Honest storytelling as a form of healing.

Author: Ellie Augustin

  • I Made This for the Version of Me That Was Drowning

    I Made This for the Version of Me That Was Drowning


    There was a season where I kept showing up to my own life like a stranger. Going through every motion. Doing every task. And still feeling like I was disappearing.

    Are ready to reset?

    I want to be honest with you about that season, because I think you might know it too. The alarm goes off before sunrise. You make everybody else’s morning happen.

    You hold the house, hold the family, hold the job, hold your tongue when you’re tired. And somewhere in the middle of all that holding, you forget to hold yourself.

    That’s where this journal came from. Not from a place of having it figured out. From a place of being in it.

    I needed something that would meet me where I actually was. Not where I was supposed to be.

    I’ve been on a path toward becoming a journal therapy practitioner. That work cracked something open in me, because it showed me that writing isn’t just creative expression.

    It’s a way of locating yourself. A way of asking: what do I actually think? What do I actually feel? What do I actually need right now, underneath all this noise?

    And I realized I had never given myself seven consecutive days to just answer those questions.

    seven days

    That’s what 7 Days of Alignment is. It’s a guided digital journal, and each day has a specific focus: how you’re showing up, what you’re carrying, what you’re ready to put down, what you actually want. Real prompts. Not surface-level. Not “write three things you’re grateful for.” The kind of questions that make you sit with the pen for a second before you answer.

    Seven days is not a transformation. I won’t promise you that. But it is a reorientation. And sometimes that’s the only thing standing between you and your own life.

    I priced it at $7. On purpose. Because I know what it’s like to want something for your mental health and not be able to justify the cost. Seven dollars is a coffee. It’s a single song download. It’s the smallest investment you could make in yourself this week. I wanted the price to never be the reason someone didn’t try.

    If you’ve been running on empty and wondering why nothing feels aligned, this is the place to start.

    I’m not going to tell you this will fix everything. Life keeps moving, the lease still needs to be handled, the bills still arrive. But when you know where you stand inside yourself, you navigate all of it differently. You stop reacting from exhaustion and start responding from something steadier.

    That’s what seven days gave me. I want that for you too.

    7 Days of Alignment
    is waiting for you.

    7 Days of Alignment is here. $7. PURCHASE HERE

    If you’ve read this far, you already know it’s for you. Start tomorrow morning.

  • What Happens When You Sit Down to Want 100 Things

    What Happens When You Sit Down to Want 100 Things

    Words are your power

    I haven’t written here in almost a month.

    I could give you a list of reasons life, work, the weight of everything I’ve been carrying but honestly? Sometimes the people who write about healing need a minute to just be in it without documenting it. This past month has been that for me.

    But I’m back. And I’m coming back with something that’s been living in my Moleskine notebook for the past two weeks, taking up space in the best possible way.

    I’ve been writing down 100 things I want.

    Not need. Not should have. Want.

    You’d think that would be easy. It is not.

    The first ten come fast. A house. Peace. More money. Travel. Health. You write them down feeling good about yourself, like yes, I know exactly who I am and what I’m building toward. And then you hit item eleven and something shifts.

    Because now you have to go deeper.

    Now you’re not just listing the obvious things you’re being asked to get honest about the quieter ones. The ones you’ve talked yourself out of. The ones that feel too small to say out loud or too big to believe. The ones you stopped wanting because someone once made you feel like you shouldn’t.

    That’s where the real work is.

    I’m not going to share my list with you. That feels sacred to me it lives in my notebook, between me and God and every ancestor who’s ever rooted for me. But I will tell you what the process of building it has felt like, because I think that’s actually the part worth talking about.

    Around item 30, I had to get honest about things I’d been quietly grieving versions of my life I thought I’d let go of but apparently hadn’t. Around item 50, I started laughing because some of what I wrote felt ridiculous. Audacious. The kind of thing you whisper, not say. And I wrote it anyway.

    It’s uncomfortable. In the best way.

    By item 70, I was crying. Not from sadness from recognition. Like something in me had been waiting for permission to be seen.

