Felicia Clark: Poetry, Healing, and Awakening

Morgan Short
Oct 30
4 min read

What does it mean to be awake?

To be awake is to see the pattern your grandmother couldn't name, the one your mother inherited, the one you're now choosing to break. Being awake means catching those moments when the universe seems to wink at you, when coincidence feels too deliberate to be random. It means staying present even when every cell in your body wants to flee, especially then.

That is the pulse of Awake: Poetry for the Healing.

In her debut collection, writer and poet Felicia Clark explores what it means to heal through art. Her poems trace the messy path from innocence through hurt into healing and renewal.

Felicia is a literary fiction and memoir writer, social media strategist, and digital nomad currently living in an RV with her partner Vinny and their cat, Luna Moon. Her work explores what it means to be awake to your life, the pain, the synchronicities, the art, and the small everyday miracles that pull you forward.

In this episode of Art is the New Wall Street, we talked about Felicia's path to publishing, the courage it takes to break generational cycles, and how making art can be its own form of healing.

Content warning: This piece and the accompanying episode include mentions of trauma, depression, addiction, suicide and other heavy themes. Please take care while reading and listening.

Family, Ancestry, and the Fear That Follows

Felicia and I talked about the things families pass down without meaning to. The anxiety that shows up for no clear reason. The way certain fears feel older than you are. Books like It Didn't Start With You helped her understand that some of what she was carrying wasn't even hers. It belonged to her parents, her grandparents, people she never met. And that realization changed something. Healing wasn't about cutting herself off from her family or pretending the past didn't matter. It was simpler and harder than that: understanding where the pain came from, letting herself feel it, and then choosing what she'd keep carrying and what she'd finally put down.

As we talked through this, Felicia started reading poems from her collection.

Empath

The first poem Felicia read out loud is called “Empath” and it is told through the eyes of her cat, Luna Moon. It is tender and haunting, a portrait of depression and addiction witnessed by a creature who loves without judgment.

Listening to Felicia read it, I kept thinking about how sometimes the most profound healing happens when someone (or something) just witnesses you. They don't try to fix you or look away. They just stay. Sometimes love looks like a cat at the end of your bed, watching quietly, waiting for you to find your way back to yourself.

The Artist’s Way and the Act of Becoming

Like me, Felicia is a devotee of The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. The book became a turning point in her creative life. She started writing every day, building new habits, reshaping how she thought about herself as a writer and artist. She practiced affirmations like:

I am willing to create. I am willing to be of service through my creativity. I am a brilliant and prolific writer, worthy of being a published author.

Boundaries

Later in the conversation, Felicia read “Boundaries," which tracks the shift from people-pleaser to someone who knows how to protect herself. She uses animals as metaphors, each one representing a different stage of growth and self-awareness.

This poem stuck with me because it names something so many of us experience but struggle to articulate. Sometimes healing really is that simple and that hard: learning to trust your instincts instead of performing obedience. Moving from what others expect to what you actually need.

Mirrors, Self-Care, and Healing through Poetry

Healing rarely happens alone. It happens in reflection. In the people who hold up light when you forget your own. Felicia’s poem “Mirrors” honors the friends and therapists who helped her through the darkest moments.

Throughout Awake, Felicia includes reminders that feel like someone reaching through the page to steady you. In "Morning Affirmations," she writes plainly:

Morning Affirmations a poem by Felicia Clark

Each line in "Self-Care" is permission to prioritize yourself even when the world pushes back.

The Power of Manifestation

There’s a quiet confidence that comes with healing—the sense that life begins to meet you where you are.

In “Manifesting,” Felicia captures that moment of alignment, when belief stops feeling like a wish and starts feeling like truth.

Nomads and the Freedom to Begin Again

In our conversation, we talked about what it means to be a digital nomad. Felicia is actively letting go of the systems that reward burnout and instead building a life that honors peace, creativity, and connection. Felicia’s poem, Nomads captures it best.

For the Ones Waking Up

Felicia’s story reminded me that awakening isn’t a single moment. It's not one breakthrough or realization that fixes everything. It’s a lifetime of returning. To yourself. To the truth. To the art that keeps calling you back.

Her poems are proof that creativity and healing are two sides of the same devotion. One teaches you to feel; the other teaches you to make something of it.

Awake Around the World

What started as a poetry collection has become a movement. Felicia invites readers to share photos of Awake wherever they are: at a coffee shop, in a forest, on a beach, in their living room at 2 a.m. Use the hashtag #awakearoundtheworld. It's a small gesture that creates connection. A reminder that wherever you are in your own process of waking up, you're not doing it alone.