"I can't do that!"

"Oh yes, you can!"

Today I am going to blow my own trumpet – and I hope you will join me in the band, for you will surely have trumpets of your own to blow..

Thank you for your comments and encouragements after my last blog. A few people, including a friend, suggested I run a creative writing course.

“I can't do that!”, I told my friend, “I don't have the skills”. She poo poo-ed me.

So I thought about it. I write in many forms, from haiku and poetry to blogs and stories. I hold groups, including ad hoc creative writing groups for bereaved people at a hospice. I run courses. Why do I think I don't have the skills? Because I haven't done it before? Because someone else would do it better? Because... because I imagine I am not enough.

Oh the tyranny of not being enough. How very many of us suffer under that delusion?

Not enough

9 years ago I ran my first retreat, a week long intensive at the Findhorn Foundation, followed by many other retreats, alongside my husband. I had started a business – Ways of Heart and Soul – alongside my husband. He, being creative and IT intelligent, designed and made the website and created a social media presence. His writing was more personal, more appealing, more..more...more.. than mine at the time. And whatever I did, he had my back. If he were here now, he would dispute his 'more-ness'.

When he died, I imagined I would never run another retreat; I would certainly never run my own business, make a website, dream up events, get funding, design posters, post on social media, promote and deliver the events; nor would I write personally to all of you. And yet, I do. Because I am learning to say yes to my inner promptings and because sometimes, I trust that I am enough.

Shifting ground

When a loved one dies, the ground shifts. What is this new territory we find ourselves inhabiting? Is there even any ground left for us to stand on? Can we get on a bus or book a train? Can we remember how to do the supermarket shopping? What kind of ordeal is taking the car in for a service or sorting out the energy bills? In profound grief, there is frequently a parallel profound loss of confidence. It's as if we lose 'muscle memory' for the ordinary because the ordinary has just been devastated. Or maybe it's as though an emotional bomb has exploded and our system has gone into shattering shock. Or for me, I think, the self-containment I had needed to sustain for so very long, froze into a mould and nothing wanted to move, thrive or interact. However we express it, loss of confidence is a big deal and it requires huge courage to take those first steps back out into the world, often feeling exposed and vulnerable.

The return of “yes”

What I have discovered is, that although lack of confidence breeds lack of confidence (it feels easier to say no and keep saying no, at least for a while) also courage breeds courage. Perhaps the 'muscle memory' of how to put one foot in front of the other returns. Gradually “yes” has found a place in my vocabulary.

Until that last beautiful partnership with my late husband, I did not know the experience of someone consistently and reliably having my back. It softened and strengthened me. Somehow, having known what it felt like, the sense of it in my backbone remains, embedded. What's more, it is me who will nurture that now. Can I have my own back, believe in myself, inhabit myself fully, knowing that being who I am is enough, more than enough. In fact enough, smacking as it does of quantity and measurement, is a non-sense: being who I am is all – all that is required of me and of you.

I will

So the upshot of it is that of course, I will run a creative writing group for anyone dealing with loss – be it a mature grief or one newly minted, whether the loss is of a person or people, or of something deeply precious or  something desired and never realised. And it will be online so any of you reading this, wherever you may be, are very welcome. (See the News article below and the events page for more details and to book.)

So that's my trumpet – I overcame my 'not enoughness' and said yes. Please say yes too and join me, and together we will create something very beautiful. It isn't about being 'good' at writing or producing a finished article. None of us know how to be good at grieving and we will never become a finished article. This is the same: a process, an exploration, a voyage of discovery.

Please do write to me if you want to sing your own praises (I promise it is allowed) or if believing in yourself is hard work. Don't forget we can always have a cup of tea together and if all else fails, eat cake!

With love,

Nickie

News

Creatively Writing Through Loss

This is an online course, beginning on Tuesday 11^th June from 7-8.30pm and then every Tuesday until 2^nd July. I will send out Zoom invitations the day before.

We will use prompts and poetry, nature and specific objects, memory and imagination, to explore the territory of loss. I will hold the circle consciously, safely and gently.

Maximum group size will be 10. If more than 10 people would like to join, I will consider starting a parallel group at an alternative time.

For more information or to book please go to my events page. Please share this event with anyone you think might like to join me.

I am putting together a year long programme of events. Other than the above, these are in-person events: A Day to Tend to Grief in June, a second Walking with Loss, Together, collaborative course with Emma Capper in the autumn, and then a 6 month Grief Support Network over the late autumn and winter. I need some funding and am in the process of exploring this. Suggestions gratefully received. If you would like me to run online groups or courses, please ask me – I am very open to that possibility.

Stop Press: coming soon- 3 brand new podcasts: how to be alongside someone who is grieving.