    Here’s what I’d tell you if you want to try this:

    Start without rules. Don’t organize by category, don’t second-guess what belongs. Just write. Let it be a mess. Categories will find themselves.

    Don’t edit while you’re building. The moment you cross something out because it feels silly or selfish or unrealistic, you’ve started lying to yourself. This is not the place for that.

    Sit with the discomfort when it stalls. It will stall. That stall is usually pointing at something important. What you can’t name yet is often what you need the most.

    This isn’t a vision board exercise. This is an excavation. You’re not just dreaming you’re deciding. There’s a difference.

    Will you give this list for yourself a try?

  • Lessons learned

    Lessons learned

    April tried to humble me. It worked. But here’s what else happened.


    April came in with punches I wasn’t ready for. The PDF I’ve been pouring into for two months is still sitting quiet with no sales. Writing slowed down in a way that scared me a little.

    Friendships I thought were solid started showing cracks. Unexpected situations landed one after another and I had to just absorb them.
    But April also gave me things I didn’t expect to need as much as I did.
    I saw Naika live.

    I walked into an Edgar Allan Poe themed speakeasy and let that be everything it was. I got to go to BookCon.

    I stood under the cherry blossoms and let that mean something.

    I started documenting what I’m building in a way that feels real. Those moments carried weight. They reminded me I’m still someone who shows up for beauty even when things are hard.
    So here’s what May is going to be about for me.
    Getting back to the page. Even if it’s one paragraph. Even one line on a hard day, that counts.

    Getting back to moving my body, even if it’s just half a mile. Submitting my poetry. Exploring. Traveling somewhere. Actually being in spring before it disappears.


    And this May I turn three years. Three years since a moment that should have ended me and didn’t. I don’t always understand why I’m still here.

    Some days I’m still looking for the answer. But I am here. And that means I have to keep going, keep creating, keep finding the light even when I have to squint to see it.
    April was a teacher.

    May is going to be a celebration.

  • As This Month Ends

    As This Month Ends

    I came into this month ready
    I had a poem read
    I wrote for seven days straight
    like I remembered who I was
    and then
    life didn’t ask permission
    it never does
    anxiety filled the pages I meant to write on
    tears took the hours
    and I had to hide them
    because there is always something
    that needs me more than I need
    to create
    now it’s two days till the end
    and I am standing here
    counting what I didn’t do
    like that’s the only math that matters
    and this poem
    will probably be another one
    nobody reads
    they’ll say I support you
    and mean it
    the way smoke means something
    before it disappears
    you saw it
    it was real
    and then
    it wasn’t
    I keep writing into that
    into the almost-there
    into the hands that wave
    and then go quiet
    but I had a poem read
    I wrote for seven days
    I kept a dream alive inside a life
    that keeps trying to convince me
    it’s the only thing real
    that’s not failure
    that’s someone fighting
    with everything she has
    This Month knows what it cost me
    that’s enough

  • A Whole New World

    A Whole New World

    I woke up early and I was excited. Doors opened at 10 but I knew better than to show up at 10. This was a convention people had been talking about for months. So I got there early, and sure enough, when I turned the corner to find the entrance, the line was already wrapped around the block.

    I waited at least 45 minutes before they let us in.
    And when they did, it was a massive amount of people spread across four floors. All I could think was: we are all here for the same reason. We love books. That was it. That was the thread connecting every single person in that building.
    Later I found out that while I was inside in awe, absorbing everything, studying the room, people were online complaining that it was too crowded. And I understand that. But that’s not what this is about.
    This is about what it felt like to be in the room.
    I didn’t go as a fan this year. I went as a writer doing her homework.

    I walked those floors with my eyes wide open, asking myself: what does this feel like from the other side of the table?

    Because that’s where I’m headed. I told myself right there, out loud: next year, I’m coming back as an author.


    I met some incredible people. I picked up books that called to me. I picked up a little Edgar Allan Poe magnet and now he lives on my writing wall, staring at me every time I sit down to write.

    Only a matter of time

    I sat on a Naturepedic mattress at a booth, held up a book, and let someone take my picture like it was the most natural thing in the world, because it was.

