“Writing to Awaken is an opportunity to claim the life that you’ve been given, take ownership of your experience, and stop apologizing for having a point of view. Whenever you sit down to write, you are declaring to yourself and the world, ‘My life matters enough to remember.’ Having lived, you have the right to describe your existence in whatever way you choose.”
~Mark Matousek
Upcoming Online Classes
Becoming a Light Unto Yourself:
The Life-Changing Power of Hope
A Four-Week Guided Writing Series
Thursdays at 18:00 London/1:00 p.m. Eastern
January 4, 2023 – January 25, 2024
Presented by Alternatives UK
Hope is a natural resource that requires cultivation in challenging times. As humans, we have a unique capacity to transform hopelessness through ingenuity and imagination, and to brighten our lives with the power of insight.
In this transformative four-week course, Mark guides you through a series of Writing to Awaken practices aimed at catalyzing the spirit of hope within you. Shifting your perspective on personal experience – including fearful predictions about the future – helps to release vital optimism and move you from victimhood toward self-empowerment. You are elevated by “the thing with feathers,” as Emily Dickinson described hope, and your innate ability to imagine fresh outcomes.
Waking Up With Emerson Part Two:
Timeless Wisdom for a Better Life
A Six-Week Guided Writing Series
Thursday at 6:00 p.m. Eastern
January 11 – February 15, 2024
In this next six-week Guided Writing Series, we’ll continue to examine Emerson’s extraordinary insights into flourishing on the path he called Self-Reliance. This visionary way of life combines the practical genius of the ancient Stoics with the soul-stirring beauty of Transcendentalism, the pioneering movement he helped to found for people seeking direct spiritual experience outside the bounds of churchly authority.
These six transformative lessons are designed to increase well-being and deepen your insight and connection to your inner voice.
In this series, you will learn:
~ How knowledge reduces fear and increases courage
~ Why love is necessary to self-knowledge
~ How to ‘turn the obstacle upside down’ in times of adversity
~ The difference between helpful optimism and toxic positivity
~ Why wonder and awe are necessary to flourishing
~ How enlightenment is linked to self-reliance and freedom
Home Study Guided Writing Series
Waking Up With Emerson Part One:
Timeless Wisdom for a Better Life
Six-Week Guided Writing Series
Ralph Waldo Emerson taught that originality, nonconformity, self-trust, and spiritual perspective are the keys to an awakened life. When you take the time to know yourself, he taught, you discover how interesting you actually are, and the vastness of your innate potential.
In this six-week Guided Writing Series, we examine Emerson’s extraordinary insights into flourishing on the path he called Self-Reliance. This visionary way of life combines the practical genius of the ancient Stoics with the soul-stirring beauty of Transcendentalism, the pioneering movement he helped to found for people seeking direct spiritual experience outside the bounds of churchly authority.
Emerson’s timeless wisdom is precisely the medicine we need today to help address our contemporary problems. His focus on authenticity, cooperation, truthfulness, and radical optimism make him a powerful teacher for our these difficult times, as you’ll experience in this timely new course.
The Bright Side of Living:
How Optimism Changes Everything
A Six-Part Guided Writing Series
Are you tired of the cynicism and pessimism pervading the world today? Do you despair of the hopelessness and doomsday thinking that dominate these challenging times? Do you wonder why precious little attention is paid to what’s right in a world where so much has gone so terribly wrong?
In this paradigm-shifting series, you’ll explore optimism as a life-saving human trait that comes naturally when you practice insight. Optimism is a philosophical choice, in fact, that is available to every one of us when we open our eyes to our human potential, and the goodness of the people around us. This radical, uplifting way of seeing is the antidote to the catastrophic worldview so fashionable in these troubling times.
