This is the third part of a 3-part series of blogs, charting my journey through the Glitter Heart performance lab, lovingly held by Liz Clarke and Company and funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, summer 2025. 

This blog follows my progress through the second and final weekend of the Glitter Heart lab. It contains:

• A catch up of what happened since the last weekend

• Three important conversations that shaped my final piece

• Notes from a largely unwitnessed extended improvisation, exploring what happens when I drop the words and express grief through my body (I got stuck in an infinite loop of suffering)

• My descent into the Shame Hole - exploring what led up to this.

• Preparation and notes from my final performance - playing from the Shame Hole.

• Afterthoughts - thoughts on grief, shame, trauma, my parts and how they’ve tried to look after me over the years, healing through creativity.

• My takeaways from the whole project - what happened, what difference it made and what I’m going to take forward.

This is the second part of a 3-part series of blogs, charting my journey through the Glitter Heart performance lab, lovingly held by Liz Clarke and Company and funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, in summer 2025. 

This blog charts my progress through the first Glitter Heart weekend performance lab. Here’s what’s in the blog:

• A little musing about my journey since my last full-length theatre show in 2017 (a semi-improvised performance-lecture where I embodied many of my inner parts on stage)

• Notes from my first 10 minute solo improvisation at Glitter Heart, where I tried to bring my grief onto the stage.

• Notes from my hour-long improvisation at Glitter Heart, where I continued to explore my grief, with support from my inner cast and a small audience.

• My afterthoughts - the joy of playing, my inner protectors controlling the content, the audience love my critic.

• Some IFS theory - the importance of working at the pace of the protectors.

• A whole bunch of questions around putting grief on stage.

This is the first part of a 3-part series of blogs, charting my journey through the Glitter Heart performance lab, lovingly  held by Liz Clarke and Company and funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, in summer 2025. 

This blog focuses on our first two evening sessions; 1.) exploring our own performance practices, drawing on inspiration from the Live Art Archives and 2.) an investigation of our relationship with collaboration through discussion and play. 

On Wednesday 17th September 2025, I presented an online session for World Childless Week. 

The session was called Exploring Childlessness Through Creative Approaches To Internal Family Systems (IFS). 

I'm going to be presenting a free online IFS workshop at World Childless Week in September! 

I've been attending World Childless Week for the last couple of years and have found it to be a big support on my journey to coming to terms with being childless, not by choice. Listening to other childless people tell their stories has helped me feel less alone. 

This year, I wanted to join the conversation, offering some of the tools and techniques that have been helping me.

Last week, I got interviewed by Ana Maia Marques for her podcast, Movement Is My Constant, which she describes as, "A monthly podcast about the body, movement, and the impermanence of life." 

It was a lovely chat which flowed quite easily, thanks to Ana's insightful questions and deep listening. I was a bit taken aback by the depth of her research. She'd actually read my blogs! We covered a lot of ground in just less than an hour.

She named the episode:

Clowning, Fooling, and IFS: Embodied Tools for Neurodivergence, Trauma Healing, and Burnout Prevention — with Holly Stoppit

Announcing my autumn workshop programme! 

Whether you're looking to explore your inner voices through solo improvised performance (Fooling), learn about Internal Family Systems through play (Playful Embodied Creative Approaches to IFS), train as a creative facilitator (The Well-Held Space), or get some one-to-one support, I’ve got something for you this autumn!

I've been teaching my 5-day Fools School for 10 years! It's such an immersive course that I rarely remember to take any pictures, let alone any video! But last month, when I ran the course in Sheffield, I had the unique opportunity of having not one, but two glamorous assistants in the room!

As well as supporting the group, my assistants, Charlie Hammond and Saskia Solomons, took it in turns to document the process, with the generous permission of the participants. 

On the 5th and 6th of April 2025, 52 clowns took over Bristol University’s drama department to explore The Future Of Clowning In Turbulent Times.

...This blog offers a flavour of what took place at Clown Congress 2025. Watch the video and read on for a bit of context, a roll call of who was there, photos and descriptions of what happened and a brand new poem from Skye Lilly!

Greetings friends!

I’ve just got back from Portugal, where I was studying Somatic Internal Family Systems (SIFS) with Susan McConnell.  

Here's a video I made in the Portuguese sunshine, chatting about what I was experiencing and how it might make it's way into my summer schools this July and August..