We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kiesa Kay. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kiesa below.
Kiesa, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?
As a child, I endured really awful experiences, and I survived because I had a beautiful lake where I could float and dream, a mulberry tree for climbing that reinforced a deep connection to nature, and kind cousins and extended family who truly, deeply loved each other and me. It’s my mission to be someone who listens deeply and supports what’s strongly beautiful in others, restoring their faith in themselves as they move forward to share often difficult truths. When we live creatively, care and listen deeply, we restore balance and harmony in the world around us. My writing reinforces resilience. My book coaching supports other writers as they release their nightmares and reach for their dreams.
Kiesa, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I lead workshops on transforming trauma through creative self-expression for Survivor Space, a division of Zero Abuse Project, and I have helped ten authors get their own books from conception to completion, Using creativity as a healing tool for survivors of violence has been a lifelong theme as I share the tools that have helped me. Whether it’s a novel, like Suzy Ryan’s SAVING SUMMER, or a history, like Elaine McAlister Dellinger’s LOST COVE AND ITS PEOPLE, or poetry, like Joretta Wallin’s THOUGHTS FROM MY HEART, I strive not to impose my own voice and vision, but to amplify and support work that writers have carried in their hearts for years before beginning to put it on pages. I also write about safe and beautiful homes, Monolithic Domes that withstand hurricanes, forest fires, tornados, and destructive elements of all kinds. These domes consume less energy than any other structure, and they last. The absence of angles and beams overhead creates a sanctuary for imaginative living. For ten years, I owned Oleander Cottage, a writing retreat in the south of France, a peaceful haven. When it came time to decide whether to keep that retreat or to work as a forensic interviewer, listening and responding to children and teens as they shared their scariest stories, I chose to be a listener. Now, a decade later, I work with adults. I combine listening with writing. I create one-on-one and group retreats for creative healers who have something deep within themselves to share.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Snow and ice pelted me as I crept outdoors the day after Valentine’s Day. My husband, whom I loved dearly, had bitten me, leaving a deep bruise. As I closed the door to my home in Lawrence, Kansas, I knew I’d never return to that house again. I shielded my infant child from the cold wind and walked a mile to my sister’s house. I had lived through worse, much worse, in childhood, but now the stakes had gotten higher. My safety ensured my child’s safety. Somebody needed me. I couldn’t allow myself to be knocked to the ground, shattered by force; if I let myself weaken, no one would stand between my child and dangerous wrath. A journey began that continues to this day: the journey not of survival, but of resilience. The determination grew. As my strength grew, too, I testified at a licensure hearing for my childhood perpetrator. I completed my master’s thesis with honors. I raised two children. I found hope in writing poetry, a memoir, and plays. Last month I returned to Estes Park, Colorado, a place of great joy and huge losses. A local theater group had chosen one of my plays for a tremendous local celebration. On the closing night of the show, as I stood and clapped for that standing ovation, I realized that I had become the woman I always wanted to be. My heart soared and I sent the feeling of love and victory back in time to the cold, shivering woman I used to be, so determined to protect her child, so determined to survive. That courage led to this comfort. Leaving hardship turned into learning to live without flinching. I took flight before I learned to fly, and now lead others to their own inner light.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.
We all contain sparks of creative light, and we can choose whether to nurture them into warming flames. For some of us, nurturing that flame becomes the only way to keep our souls from shrinking. We can’t choose not to create and still be able to survive, because our souls require sustenance. Konrad Dabrowski has written about a theory of positive disintegration, which basically says that sometimes we look at what we’ve built in our lives, and we need to change dramatically. We’ve used the stones to build the wrong structure, and in order to create, we first have to release what no longer serves that greater purpose. Creation requires not only action and construction, but also deep reflection and quiet hibernation, during which we incubate and nurture our ideas. We dance, swim, laugh, love, live, and deep inside us, a new universe brews, waiting to be breathed into being. It takes not only will, but also wonder, and an infinite capacity for feeling completely and fully alive.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://kiesakay.wixsite.com/courage
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7nrcJPI-kwRXbo50XhNnovzfo_v–yLS