Episode Title:
The Portal in the Wound: Finding Spaciousness When My Body Narrows the Path
Episode Description:
In this deeply personal episode, acclaimed memoirist and writing teacher Laura Davis shares a profound exploration of living and writing through her second breast cancer diagnosis, eighteen years after her first. Laura unpacks a single intuitive sentence that arrived unbidden—"My life feels rich and expansive in its diminishment"—revealing how physical limitations can open unexpected doors to creativity, connection, and spiritual depth. Drawing on 35+ years of teaching experience and her award-winning memoir work, Laura demonstrates the power of deep, intuitive writing while offering writers a masterclass in mining personal hardship for universal truths.
What Laura Covers in This Episode:
The moment of intuitive writing that produced an unexpected truth about her current reality
Navigating a second breast cancer diagnosis and the uncertainties of treatment decisions
Memories of chemotherapy treatment from 1997 and the power of community support
How physical diminishment naturally redirects life force into new creative channels
The concept of neuroplasticity applied to adult adaptation and personal growth
Finding richness through daily photography practice, deepened friendships, and meditation
Writing as an accessible creative practice during physical limitations
Embracing uncertainty, impermanence, and the aging body with grace
The intersection of spiritual practice and the writing life
How raw truth and vulnerability create the most powerful memoir writing
Episode Highlights:
The Portal of Intuitive Writing Laura shares how a single sentence—"My life feels rich and expansive in its diminishment"—arrived through text message and immediately resonated through her bones, demonstrating the primal power of deep, intuitive writing that accesses truths the conscious mind hasn't yet understood.
Cancer's Uncertain Return Eighteen years after her first breast cancer diagnosis, Laura faces the possibility of chemotherapy again. She describes the physical reality of post-surgical recovery and waiting for Oncotype DX test results that will determine her treatment path, showing how even "small" cancers remain unpredictable.
The 1997 Chemotherapy Journey Laura vividly recalls her first cancer treatment: eight patients in cushy recliners facing each other, the IV drips of poison, the head-shaving ceremony surrounded by singing friends, chemical menopause, and the months when food tasted like rusty nails. She lost 40 pounds while strangers praised her "sexy" weight loss.
The Village That Showed Up Laura remembers the incredible community support that sustained her family during treatment: parents driving her children to school, meals delivered multiple times weekly, free massage and bodywork, friends tracking insurance claims, and companions at chemotherapy appointments. She describes this as "the best part of having cancer."
Neuroplasticity as Life Philosophy Drawing an analogy to infant brain development, Laura explains how physical diminishment naturally redirects her life force into new channels—more writing, daily photography exchanges, deeper conversations, expanded spiritual capacity, and meditation on death and impermanence.
Writing From the Sickbed Laura reveals how writing has become her accessible creative practice during recovery, demonstrating that some of our most powerful work emerges when we're blocked from our usual activities and forced to channel energy differently.
The In-Your-Face Cancer Patient Laura describes her choice to be visible during treatment—walking around town bald, wearing only a beanie when cold, refusing wigs, wanting people to see "what cancer looks like." She taught writing throughout her treatment year, creating circles where raw truth resonated.
Gifts Hidden in Diminishment Laura explores the surprising joys emerging from limitation: quiet stillness, new sources of pleasure, deepened listening capacity, perspectives that tip into the vast, and the wisdom of accepting an aging body and winding-down productivity.
About Host Laura Davis:
Laura Davis is an acclaimed author and writing teacher with over 35 years of experience guiding writers to craft powerful, transformative memoirs. Her award-winning memoir The Burning Light of Two Stars won the 2021 BookLife Prize and has touched readers worldwide with its raw honesty and literary craft. As host of The Writer's Journey podcast, Laura shares the deep, intuitive writing practices she's dedicated her life to, helping writers access truths that resonate through their bones and souls.
Laura teaches internationally and leads transformative writing retreats, including "The Art of Memoir" and "Flourishing as We Age" at Villa Maria del Mar in Santa Cruz, California. Her approach combines technical excellence with spiritual depth, encouraging writers to mine their most difficult experiences for universal wisdom. Laura is the author of seven books and brings both personal vulnerability and professional mastery to every episode, demonstrating that our most challenging life passages can become our most powerful writing material.
Resources Laura Mentions:
Writing Retreats:
"Flourishing as We Age" weeklong writing workshop at Villa Maria del Mar, Santa Cruz, California (Spring dates available)
Information: https://lauradavis.net/flourishing/
Key Takeaways from This Episode:
Trust Intuitive Writing: The most powerful truths often arrive through spontaneous writing that bypasses the conscious mind. When a sentence resonates through your bones, follow it through the portal it opens—even when you don't yet understand its full meaning.
Physical Limitations Redirect Creative Energy: Like neuroplasticity in infant development, when blocked from usual activities, our life force naturally flows into new channels. Diminishment in one area can create unexpected richness in others—deeper writing, meaningful connection, spiritual expansion.
Vulnerability Creates the Strongest Memoir: Laura's willingness to share raw, unfiltered truth about cancer, aging, and uncertainty demonstrates that our most difficult experiences become our most powerful writing material. Writers serve readers by refusing to sanitize hardship.
Community Support Transforms Hardship: The village that shows up during crisis—bringing meals, driving children, tracking insurance, sitting beside you during treatment—can become the unexpected gift within suffering. Let people show up for you.
Write What You Can When You Can: Writing is an accessible practice even during physical limitation. Some of our best work emerges from the sickbed, the recovery period, the times we're forced to slow down and channel our energy differently.
Episode Call-to-Action:
If this episode resonated with you, Laura invites you to:
Explore Your Own Limitations: Take ten minutes to free-write about an area where your life feels diminished right now. Without censoring, follow the thread to discover what might be expanding as a result. Look for a place neuroplastic adaptation might be happening in your own life.
Practice Daily Creative Commitment: Whether photography, a single sentence, a voice memo, or a sketch, commit to one small creative act each day. Find a friend to exchange with for accountability and connection.
Consider the Flourishing Retreat: If you're navigating aging, illness, loss, or any major life transition, explore Laura's weeklong "Flourishing as We Age" writing workshop at Villa Maria del Mar in Santa Cruz. Join Laura and three other master teachers and a vibrant community of women using story, ritual, and deep listening to discover inner freedom and wisdom. Participants range from their fifties to ninety-one.
Learn more at https://lauradavis.net/flourishing/
Connect with Laura Davis:
Subscribe to The Writer's Journey Newsletter: https://laurasaridavis.substack.com/ Receive regular posts, beautifully curated poems and nature photos, essays on life and the craft of writing, and more.
Explore Laura's Work: https://lauradavis.net/ Learn about writing classes, books, workshops, and international retreats.
Listen to More Episodes: Subscribe to The Writer's Journey with Laura Davis wherever you listen to podcasts.
Follow Laura's Writing Wisdom: Join as a free or paid subscriber to support Laura's work and receive exclusive content for writers and memoirists seeking to deepen their craft.
The Writer's Journey with Laura Davis is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support her work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. You'll receive regular posts like these, as well as beautifully curated poems and nature photos, essays on life and the craft of writing, and more.
You can subscribe here: https://laurasaridavis.substack.com/
Learn about Laura's writing classes, books, workshops, and international retreats at: https://lauradavis.net/
