Breaking Stigmas and Embracing Humanity

My mission...

Hello everyone. I’ve had a busy August and am ready for a holiday. I am not going on holiday, nor have one planned, but by God I’m ready.

August has been really busy with a lot of work behind the scenes. Mindfest is launching today on social media, we have ticket sales and sponsors in the pipeline. Fellow Mindfest director Katherine Bruce and I had fun recording a bunch of promotional videos this week, so have a look out for them on @mindfestuk_. Please book a ticket! Even if you can’t come in person we will be recording a lot of the talks so you can watch them back.

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The main thing that I have been working on and thinking through is the direction of my work. In the past I have done writing workshops, 121 and group therapy and talks, as well as performing poetry and creating the podcast. With three kids to raise (one of whom turns 18 next week!) it’s all been quite a juggle.

I’ve really come back around to what am I doing, who for, and why?

I went to a creative Substack session yesterday with

Creatively Conscious

in which we were asked, why are you writing on Substack?

I thought I’d share it with you:

We live in an increasingly polarised world where people are separated into right or wrong, adored or cancelled. But the truth is that we are all human beings with light and shade, who have their different human tricky things.

I am sick of a society which labels people. We are encouraged to be automatons. Our emotional experience has been given the poor shorthand of ‘mental health’ and our emotional discomfort a ‘disorder’.

Where is the granularity of the human experience? I write to break the unspoken rules of ‘Don’t talk, don’t trust, don’t feel’. I use my poetry and psychological insight as a way to reflect back, to remind people of the human experience. To reassure that it’s ok.

I write poetry about the everyday and offer ways to learn about or reframe our ‘human tricky things’.

I developed my ‘Permission to feel’ series to help us see our feelings as macronutrients for the soul, something to feed our life to make it richer, deeper and to have more meaning, rather than apologise away our humanness.

My passion is to help people speak their truth, hold their boundaries and trust themselves. 

In particular, I want to help you if you have been affected by the vortex of addiction because I know how your world has been upended by something so baffling, so cunning, so powerful.

I want to offer you a place where you can reclaim your space, to recover so that you can find a way to talk, to trust, to feel , where you can learn to live the rich juicy life your deserve. I write poems and use them to help you say ‘Ah yes! That’s what it’s like!

I then offer my psychological expertise so you can gain self awareness and start to know what you want to change and how.

With that in mind I wanted to share something that I shared on social media yesterday about the Jenni Hermoso/Luis Rubiales situation.

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So what now? I plan to move into doing more therapeutic intensives and workshops.

I will be limiting my 121 work in order to offer really personalised treatment plans which is tailored to my clients’ needs. I am keen to start doing therapeutic intensives - retreats of 2 or 3 days which will allow people to address their unique issues and focus on their particular goals.

I am also interested in opening up weekly group therapy sessions specifically for people who have been affected by a loved one’s addiction. It is great to see the narrative changing around addiction or sober curiosity, but I know that addiction doesn’t just impact the person with the addiction, it has enormous consequences for their loved ones. They seem to be invisible in the conversation.

I know that being the ‘loved one’ can be tricky - they discount their needs, feel like they can’t share their story without sensing some degree of disloyalty. Yet they are in need of support, education and understanding too. I want to help provide that.

So I’d love to hear from you, obviously that’s some meaty ambitions, where do you think my help is most needed?

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In other news! Although my book has been out for over 18 months it is getting an official launch on 25th September. I’ll be talking to Dr. Melanie Whipman alongside Paul Somerville and Emmanuel Lachlan about my publishing journey. It is at The Bel and The Dragon in Churt on 25th September. I’d love to see you there!

There is also an open mic night in Dorking which I’ll be going to. An open mic night is always great fun in Dorking - so come along if you can!

I think that’s it for now. I’m going to try out posting in notes a bit more here - so expect to hear from me soon!

‘Til next time!

Jacky x