The Healing Power of Reminiscence

The Healing Power of Reminiscence workshop uses the senses to recall, record, and celebrate significant memories to help participants recognize and value the individuals and incidents that shaped their lives. Besides journaling significant memories for future generations, other significant outcomes include: finding forgiveness, reinforcing a sense of self-worth, and establishing a common ground with individuals across generational, ethnic and socio-economic strata. The exercises in the seminar also provide tools for long-term bereavement for individuals who have experienced a loss through death or separation from loved ones due to divorce, Alzheimer's, "empty-nest syndrome" and more.

Ms. Edgar first developed this workshop for the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina. She then tailored it for the Hospice of Palm Beach County Florida volunteer training program. Working with groups of all ages, she helped to develop the Toussaint L'Ouverture High School Reminiscence Project pilot in Delray Beach, Florida for teens and seniors and received several grants to facilitate The Healing Power of Reminiscence workshops for children, teens, adults and seniors as a part of the bereavement program of Hospice of North Central Ohio in Ashland, Ohio. 

Her latest project, Personal Legacies: Surviving the Great Depression, included an exhibit at the Smithsonian affiliate, The Charlotte Museum of History, a book published by CPCC Press, and a documentary produced by PBS affiliate, WTVI. A keynote speaker for Hospice and Alzheimer's Association conferences, Ms. Edgar also teaches reminiscence workshops throughout the United States in art centers, schools and community organizations.For more information about The Healing Power of Reminiscence workshop series or her book, In My Mother's Kitchen, please email Robin Edgar at .

Use this link to order copies of the Healing Power of Reminiscence Pamphlet

 
Everyone Has A Story To Tell

Workshop Testimonial 
Hi Robin,
Since meeting you and listening to you talk, life has changed somewhat for me. I bought a journal on my way home from that meeting, read your book that night and started journaling. My mother is coming up 84 this year and lives in Australia. I wrote her a very deep and meaningful letter, explaining how much she means to me and how probably without knowing she has helped to shape my life, to make me the person that I am today and me. No point in waiting to tell her and then it may be too late and I will forever regret not saying how I feel about her. So I feel quite pleased with myself on that account.
My father passed away 8 years ago, and my memories of him are painful, as he was very cruel to my mother and brothers, but not to me, though he never showed me any affection until I was in my early 20s. With your advice, I am working my way through the awful memories and finding the good in them instead of just the pain. Hence the journal is working there for me with the smells, colours, etc. that you teach in your book.
As for myself personally, I have been struggling for 4 years now after being diagnosed with malignant cancer while 5 months pregnant with my now 3 1/2 year old.  In these 4 years, I have had 22 surgeries, a lot of pain, stress and worry as to my future, but I cling to life with all gusto. I refuse to give in and I constantly try to keep the most positive frame of mind and personality for all to see. It is what they don't see that I carry inside of me that I have trouble dealing with, so the journal is now my way of working through what I have been through and what my family and friends have been put through during this time. I think of it as perhaps an inner cleansing, so I can put it behind me and move forward more freely and easily. So you can see by this letter the affect you have had upon my life. For this I am very grateful. I have told so many people about you and your story and your book of course, and how you have changed my life. Thank you for the one hour of your time that will change the rest of my long life.
I do not mind at all if you use my letter as testimony. I have re-read “Look for the Lesson,” and your shoe story is not unlike having to change from a natural left hander to a right hander when my father always came from behind and caught me using my left hand, which ultimately ended in a surprise good hard hit on the back and to make me use my right hand. You see, my father was a left-hander and in the old days it was frowned upon and he was made fun of by others. He did not want my brother (also a lefty, now right) and myself to suffer the humiliation the he had gone through. I had to concentrate so hard on my hand writing to make it legible, now everyone that looks at my albums, always comments on my journaling, what beautiful hand writing, if only they knew the trauma I went through at the hands of my father to have it.
My father may have been very hard on this left hand business, but I have him to thank for all of life's instruments that are only made for right-handers that I can use, and not have to purchase any special left hand tools of life. Today, I have a beautiful handwriting and can use my left hand quite freely as well to do things that others struggle with. The bonus is that my son will not suffer what I did as a child to change hands, so no painful memories there for him to grow up with. So yes I can find the lesson in that one quite easily, and no more awful thoughts of my father’s cruel hand. In fact, in a matter of hours I have been able to go back over dozens of childhood trauma's remembering things I saw my father do, and get the same result as the left hand memory.  Absolutely amazing results.
Rita Collins, Creative Memories Consultant, Auckland New Zealand

We would love to hear from you after you have read the book and recorded your memories. Please send your stories to .

For more information on how to have Robin Edgar edit or ghostwrite your life story,  contact Robin Edgar at