Things are changing here in Holly Stoppit world; I’m pressing pause on my online one-to-one therapy, supervision and creative consultancy services, I’m putting my workshop prices up and I’m launching a new online community group for Fools.

These may sound like business decisions, but they’re much more than that. I’m choosing life!

This blog is the story of a woman who spent her life creating spaces of belonging for others, but somehow forgot her own need to belong.

Burnout

In April this year I burned out. 

It was just a wee-mini-burnout, not a total wipeout like I used to experience, just a little can’t-get-out-of-bed-for-a-week burnout. I did all the right things to dig myself out of the old familiar hole, dust myself down and put myself back on the path again (I wrote a blog about that process here) and then I threw myself back into my work.

Now, if you know anything about me, you’ll know I LOVE my work. It’s my favourite thing in the world; to create spaces for people to feel seen, heard and celebrated in all their weirdness and wildness, all their complexity and simplicity, their vulnerability and humanity. 

I have devoted my entire adult life trying to understand: What do human beings need in order to feel safe enough to allow more of themselves to be seen? Every workshop I've ever created has been another attempt to answer that question.

Like most people who work in the caring professions, my passion for holding space for other people has often led me to regular bouts of burnout (Hello carers! I see you!). In the past, I accepted burnout as an inevitable part of the job, until 2022, when I burned out so bad, I had to take a year off work.

My big year out

In 2022, I made a radical choice to stop everything and move to The Barn meditation retreat centre in Devon for a year, where I learned how to slow down, soften and allow. The great, prolific, Holly Stoppit took a sabbatical and Holly Stoddart got to spend a year in the country, being an equal member of a Buddhist community, learning how to bring her needs to the table, how to receive support and how to be held. I’ve written a lot about that year, so I won’t go into too much detail now, but you can read all about it here.

When I first “got out” of The Barn three years ago (I like saying it like that, it sounds like “getting out” of Buddhist prison), I had changed so much that I couldn’t figure out where to put this new softer, more boundaried version of myself. So I decided to travel about for a while until it became clear. This process ended up lasting two whole years! You can read all about that here. 

The birth of the one-to-ones

During that transient period, it made sense to work online. So for two days a week, I offered online therapy, supervision and creative consultancy to a marvellous array of performers, directors, musicians, poets, facilitators, teachers, therapists and creative researchers.

I adored that work, what a joy to be let into people’s inner worlds and to have the tools to be able to respond moment to moment, by offering a question, an observation, an invitation to feel, move or embody. The one-to-ones became a wonderfully steady pulse in my constantly changing life. Wherever I was, whatever was happening, for two days a week, I sat on a cushion on the floor and offered my attention to a rainbow of fantastic humans. 

On my one-to-one days, I made sure I was well rested and nourished, my days began on the yoga mat and after lunch, I walked or cycled to whatever local cafe I was obsessed about that week, most likely one in a park, or the one that did the best decaff oat flat white. 

I took care of myself so that I could I offer my best self to my clients. 

We all benefitted.

Internal Family Systems

To support the one-to-one work, I plunged into the wonderful world of Internal Family Systems (IFS), a parts-based system of therapy. Parts were already woven into the fabric my work, but IFS offered simple, powerful structures for meeting parts with compassion and curiosity, and access to a whole open-hearted community surrounding the philosophy. Over the last three years, I have completed my IFS Level 1, IFS Level 2 (IFIO) and Somatic IFS (Steps 1 and 2). The one-to-ones gave me opportunities galore to integrate my new shiny IFS skills into my tried and tested toolkit. 

The work got richer and tastier. 

Back to Bristol

I finally settled back in Bristol a year ago and the one-to-ones have given me a sense of continuity as my life has gradually transformed.  

Community: from circus roots to Buddhist retreats

Fundamentally, I am all about community. 

I am from a massive family (I have three sisters and two brothers) who grew up in a travelling circus community. I began performing and teaching circus skills to children at the age of six. I then spent my entire 20’s moving from community to community, collaborating and touring with various theatre companies, circuses and bands as a performer / musician / director / facilitator / teacher. 

I have HUNDREDS of embodied memories of the power of creative community as a space for connection, self-expression, learning, unlearning, risk-taking, safety-making, dreaming, playing, expanding and belonging. 

In 2011, when I was in my early 30’s, to take my work deeper, I started training as a dramatherapist. After three years of joyfully challenging, relentlessly unfolding group process with 17 other people (Well, and a fuck-tonne of reading, essays, placements, therapy and supervision!) I came out with a Masters. I then began combining my dramatherapy skills with clowning, fooling, dance, meditation, voice work and creative play to offer countless therapeutic group workshops for adults from all walks of life. I continued developing that work right up until 2022, when I fell over.

