWH)

from the workshop participants 23

Before 23

During 27

After 33

ROUND 1 37

About Round 1 38

Round 1 Writing Prompts 39

I am here because | Being here 40

I connected and... | To punch is to...

Hand to cheek, I step, I punch, I... 47

There is no wonder | If it hadn't happened | Now that 54

The virus | My mother is a foot 69

Isolation | Madness 74

Vulnerability | Disgust | Shame 79

Mind | Body 92

I Remember | Being Believed Means 103

Recovery | Healing | Things I Like 108

Power | Fighting Back | Compassion 117

The last eight weeks 120

ROUND 2 131

About Round 2 132

Round 2 Writing Prompts 133

I am back here because | I begin again | Today 134

Being a Survivor | Denial 143

Trusting the process | Being on Guard | Relaxation 147

When I listen | I listened | Two feet on the ground

Being present 154

Write a conversation between you and your nervous system

Write a love letter to a part of your body

Write all the things you hate and all the things you love 165

Reclaiming me | Self-esteem 170

He / She / They / I pushed... | I turned... 175

I thought I was going to

It's hard to speak out because | What it takes 181

Intimacy | Effects of my abuse

Write a letter to your inner child | What is meaningful? 186

Trauma 196

Silence 198

Writing + Boxing = 201

Editorial Reviews

By no choice of their own, survivors of childhood sexual abuse spend the entirety of their lives 'in the ring', fighting. Left / Write // Hook offers visceral insight into survivors' fierce, compelling and ultimately triumphant stories. -- Dr Joy Townsend, Learning Consent

Donna Lyon has the ability to get women to open up and reveal all, and in the process begin the journey to healing. Boxing is a violent sport, but projects like Left / Write // Hook take the violence out of it, so that it becomes therapeutic and gives you power. -- Tommy Hopkins, Fitlife Boxing Club, Melbourne Australia

In 25+ years of working with people who have experienced childhood sexual abuse, I have come to understand the need to assist people to physically move through, as well as speak about, the trauma in order to lessen the hold that the impacts that the abuse can have on one's life - Left / Write // Hook does both with powerful effectiveness. -- Maria Vucko, (BA BSW MSW AMHSW)

From the Publisher