How to write a healing manifesto
How to write a healing manifesto: a guide to writing a personal manifesto for your healing process (+ prompts)
What is a healing manifesto?
What is a healing manifesto? A healing manifesto is a personal manifesto to support our healing journeys. Personal manifestos, such as the one we’re going to be creating today, are written declarations. They state something about you, such as your values, what you want out of life, how to live your life, your worldview or rules for living, in short, concise, & bold language.
Why write a healing manifesto?
Why write a healing manifesto? Manifestos break ideas down into very clear + concise language. Creating a manifesto to support our healing process can help remind us why we're doing the scary, difficult, & incredibly courageous work of healing. IDK about you but personally, some days I really feel like giving up. My manifesto helps ground me in my purpose & values & dreams, reminding me why doing this work is important to me.
My manifesto is titled “Femme Cockroach Life Manifesto” (& is published in Healing is the Best Revenge #3). It goes like this:
“Femme cockroach life is surviving out of spite and against all odds, a ‘f*ck you’ to the people who tried to break us. It’s a flower blooming from a crack in the concrete, an environment it was never meant to survive. Femme cockroach life is community care, DIYing survival strategies together, protecting and supporting and caring for one another even when we don’t like each other. It’s about knowing we’re lovable, during our darkest hours and at our most challenging, especially when we need love the most.”
Your manifesto can be whatever you want and need it to be - &/also if you’re like me & have a hard time getting started, I’m going to provide some prompts to inspire you,
Healing manifesto writing prompts
🩷 Why am I doing this work? Why am I making this commitment? Why does healing matter to me? What do I hope to get out of this process?
💫 What are my values? What values are important to me? Why are these values important to me? How do they show up in my healing journey?
💝 Who am I? Who am I as a person? Who do I want to be? How can I practice being that person? How do I embody + live in alignment with my values? What would my higher self do?
⚡ What do I believe in? What do I stand for? What are my strongest beliefs? What am I most passionate about? How do my beliefs, values, & passions intersect with my healing journey?
💘 What words do I want to live my life by? What words do I want to live my life by? How can I translate my values, beliefs, & dreams into clear concise language? What would this sound like in my own voice?
A few gentle reminders
💛 Your manifesto is a living, breathing document; it can - & should - grow & change alongside you
💗 Embrace messiness & imperfection as part of the process
💜 Be bold, courageous, & clear in your writing
💓 Write the way you talk; try responding to the prompts out loud & transcribing your thoughts
💞 You can always edit & iterate but you have to have something written to edit first!
Further reading + listening
✨ “Burn It Down!” Feminist Manifestos for the Revolution” edited by Breanne Fahs
✨ “You Need a Manifesto: How to Craft Your Convictions and Put Them to Work” by Charlotte Burgess-Auburn
✨ Listen to episode 24 of Healing is the Best Revenge: “Writing a personal manifesto for healing”
If you'd like to share your manifesto with me, I'd love to read it! &/also your manifesto can be JUST for your eyes only. After all, it's to support you in your healing process, dear one 💕