I was a lone wolf for a long, long time. I reluctantly opened to support from a part-time administrator 10 years ago, but my deeply ingrained circus stamina and chronic self-sufficient disposition, encouraged me to do the lions’ share of the organising, producing and marketing myself, on top of creating numerous workshops and holding literally hundreds and hundreds of people through deep, transformational process. 

It was my absolute joy to create delicious temporary communities, where people got to experience the rare joy of playful / free expression within clearly stated and compassionately held boundaries. I loved supporting people to effort less, show up more and be accepted just as they are.

I became an expert at creating spaces of belonging.

But as the facilitator, I always found myself standing on the outside looking in.

I got my sense of belonging from holding everyone else.

And there was rarely any time or energy left over for me and my belonging, outside of work.

My year at The Barn gave me a totally new blue-print of what community and belonging could look like, with mindfulness and compassion at it’s core. We were a team of 7, running back-to-back 6-night retreats for 10-11 retreatants each week. Whatever was happening, we meditated together, three times a day. We had A LOT of meetings. We talked A LOT about our feelings. We were encouraged to bring our needs into the community, and if there was conflict (Conflict? In a Buddhist retreat centre? Of course there was conflict! We were a group of humans living together!), we negotiated it skilfully, receiving external support when we needed it. We got on with the work that needed to be done, mindfully. Together. 

Work that supports both Holly Stoppit AND Holly Stoddart?

When I left The Barn, I was nervous to start up my group workshops again, unsure about whether it would be possible to be both Holly Stoppit, the magical group leader who can hold it all, and Holly Stoddart, the one who could stay in contact with herself and her needs. So I decided to craft some new group workshops to try to make space for both Holly’s. 

In 2023, I created a new weekend workshop called Creative Clarity, bringing together body-based play with a creative peer support structure called the Clearness Committee. I felt like I was onto something, but I found the weekend format to be too short for the depth I wanted to offer. 

Then in 2024, I tried a series of three different Mindful Play Weekend Workshops (exploring Play, Flow and Connection). These were opportunities to revisit some of my earlier material in a new way. There was lots I liked about these workshops, but again, the weekend format felt too short for the depth I wanted to offer.

Then in 2025, when I moved back to Bristol, I resurrected two of my favourite pre-burnout workshops, my 5-day Fools Schooland The Well-Held Space; my three month Creative Facilitation training. These courses felt GREAT! Finally! Enough time and space to move at the pace of the nervous systems and slow everything down, to offer opportunities for co-regulation, before trying to get anyone to learn anything! I really enjoyed redeveloping both courses, integrating all the learning I’d accumulated through my year at The Barn and through my IFS training. The results were astounding; slowing things down and offering more space brings even more depth and delight! 

This Year...

This year, I decided to run both those trainings again, in fact, I decided to run Fools School three more times, AND to develop a new advanced Fooling + Somatic IFS lab for returning students, AND THEN, I thought I’d create a new weekend workshop called Play, Presence and Parts to offer people an access point to my longer, deeper workshops, AND THEN, I thought, to help more people access that workshop, I would tour it around the country, oh AND THEN, I thought, “Conferences are a good way of connecting with people, why not contribute at five different conferences all over the UK and Denmark and online?”, AND SOMEHOW, I was also continuing to offer my regular one-to-ones…

Well, I know how! I was working 6 or 7 days a week! To keep up with all the admin, planning, logistics, marketing and blog writing, I would often work up until 10pm at night. I wasn’t seeing my friends, I wasn’t getting out to do fun things, I wasn’t resting, I wasn’t playing. I was working. All the time. Just like in the olden days.

Can you guess what happened next?

Yep, you guessed it, I fell over! Again!

I’ve been reflecting…

With the support of my therapist, my supervisor, my coach, my friends and my journal, I’ve been doing some deep diving around why these old patterns of overwork and burnout have been resurfacing this year. I’ve been gently looking at what’s beneath all this frantic action and paradoxical isolation. 

Let’s have a peek at what’s been going on beneath the surface…

Well, firstly, there’s the genuine love I have for my work and all the love that gets expressed through it. (Why wouldn’t I want to do more of that?)

Then there’s my little battered heart that got rejected last autumn by a lovely person who thought my heart was FAR TOO MUCH for them! (They didn’t want me, but I will always belong to my work! Maybe if I just work all the time, I’ll never get hurt again!)

