After 11 months of being planted in the idyllic, vibrant Devonshire countryside, nestled within a team of devoted and dedicated big-hearted Buddhists, running back-to-back meditation retreats, whilst learning to live with grief, I find myself spat out into the Big Wide World again.

This blog is an unexpected meander through the themes of effortless creativity and the power of not giving a shit. It starts with me exploring what is blocking my writing and goes off on a quest to seek wisdom from author Martin Shaw and artist Frida Kahlo. Between them, they manage to clear the block and make way for two stories about humans and animals falling in love. To end, we have a guest appearance from a bunch of unfurling baby ferns. Enjoy! Or don’t! I don’t give a shit! (I do, but I'm learning not to.)

This one goes out to all of us who try too hard, hold on too tight and stretch ourselves too thin. 

In this blog, I’ll be exploring how over-efforting causes suffering and pondering on why so many of us fall into this pattern. I’ll be exploring how over-efforting creates tension in the body, heart and mind and how that can influence our behaviour. I’ll shine a light on the tension that has been taking over my meditation practice and share some tasty theory and exercises for you to try, from a range of practitioners who have been teaching me how to effort less this year.

Hello dear reader, thanks for dropping by. This blog is a collection of musings on the theme of joy, a topic that’s very dear to my heart.

2022 has been a year of big change! I supported a couple of bus-loads of artists, facilitators and therapists, developed three new courses, finished my training as an arts therapies clinical supervisor and moved to the country to live and work at a meditation retreat centre!

Read on for an overview of my year.

Trigger Warning: grief, miscarriage

This blog explores how ritual, nature and creativity can support grief. It offers three grief rituals for you to try wherever you are.

In my last blog, Who Am I Without My Stories? I wrote about conducting an experiment here at the Devonshire meditation retreat where I now live and work. In 'The Non-Self Experiment', I tried to go a whole week without telling any of my stories to the retreatants. 

This blog charts my experiences through my second week of trying not to tell any of my stories. Come with me as I explore how I did it, what I learned and hold up a Brain Trumpet to listen to the parts of me who really want me to tell my stories, with added bonus inspiration from my friend Goetz, who is several hundred steps ahead of me in the exploration. 

It’s been nine weeks since Holly moved to The Barn retreat centre in Devon and this week she is doing a social experiment; this week, Holly has decided to not talk about her background AT ALL.

For one week only she is not Holly Stoppit the clown teacher / dramatherapist, she’s not the one who grew up in the circus, she’s not from Wales, Bristol or Milton Keynes, she’s not the 5th of 6 children, she’s not from Northern English and mysterious Jewish heritage, she’s not vegetarian, nor fond of cheese, dancing, wild swimming or walking up windy hills, she’s not a dyslexic writer, a newly qualified supervisor, a fool or a clown and she’s certainly not someone who is grieving lost babies.

She is just one of the coordinators, holly with a small h.

Today is the one year deathaversary of mine and Joe’s relationship. This time last year, I was sobbing on the carpet amongst the dust and debris that he left behind in our terraced house in Bristol.

Gosh darn - people aren’t lying when they go on about moving house being one of the most stressful things you can do (my tripadvisor review of moving house: “I’ve had more relaxing times at other times in my life.”)