    I stood in front of a backdrop that said I See Books In My Future and I believed it.


    Con mucho amor. That’s what one of the authors wrote in my book. With much love. That’s the energy of BookCon, underneath all the crowds and the chaos. People who made things, sharing them with people who needed them.
    I needed this day more than I knew.
    The floor was packed. My feet hurt. I was tired before I even got there. And still, I left full.
    That’s the writer’s life, isn’t it? You show up tired. You find something that feeds you anyway. You go home and you write about it.
    See you next year. On the other side of the table.

    Manifesting where I will be coming next year w my book
  • A new Never ending Wave

    A new Never ending Wave

    Today marks 20 years since my oldest daughter’s passing to SIDS and I thought I’d share 20 things I wish people understood about grief:

    1. “They’re in a better place” doesn’t make the missing stop. Both things can be true and still hurt.
      1. “Don’t be sad” is not comfort. It’s a request for your silence.
      2. “They wouldn’t want you to cry” maybe. But grief isn’t about what they want anymore. It’s about what love does when it has nowhere to go.
      3. “You’re lucky you have other children” is one of the cruelest things you can say to a grieving parent. Children are not interchangeable. Every single one is irreplaceable.
      4. “Just smile” means make me more comfortable with your pain.
      5. Grief has no expiration date. None.
      6. Twenty years later, that is still your person. That is still your baby. Time does not shrink that.
      7. It comes in waves. I can be fine right now and crying in an hour for no reason other than love.
      8. Sometimes the wave hits in the middle of a grocery store. Or a gym. Or a Tuesday morning.
      9. You learn to carry it, not lose it. It becomes part of how you walk through the world.
      10. Anniversaries are not just dates on a calendar. They are full-body experiences.
      11. The ones who feel it most are the ones who say the least about it.
      12. Grief is lonely. Not because no one cares, but because no one else loved them exactly the way you did.
      13. Sometimes I just need someone to say I’m here. That’s all. No fixing. No advice. Just I’m here.
      14. Silence from the people you expected to remember hurts in its own quiet way.
      15. Putting up a face is exhausting. But sometimes it’s how you survive the day.
      16. You don’t grieve less over time. You just get stronger between the waves.
      17. A favorite book, a song, a smell any of it can bring them back in a rush. That is not a breakdown. That is love.
      18. Grief is not weakness. It is the proof of how deeply you loved.
      19. My child will always be my child. In this world and the next. No amount of time, distance, or “looking on the bright side” changes that.


    If you are grieving today, I see you. You don’t have to explain yourself. You don’t have to be okay. You just have to keep going, and you are.

  • When You Don’t Know How You Feel and That’s Okay

    When You Don’t Know How You Feel and That’s Okay

    When’s the last time someone asked how you were doing and you just… didn’t have an answer?


    Not because nothing was happening. But because everything was happening and none of it had a name yet.


    Some days arrive heavy. Not dramatic, not falling-apart heavy just the quiet kind of weight that settles in your chest before you even open your eyes.

    You go through the motions. You show up. You do the thing. And somewhere underneath all of it, something is asking to be felt but you don’t know what it is yet.


    That’s not a problem to fix. That’s actually the beginning of something.


    Journal therapy doesn’t ask you to have it all figured out before you sit down to write. It meets you exactly where you are including the days when where you are is I don’t even know. One of the first things journal therapy teaches us is that the body often knows what the mind hasn’t caught up to yet. So when words won’t come, we start there.
    Try this: before you write a single sentence, pause and ask yourself what does my body feel right now?

    Not your thoughts. Not the story. Just the physical. Tight shoulders. Heavy eyes. A breath you keep forgetting to finish. Write that down. That’s your entry point.


    From there, let yourself go a little deeper.
    Ask yourself what you’ve been avoiding thinking about. Not to force it open just to acknowledge it’s there. Sometimes naming the thing we’re circling around is enough to release a little pressure.
    And then ask the question that changes everything: What would I write if I knew no one was reading?