Then there’s the deeper grief of having lost four babies back in the pre-big-burnout days, and the continuous grief of letting go of the dream of becoming a mother / being part of a family. (My work gives me loads of opportunities to channel my maternal / family energy, why not just work more?)

Then there’s me rapidly approaching 50 and the subsequent surge of desperately wanting to figure out how to give all my gifts away before I die! (Turns out being childless can make this one more extreme! Who knew?)

Then there’s the classic, age-old desire to find meaning and purpose in a crazy, confusing world full of suffering. (Like all of us, then!)

Then of course there’s the bright, resilient circus kid, who found connection and belonging through working as hard as she possibly could. (I love her dearly, but crikey, does she have a lot of sway over my decision-making!)

Quite the cocktail! It’s no wonder I fell off the overwork wagon again!

A moment of embodied clarity in Denmark

Back in May, at a constellations workshop at a play conference in Denmark, I had a profound insight.

I was taking part in a constellation, stepping into someone else's story about love and responsibility. I’d been cast as one of two siblings and we’d been arguing about which of us was the “older one,” when somebody came and stood behind me, placing their hands gently on my shoulders.

I burst into tears.

My shoulders dropped.

My heart softened.

With those kind hands resting on my shoulders, my body experienced something it had been longing for, for years: Support.

The message came through loud and clear: When I am supported, I don't have to earn my place in the world by holding everyone else!

When I am supported, that little resilient circus kid can relax and space opens up!

It’s time to make some changes!

It’s clear that I can’t keep making work the centre of my existence. No matter how much work I do, I’ll never be fully nourished by it. My best friend once said to me; “Who’s going to sit at your death bed and hold your hand? Not your work!” and she’s right. I need to create more space for Holly outside of work. Holly Stoddart needs space to breathe, to dance, to play, to sing, to walk in nature and to connect with her friends… and maybe even to go on some dates with people who might actually like how big her heart is! My work needs to support all that.

So I’ve made some radical choices. 

Radical choice #1: I’m pausing the one-to-ones

I’ve decided to pause my online one-to-ones for a term, to give myself my mid-week days back. This has not been an easy decision! Some of my one-to-one clients have been with me for three years! They have trusted me to hold space for their explorations of themselves, their identity, their creativity, their work, their relationships, their hopes and dreams, their blocks and fears. It’s been an absolute delight and a privilege and I really care about them all. But Holly Stoddart needs that time and energy back. 

The one-to-ones may come back in a different way in the future - which is why I’m saying, “pausing” and not “stopping.” 

Radical choice #2: I’m putting my prices up

I am raising the prices of my group workshops. I have always been passionate about access and inclusion and have always tried to keep my doors open to people who might not be able to access the sorts of things I offer elsewhere. I want to be in rooms full of people of different ages, socio-economic backgrounds, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, abilities and experience tells me the work really benefits from diversity - it not only enriches the work, but people get to connect with others who are different from them through the safety of play, and as a result, compassion increases and love prevails! But what I’m realising is, I’ve been subsidising access out of my own pocket! That's no longer sustainable.

Back in the pre-Barn days, I was stuck in a pattern of overwork and burnout for years, and I feel the old habits creeping back in. I want time in my life to rest and play, I want time to write my book, I want time to dream of a bigger and more sustainable future and I want more administrative support and maybe even a producer to help me implement the plans. It’s time to change my life and putting my prices up is the first step. 

I am sorry to everyone who this decision will exclude. I will always offer a sliding scale with one or two supported spaces available for each course. If this is still out of your reach, get in touch and we’ll see what we can do. I will always look for opportunities to offer cheaper stuff / freebies where I can. There is a huge library of free resources here on my blog and a load of free mini-workshops on youtube. I would love to do some funded projects at some stage - but I need to find time to write those funding applications! (Any help gratefully received!)

Radical choice #3: I’m piloting a new online community group for Fools

This autumn, I’m going to pilot a new online community group. The Fools’ Circle will be a monthly online gathering space on Zoom for anyone who has completed my 5-day Fools School. These two-hour sessions will comprise of a little bit of creative / embodied / exploratory Holly-led stuff, followed by structured peer support / play in breakout rooms. We’ll meet back in the main room to harvest the insights from the session.

I want to empower people to hold space for each other in sustainable ways. 

I want that to be sustainable for me too. 

This feels like it might be the beginning of The Future!

Thank you

Thank you to everyone who has helped me make my work what it is.

Thank you to everyone who has trusted me with their stories, their vulnerability and their wildness. 

Thank you to everyone who has reminded me that this work matters. 

Here's to creating communities where everybody’s needs matter.

Even the facilitator's.

Big love,

Holly x