community
we were never meant to navigate life’s most profound moments alone
What I've learned from almost two decades of humanitarian service is that there is power in speaking our stories out loud and sharing them with each other.
We’ve been conditioned to believe that healing is personal and a burden we must carry on our own. But as human beings we are hardwired for connection. This means that healing actually happens in the collective — a feeling of common humanity that only emerges when we bring our experiences into the presence of others who understand. I wrote Tell Me My Story to name the wounds honestly — vicarious trauma, moral injury, institutional betrayal, systemic grief — and to begin moving through them. But reading alone only takes us so far.
Community conversations and writing circles create something different — something deeper.
They don't require much preparation, but they create a unique space for our lived experiences — personal and professional. And they give us opportunities to practice the things that matter most in this era of polycrisis: empathy, cultural humility, listening, courage, vulnerability, and healing.
These offerings are where those practices flourish.
"Part story, part manifesto, Tell Me My Story is a fully moving account of what it means — and what it costs — to be a humanitarian. In telling her story, she has told parts of all our stories."
— Rebecca Dempster, PhD, Founder, Resileo
tell me my story community conversations
a monthly conversation with Dimple
Join me on the first Tuesday of every month for a live 90-minute community conversation about Tell Me My Story — Challenging the Narrative of Service Before Self.
Part book club, part collective exploration — this isn't a lecture or a summary. It's a conversation — the kind I always envisioned the book opening.
Each month we’ll gather to discuss a single chapter from the book and explore the stories that shape how we serve, the costs of caring, and how to hold pain and possibility together to make service sustainable moving forward.
This is direct access to me, in a virtual, small group setting to talk about what it really means to be “of service” in this age of polycrisis, so bring your questions, your reactions, and your experiences and join the discussion.
NOTE: Reading the featured chapter before each session isn't required, but highly encouraged to make for a richer conversation.
What's included:
90-minute live community conversation via Zoom
Ongoing registration — no prior preparation or prior sessions required
This is a free event, with the option to make a donation of your choice. Contributions are gratefully received and go toward administrative costs.
Upcoming sessions:
jun 2 | 1pm–2:30pm EST | chapter 12: mission-driven, not superhuman | martyrdom culture — this conversation will explore the narrative of service before self, including how it took root in our families, communities and workplace cultures, what it costs us, personally and professionally, and why it’s so hard to let go of it.
jul 7 | 1pm–2:30pm EST | chapter 11: a conflicted oath | moral injury— this conversation will explore what happens when what we're asked to do conflicts with our own deeply held morals and beliefs, including the specific texture of moral injury in mission-driven work — what activates it, how it lives in the body, and what it looks like to stay rooted in our values and keep service sustainable.
aug 4 | 1pm–2:30pm EST | chapter 1: the history we carry within us | generational trauma — this conversation will explore how we carry the pain and trauma of the family members who came before us and the impact it can have on our minds, bodies, relationships, and service.
Session themes are announced on a rolling three-month basis. To stay informed of upcoming conversations, subscribe to our newsletter.
Have your own group? I'm happy to bring the conversation to you — in person or on Zoom. Let’s chat.
challenging the narrative writing circles
summer session registration now open
mondays | jun 01 - jul 06 | 10-11:30am est | standard rate - $625 per person | register before may 10, 2026 for 10% off using code SUMMER10 at checkout
A limited number of mutual aid spots are available for $350 to ensure financial barriers don't prevent access to community support and engagement.
fall session registration opens aug 1- see below for more information
Being human is messy. Serving humanity is messier.
Writing is one of the most powerful tools we have for working through what that costs us — the loss of trust, grief, betrayal, demoralization, moral conflict, fury, shame, guilt, despair. Putting it on the page helps us examine our experiences from a distance, ease the weight of what we've been carrying, and find our way back to hope and purpose in an era that keeps asking more of us than we have to give.
Challenging the Narrative Community Writing Circles are guided journeys through each section of the book Tell Me My Story - Challenging the Narrative of Service Before Self. The book serves as a framework and a companion, but the real insights come from the community we build together.
You don't need to be a writer — and previous writing experience is not required.
This is story-healing as practice. Not a workshop or lecture, but a brave space where you’ll find support and encouragement as you dive deeper into your own story. By mining your experiences and tuning into your inner wisdom, you'll leave our time together with a better understanding of how your beliefs and values shaped how you serve, relate to others, and move through the world, the stories that get in the way of you being the best version of yourself, and how you can begin to shift those stories for the better.
