It is coming to the end of 2023 and whilst I am busy putting together the training for next year, (details of which will come out in January,) I wanted to share with you the range of work that I have done this year. The reason for doing this is simple, I really want to highlight how everything we do is formed, in some part by story. I believe that if we become aware of this at a deep, conscious level we will be better able to work with story in a truly profound way. So this y

Hi Everybody, The image is from a pub I found whilst I was recently in Dublin, called The Storyteller. Needless to say I had to go in and down a pint of my cultural heritage in honour of my grandmother who was from Cork. I was in Dublin for the Council for International Schools Global Forum as I was their keynote speaker and was also running a workshop for them. It was my largest live audience, 0ver 850 for the keynote and about 120 for the workshop and I relished the whole e

I was recently up in Skellefteå in Northern Sweden at a conference for SKR - (which translates something like the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions.) It was a wonderful conference, very much focused on the role of culture in creating the futures we wish to live in. I ran a workshop on Leadership and the role that narrative plays in the creation of culture. Whilst I was there many people asked me about my work and were suprised by the range of projects and o

I am going to start with a story of compost. My husband and I moved to our wonderful house about 18 months ago and one of the reasons for moving there was the garden. (Well I say garden, it was mostly a messy lawn with a few fruit trees and a few very neglected raised beds.) I was desperate to get busy creating new vegetable beds, flower beds, arches and much more and to start composting all of our green waste. (You need to know at this point that I have never really had the

I thought it would be useful to do an extra blog each month that is focused on the actual work I do and I will share some of the narrative-based processes that I have developed. So this month (I am taking in a little of August too) I have worked with two large school organisations in Sweden and for WSLA. With the first school, I was working with stories as a tool in language development, especially when working with children who have Swedish as an additional language. With t

The image is from a workshop I delivered for SafeGrowth in New Orleans some years back. My work focused on re-storying communities and developing systems of support to make this happen. It is often the case that those who are directly affected by various systems are not involved in creating them. My work gave practical ideas for ensuring that the voices and stories of those impacted would be a vital part of any decision-making process - so that their stories could be shared,

This is an image of one of the less restrained outfits that I wore when working with children. It was to fit in with the theme of Alice in Wonderland and included a cut out section in the front of the huge wig which housed a toy fish on a bird swing. I am nothing if not imaginative when it comes to engaging with children. The ability to imagine is pivotal for us as humans; without it how can we envision a future, alternative versions of ourselves or solutions to problems ...?

The image is an inversion of the base of the birch tree in my garden - it feels so human in its form and I often sit beneath it and wonder about what is happening below the ground and what other trees in the forest behind our house, is it connected to. 'Connection' has always been a theme in my life and in the work that I do - when people ask me what I am passionate about my answer is always, 'connection'. Whether this be connection with self, with place, with community or wi

This photo was taken by my friend Åsa Sunderlin - I like it as I feel it captures a lot of who I am, yet I would be hesitant to use it to promote myself or my work - why? The answer is because it is not 'professional' enough and this is what I want to talk about today; who decides what professional is. There is a belief that if we want to be taken seriously in our work we need to be professional and manifest that. That does not just include behaviour, it includes image - the

The idea of 'success' has been buzzing in my thoughts and feelings. A constant awareness, pushing me into really reflecting on what it means to me and why that is. It started with the feed of a person who trains people in 'presentation skills.' This person is someone I admire from a distance, (I only know them as an online presence) and it seemed their work was very 'successful.' However there was something in the work that did not feel 'right' to me - it was like a piece of

The image on the left is of a birch tree that was cut a little too early. You can see the sap has poured out and become frozen. The internal life force of the tree has become visible, held in place for us to witness and marvel at. I offer this as a powerful metaphor for why we should work with story structures. I remember reading that when we share information using story structures, people experience the information almost as something that they had forgotten rather than som

This image is of the gift I received last week as an alumni of the Creative Climate Leadership Programme. It is a tree made out of recycled iron, the candle represents hope. It is easy for us to lose hope when the stories we hear are so full of hopelessness - let me counter that a little and share with you what I have been doing in the past couple of weeks. Let me light a candle here for you - see the light and sense the heat. Last week I was at the summit of the Creative Cli

Autumn is my favourite season. I find summer too demanding, especially living in Sweden where there is a pressure to fill those sun-filled days with activities. It is understandable as the darkness that is to come is heavy and long with only a few hours of sun in certain parts of the country and in the far north there is no sun at all. Yet I relish the onset of the darkness. I feel my body slacken, my shoulders drop and a deep exhale from my lungs; for me autumn and winter ar

I am often asked this question and I thought the best way to answer is to tell you about the work I have done in the past couple of months. I will share just two pieces of work that I was recently employed to do. The first was for Tussenland Festival in Netherlands. I worked there for 4 days and this is what I did: Day 1 - I gave 2 workshops to teachers on ´Building Learning Identities´ with their students, through using narrative based methods. (A positive learning identity

This is the third in the series of blogs about disconnection and it explores disconnection from each other - something that was magnified with the Covid Pandemic and that we all painfully felt. In some way the pandemic highlighted how vital human connection is to our existence. The psychologist Harriet Lerner states that, "only through our connectedness to others can we really know and enhance the self. And only through working on the self can we begin to enhance our connecte

(Art work by Pete Shaw http://peteshaw-acoustic.yolasite.com/) This is my second blog on the theme of disconnection. I have spoken before on my personal issues and experiences regarding body disconnection but I want to go a little deeper here and reflect on it as a much wider and insidious phenomena. I also think these 3 areas of disconnection, (Body, Earth, Each Other) are all so intricately woven together that it is heard to pull on one thread without it snagging another. L

I have been mute here for some months and yet I have had such a discomfort and sense of constriction in my chest; a need to release words but I was not able to find the words ... so now I exhale and begin. I have felt disconnected from so much recently, from my words, my body, my family and loved ones and it has forced me to reflect on what this means, not just for me but for many of us at this precise time. I feel there is a triptych of disconnection present now: we are disc

Before I begin I want to mention the writers whose work has enabled me to become aware of the racism that is an integral, and often unknown part of my identity. * Resmaa Menakem and his book, My Grandmother's Hands. * Ibram X Kendi and his book, How to be an Antiracist. * Lovette Jallow and her book Främling i Vita Rum which is only available in Swedish at this moment in time. So, to begin. I want to be as honest, uncomfortable and open as possible here. I am still and always

The image is one I have created for my instagram account which is about finding our 'Red Thread.' There were many responses to my quote, it echoed and resonated in a way that was powerful with a lot of people and yet it came from a point of despair; from being lost in the wild sea of my life. It started when I was filming for the Red Thread series on my YouTube Channel and as I was doing so I suddenly had a powerful realisation. Let me share it with you. So, I was recording

In Sweden the metaphor of the 'Red Thread' is used to denote the idea that pulls everything together; the meaning of it all, the story