    That’s where the real stuff lives.
    You don’t have to perform your healing. You don’t have to arrive at a conclusion by the end of the page. Some journal entries are just proof that you showed up on a hard day and that counts.


    So if today is one of those days where the feelings don’t have labels yet, grab the

    journal anyway. Start with your body. Follow the thread. Trust that clarity comes through writing, not before it.
    Start here three prompts for the unnamed days:
    ∙ What does my body feel right now?
    ∙ What have I been avoiding thinking about?
    ∙ What would I write if no one was reading?


    You don’t need the whole answer. You just need the first honest sentence.

  • April is National Poetry Month

    April is National Poetry Month

    Poetry is the language we reach for when nothing else is enough.

    It lives in the grief we can’t explain, the joy that breaks us open, and the silence between what we mean and what we say.


    A poem doesn’t ask permission to tell the truth. Neither should you.


    This month we celebrate the ones who bled into stanzas, who turned pain into pages, who refused to stay quiet.


    Every poet started with one line they were afraid to write. Write yours.

  • The Difference Between Venting and Journal Therapy

    The Difference Between Venting and Journal Therapy

    Let me ask you something. Have you ever journaled your heart out, wrote until your hand hurt or your phone battery died, got everything out that you were feeling and then closed the notebook and felt exactly the same?

    Yeah. Me too. And for a long time I thought that meant journaling just wasn’t working for me.

    What I didn’t know was that there’s a big difference between venting on the page and actually doing journal therapy. And once I understood that difference, everything changed.

    Venting is dumping. You’re getting it out, releasing the pressure, letting the words catch what your body couldn’t hold anymore. And listen sometimes you need that.

    There’s nothing wrong with it. But venting alone doesn’t move anything. You drain the tub and it fills right back up. Because you never asked where the water was coming from.

    Journal therapy is different because it asks you to do something after you write. It asks you to slow down and get curious about what just landed on the page.

    What’s really going on here? What is this feeling underneath the feeling? What does this remind me of? What do I actually need right now? Those questions are where the real work is. That’s where things start to shift.

    It’s not about writing beautifully. It’s not about having the right words or the right format.

    It’s about being honest and then being willing to look at what you wrote. The journal stops being a trash can for your emotions and starts being a mirror. And mirrors show you things that are true even when they’re uncomfortable.

    If you’ve been journaling for a while and still feel stuck, this might be exactly why. You’ve been releasing without reflecting.

    That’s not failure. That’s just a missing piece. And the good news is you can add it starting today.

    TRY THIS TODAY:

    Write about something that’s been bothering you for five minutes, no filter. Then stop, read it back, and ask yourself one thing: What is the feeling underneath this feeling?

    Write for five more minutes from that place. See what opens up.

    Do you want a structured way to go deeper?

    I created 7 Days of Alignment : A journal that takes you from surface-level writing to real, soul-level clarity. You can purchase it here

  • Go Bloom: A Love Letter to the First Day of Spring

    Go Bloom: A Love Letter to the First Day of Spring

    There is something almost magical about the way the earth just decides to shift.

    No announcements. No countdown. Just one morning you step outside and something in the air feels different. Lighter. Like the world exhaled.

    Today is the first day of spring, and I need you to feel the full weight of what that means.

    The spring equinox is the moment when light and dark are perfectly balanced, and then, just like that, the light starts to win. Day by day, little by little, there is more brightness than shadow. That is not just science. That is a message.

    Whatever you have been carrying through the winter, whatever felt heavy, stuck, frozen in place, the season is literally changing around you. The ground that looked like it had nothing left in it is already doing the quiet work of becoming something new. That is what seeds do. That is what we do.

    New beginnings do not always arrive with fanfare. Sometimes they arrive on an ordinary Friday, with a cup of something warm in your hand, and a feeling in your chest that says this is it. Something good is coming.

    I believe that feeling. I am choosing to believe it today.

    If you have been waiting for a sign to start again, to try again, to hope again, let this be it. The first day of spring on a Friday, the end of one week and the start of everything new.

    Happy Spring. Happy Friday. Happy new chapter.

    Go bloom.