This is a trauma-informed space. This means you will never be required to share the details of the personal experiences you write about, however, you will be invited to share any thoughts, perspectives, and insights that emerge from your writing in community with others doing the same.
What to Expect:
6 weekly community writing circles (90 mins each, live via Zoom)
weekly pdf journal + integration guide with prompts and other useful information to support your writing journey
private signal group to stay connected with our community between sessions
a signed copy of Tell Me My Story - Challenging the Narrative of Service Before Self
a specially curated writing kit
a small, closed group (12 max) for depth, trust, and safety
optional 1:1 coaching to support deeper inquiry
6-Week Agenda
week 1: introductions + container building
In week 1 we gather together to create brave space for our work in community. This session will include introductions, establishing community agreements, and writing practices to help us set intentions, plant seeds for our collective writing practice, and understand what brought each of us to the circle.
week 2: shaping
In week 2 we begin tracing the origins of the stories that shaped us — values and messages inherited from family, culture, and lived experience that created the lens through which we see the world and our place in it, and that influenced our beliefs about duty, belonging, and what it means to care for others.
week 3: surviving
In week 3 we examine our surviving stories — the nervous-system reactions — fight, flight, freeze, fix, and fake — that developed in response to our shaping stories and became our default strategies for getting through challenges and created the survival patterns we've carried into our work, relationships, and experiences.
week 4: seeing
In week 4 we begin to practice self-awareness, observing the space between our experiences and our automatic reactions, noticing the impact of our internal narratives and how they show up in our bodies before they ever become conscious choices.
week 5: shifting
In week 5 we build on our self-awareness practice to begin changing our relationship to our surviving stories — not by discarding them, but by replacing the survival lens with one of self-compassion that opens the door to new patterns, possibilities, and choices.
week 6: sharing
In our final circle, we arrive at the culmination of the story-healing cycle — the point at which sharing our biggest takeaways begins to foster empathy, connection, and common humanity, and empowers us to begin writing a better narrative for ourselves and for those we serve.
By the end of six weeks, you'll leave with a:
A personal body of writing that moves through all five stages of the story-healing arc — from what shaped you and the survival strategies you built to keep going, to a clearer sense of the values and limits you want to actually live by in your work and relationships
The ability to recognize your default survival patterns under stress, name the stories underneath them, and understand why they made sense given what you've carried
A more honest accounting of what service has cost you — emotionally, relationally, and physically — and what you want to reclaim
A self-compassion-grounded writing practice you can return to on your own when you need to make sense of what you're holding
A community of eleven other people who held space for your story and can continue to do so beyond the circle
This community writing circle is for you if:
You work or have worked in a mission-driven field — as a helper, healer, caregiver, first responder, public servant, activist, or aid worker — and you've felt the weight of that work in ways you haven't had real space to examine
You've been carrying the cost of service — depletion, grief, moral injury, or a slow erosion of the purpose that brought you here — and you're ready to stop moving past it and start moving through it
You know writing is how you process things, or you've been wanting to find out if it is, and you want a guided practice with a small group that understands what you're carrying
You're somewhere between what was and what's next, and you need a container to sit in that in-between space with honesty and care — not another framework for optimization
You’ve been looking for a community rather than trying to make sense of of your experiences alone
NOTE ON ACCOUNTABILITY - to maintain the integrity and safety of this community, I reserve the right to remove any participant who does not comply with community guidelines.
MENTAL HEALTH DISCLAIMER - I am NOT a therapist, and this community writing circle is not a substitute for therapy or professional mental health support. While gathering in community can offer therapeutic benefits, this space is designed for reflection, connection, and collective care—not clinical guidance.
If you think you need additional support right now, I encourage you to engage in this practice alongside therapy or other forms of professional care. Your well-being matters, and it's important to have the resources you need to navigate this moment with strength and support.
REFUNDS - We do not offer refunds for any service or course. All sales are final. If you have an emergency arise we'll work to include you in a future cohort. We appreciate your understanding and willingness to respect this policy.
summer session
mondays | 10:00 - 11:30am EST | jun 1 - jul 6, 2026
fall session
tuesdays 7:00 - 8:30pm EST - oct 6 - nov 10, 2026
registration opens aug 1, 2026
a note on group size and pace
All community offerings are small by design. There is no version of story-healing that works at scale — trust requires time, and witness requires intimacy. These aren’t webinars or courses you move through at your own pace in isolation. They’re live, relational, and deliberately unhurried.
If you are interested in bringing the Challenging the Narrative Community Writing Circles to your organization or team as a private experience, that is available. Private groups can be scheduled on a timeline that works for your organization and are designed to meet the specific context of your work or challenges.