Writing Your Special Needs Journey With Guest Anne Fricke

Episode 39: Writing Your Special Needs Journey With Guest Anne Fricke In this episode, we discuss how writing can help parents in the journey of raising children with special needs. Writing and storytelling has long been a helpful part of life for guest Anne Fricke. She started doing a lot more writing, through her blog, shortly after her daughter, Freya, was born with Prader Willie Syndrome. After making a different podcast, her blog led into her creating a special needs parenting podcast called Walking With Freya. Four to five years ago, Anne started reading her poetry out loud to an audience, which was really meaningful and touching to the audience. Shortly after, she started her podcast, which has been inspiring and informative to others in her community. Writing can be a helpful coping process and a way to help guide your special needs journey. Anne also started Storyteller night in her town, which has been very powerful for her and those in attendance. Writing became so beneficial for her, that she chose to create a journal for other special needs parents, where she provide prompts and breaks it down into different aspects of the special needs journey. As she was creating the journal, she found that when she was writing, major aspects of her journey started to pop up that she found she needed to process. She found that this often became the case during her writing, which was very powerful to her. In the special needs journey, writing can help us clear our heads and figure out where to begin. Writing can also be a release or can clarify the experiences that we had. It can also remind us of things that we used to do that worked, but that we may have forgotten about. Writing also helps keep our thoughts in order. Writing regularly makes the whole process easier. If you don't know what you need to write about, start writing about your day or pick a sentence and keep rewriting it until something else comes out. Using quote can be really inspiring. Anne also joined a writing group, which has been inspiring to her. She learned through this process that sharing your story is important. She also recommends reaching out to your local community to find and gain support and connect with others. Links: Podcast: Walking With Freya Website There Is Joy To Be Found Here; a writing journal for parents of children with special needs Instagram Good Reads Nonviolent Communications Move Play Thrive A Mother's Rest   Email us if you have any questions or ideas! We are now on instagram! Check out updates on our website. Follow Thriving on Twitter. Check us out on Facebook and join our parent group! Please subscribe to our podcast in the iTunes store, or wherever you find your podcasts, Leave us a 5 star review, to help us know what you like and what you don't like, and to make sure other like-minded people find support through this podcast. Show Music: Intro Outro: Intro Outro 2 by Mattias Lahoud under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org) Theme Song: 90s rock style by monkeyman535 under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org) Self Care Song: Green and Orange No Water by Duncan Alex under CC-BY 3.0 License (www.freesound.org) Hosted by: Jessica Temple and Lewis Temple Disclaimer: Our show is not designed to provide listeners with specific or personal legal, medical, or professional services or advice. Parents of children with health issues should always consult their health care provider for medical advice, medication, or treatment. Copyright 2020 Jessica and Lewis Temple