A poetic update
House of Lords, Daily Express and The Worst Girl Gang Ever.
Wow what a month it’s been! For my Permission to feel subscribers we’ve looked at:
Jealousy, exploring how the drama triangle of persecutor, victim, rescuer can show up and how to step out of it.
Disappointment and how it can show up, particularly around birthdays!
Resentment and why writing a ‘shitty first draft’ about your resentment can help you discover where you are feeling deprived in your life.
If you’d like to join as a paid subscriber so that you can receive these more in-depth emails then you can do that here.
As I explained in the post about disappointment and birthdays, it was my birthday this month and I had a great surprise on my birthday to find that I was quoted in the Daily Express on an article about social media addiction. I had been asked by Charlie Rosse (www.instagram.com/@theroamingreader), whom I met at the Edinburgh Festival, to help her answer questions for a piece that she was writing and it was great to see it in print on my birthday! I can’t find it online to post it here, so if I find it I’ll post it in notes.
I went to the House of Lords this month to attend an All Party Parliamentary Group on 12 step recovery. Dame Carol Black’s presentation called ‘From Cost to Contribution’ was shared and Tony Adams MBE shared his own story about recovery. I’m working with the charity Visible Recovery which is committed to educating policy makers, service providers and the public at large about 12 step recovery. They have been creating ‘Recovery Fairs’ to help debunk the myths about 12 step recovery.
Another exciting development is that I have been asked to co-organise Mindfest on 18th November this year. The objective of Mindfest is for it to be a community event to empower people to look after their emotional and mental wellbeing.
Last year over 700 people attended and we had an amazing line up of speakers including NACOA (National Association for Children of Alcoholics) ambassador Josh Connolly and Chelsea Football Club's sports psychologist, Tim Harkness.
This year we are focusing on a number of important issues including men’s mental health, menopause, burnout and addiction and will have talks or workshops that look at prevention and addressing signs and symptoms of poor mental health. We want to help eradicate the stigma around what is, essentially, the struggle of being human and we want to educate and empower people to take the steps that they need to in order to address their mental health concerns.
Speakers so far include TedX speakers, a comedian talking about wellbeing and resilience, a specialist in trauma and another in narcissistic abuse, a talk on how to deal with your mental health when you are facing chronic illness and a young persons’ panel on ‘Permission to Feel.’ The plans we have are full to the brim of interesting talks and opportunities to reach out for help. I’ll be sharing more details as they develop.
The Worst Girl Gang Ever, a support platform for miscarriage and baby loss asked me to run a grief workshop for them. A lot of the time, when people talk about grief they may talk about Elizabeth Kübler Ross’s 5 stages of grief, but I much prefer the Whirlpool of Grief by Dr. Richard Wilson. I appreciate the way that it addresses how our landscape of life has changed once we experience loss. We have to learn to become cartographers of this new landscape as we explore it.
In the workshop I shared many of my own poems and there was plenty of opportunity for participants to journal and write their own poems. As one attendee said:
‘This workshop was actually amazing, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was so nice to be able to get some of the overwhelming feelings out onto paper and I feel a little lighter.”
I love doing these workshops. I have workshops on a whole host of feelings like loneliness, fear, joy and hope. I am, however, rubbish at promoting them (I don’t) so they often happen through serendipitous ways. So if you know of a group or work community who would like to reduce their overwhelming feelings and feel a little lighter, please, put them in touch!
The following day I went to see Dan Cardwell perform in London. Dan was on my podcast talking about miscarriage and some of the TWGGE group was there so it was fabulous to meet them in person and see Dan again.
This is one of the poems I used in the workshop and it is also the introductory poem to Dan’s podcast episode.
On the performing poetry side of things, I have been talking to a producer about some of my poetry. We are talking about two possible creative projects. The experience of working with her in itself is sure to be transformational and I’m excited about exploring the ways in which I can use some of my poetry to tell stories.
I’m toying with the idea of doing another show this year, but as you can see, life is very full, so I need to have a think about whether I have capacity for that before I do what I normally do, which is jump in and then set about growing my wings before I plummet!!
Finally, on the therapy side I have just trained in Matrix Reimprinting and started working with it with clients. It is a way to deal with traumatic memories so that they can be processed safely. I’m finding it a very powerful tool for transformation and am looking forward to seeing how it develops in my practice.
Thanks for subscribing, it means so much to me to have your support by reading this. If you would like to find out more then go to www.jackypower.com or you can buy my poetry book here.
That’s it for now, ‘til next time!
Jacky x
Thanks for all you do