This announcement first appeared in the Holly Stoppit Workshops Newsletter, April 2022.

Hello You! 

I have big news for you:  

I’m going to take a break from being Holly Stoppit for a while! 

You: Woah! What? Why? When? How? Is that even possible?

Me: All will be revealed... 

Wanna hear the story? 

If you’ve been reading my blogs recently, you’ll know I’ve been going through a hefty process of heartbreak and grief. If you’re curious as to why I’ve been choosing to shed my skin in public, I wrote a blog about why I’ve been blogging. Now that’s meta!

At the start of March, I spent a week in the gorgeous rejuvenating land of Devon, where I was supposed to be on a meditation retreat. However, Covid had other plans; one of the retreat leaders had tested positive on the day I arrived in Totnes, so they cancelled the retreat. Instead, I spent a week hanging out with three dear old friends in pretty places, pondering my place in the world. 

One of my days was spent drifting around the Sharpham Estate, retracing my steps from July 2021, when I was there on the Woodland Retreat, getting over my 4th miscarriage and preparing myself for the end of my relationship.  

I found my former self sitting in a den made of twigs and snuck in beside her to write her a letter. I told her how grief and heartbreak have softened my heart and opened me to possibilities that I could never imagine back then in July 2021 (I turned that letter into a blog which you can read right here). 

It’s become clear to me this year that, in order to tend to my unfathomable grief around child-loss, I need nature, simplicity and community. Part of the reason I was going on retreat was to explore the possibilities of becoming a retreat centre coordinator at Sharpham. My week in Devon gave me all the embodied information I needed to make the decision...

As of July 2022, I’ll be living and volunteering in a meditation retreat centre for 9-12 months! 

What does this mean for you? 

It means I won’t be around for a while (unless you want to come to Devon on meditation retreat!). 

I really don't know what's going to happen on the other side of this. I am opening to flow and allowing myself to be surprised.

Perhaps I will offer online one-to-one creative consultancies and supervision (I’ll be fully qualified as a clinical supervisor by then!), perhaps I will organise more in-person or online performance / self-development workshops, perhaps I will bring back my Well-Held Space facilitation training course, at this juncture, I really don’t know.  

If you want to hear about my plans and musings as they emerge, sign up to the Holly Stoppit Workshop newsletter at the bottom of this page.

Massive love, 

Holly x