Trepidation

Well, I was wary about blogging when I changed jobs and I was right to...
I have now learnt that my honesty and candid accounts of my depression have come back to bite me.

I am very, very sorry about what has happened and I am very sorry that it will mean that I no longer blog for the foreseeable future. I now regret disclosing where I worked on Social Media and I think that is a VERY important lesson for anyone to learn.
I have reflected much and for now will be maintaining  silence on my blog. I will interact on social media but I won't be disclosing my own inner issues.
Please share this with others, it has been a very hurtful experience.....

Discoveries

Well the findings were really interesting and demonstrated that people did a lot of work before, during and after their clinic visits. Their lives were about attempting to fit their condition into their lives but each time they went to the clinic or had an appointment with a health care professional they were reminded that their condition was more in the foreground. Weeks of anxiety and uncertainty became their companion leading up to their appointment, concerns about parking, time away from work, who they might see, results that might show complications developing or poor control that might lead to displeasure and a sense of failure.

I found these experiences very sobering and wondered what to do with them given how much time and effort was being put into making people comply and attend the clinic. None of the messages in the “how to” manuals of care for HCPs encouraged them to consider what was happening for people coming to the clinic. It was all about getting patients to understand more about their condition and be more like professionals.

It deeply bothered me and as I had moved from practice here was very little I could do myself to bridge the gulf between what ought to be happening in practice and what might help people coming to the clinic. For the second stage of the research I interviewed health care professionals and this made me realise that very few of them saw the patients’ perspective as critical to getting the experience right for people.

I guess this sense of powerlessness and lack of purpose was the main reason I didn’t progress my PhD, I found it very difficult to motivate myself to write it up and also I didn’t seem to have a receptive audience for the message ... it wasn’t really compatible with the received wisdom of the time and I couldn’t find any practitioners willing to work with me to help make a difference in practice.

The long lasting impact of this is something I will explore further but for the moment I want to reflect on the lack of interest from practitioners and that 10 years later medicine comes forward with a plan.. it has made me think...

http://www.yearofcare.co.uk/

So why do the research

So what motivated me to undertake my research? The answer to that lies in my experience as a specialist nurse and a long standing ambivalence with the out patients clinic. In my first post I used to use quite a number of delaying tactics in relation to getting to the clinic. I used to find home visits and liaison meetings to book in before I would get to the clinic. It took me a couple of years to get out of a navy uniform as well and the staff at the clinic disliked me and my status. I wasn’t there to help them out with the processing of patients and I would sit out in the waiting area and chat to the patients while they waited for their name to be called. I did not want to sit behind a desk in one of the consulting rooms like the doctors although that was what was expected.

The extent of their dislike for my approach materialised when a patient complained about me and they were able to ventilate to my manager about how disruptive I was in the clinic and how this was not very helpful and a hindrance to their work. Back then I was just very hurt by their response but with the wisdom of 20 years of reflection I now realise what they were trying to protect. Their complaints weren’t about supporting the lady who had complained about me but all about looking after themselves and closing ranks. The lady complained about me because she thought I should have given her special attention at the clinic, for very complicated reasons she had expected me to act very differently.

It was not my greatest moment but I know I didn’t do anything wrong, what I had done was maybe not give her extra special time in the clinic and maybe I should have acknowledged that. I am not sure it would have made any difference but what it did teach me was that I couldn’t fit in to a model of care that expected us all to 'behave' ourselves when at the clinic. There were many unwritten rules about behaviour in the clinic and I had cleanly transgressed many times.

So my research was about understanding people’s experience of the clinic, why did they come, what did they think about before, during and after their appointments. I disliked going to the clinic and felt that there must be better ways of providing advice and support to people.

So I decided to interview people three times over a period of 18 months,

Each time I visited participants for an interview I asked them to tell me their story about their recent experiences of health care and health care professionals.

I always felt that there must be a better way of delivering care for people, instead of the clinic and the model replicated in general practice...



Layers

Start with now

I’ve been thinking a lot about not getting my PhD – think it is because it is 10 years since that dreadful day when my supervisors decided for me that they should put me out of my misery.

The parting advice was to get a PhD via publication, that was it, a severance with no proper ending; not even a suggestion of a MPhil as a consolation.

So I have decided to share my findings on this blog, and then that may start a discussion and help me move forward.

It was an awful time, a real loss and now that I know about proper grief (my Mum) then it was very similar to that. It was harsh, unthinking and I have explored the motives for many years.

There is a deep ambivalence in the nursing profession to clever nurses, we still see in the media today and I experienced it (somewhat paradoxically) in Higher Education. Nurses need to be kept in the place and this is usually instigated by more powerful, high ranking managers who haven’t got the wit or wisdom to go on an intellectual journey themselves.
So I guess it’s important to keep the numbers down and prevent too much influence from thinking, articulate nurses. It can make people feel very uncomfortable and there seems to be a ambition to keep that club very exclusive.

There seems to be a distinct lack of generosity, integrity, authenticity, a wish to see others flourish, a well of skills and knowledge that they share and enable others to reach their potential. I wasn’t in contact with that, at all, probably why I needed to leave my job.

Now I am back in practice I am in a position where I sprinkle generosity, integrity, authenticity and the notion of flourishing rather liberally. It is an approach that many are unaccustomed to and it can make feel people feel very wary. However I know I am uncomfortable if I do things any other way – so I am sticking to my position.

I am hoping that I can develop robust and meaningful links with like minded folk that will help guide me on this journey and I trust that they share those values. I am sure they do, they’ve been talking about and practicing them for a long enough – I think I can trust them and may even dip my toe in the academic water again and consider linking with them in ways of spreading my knowledge.

http://criticalcreativity.org/

 

Looking back, thinking forward

I have realised this week that teaching leadership and service improvement is much much easier than actually doing it. I don’t miss anything from my previous role, not the marking, not the politics but going back to practice is really tricky and knowing how to manage oneself in the milieu of care delivery is really complex and complicated. I am not sure I have got anything right yet but the key things I want to share are about what I have learnt about myself.

If I share that then I won’t be breaching confidentiality etc

I am not sure I had any idea about what it would be like not being an academic anymore. The main thing was the release of the enduring imposter phenomenon. I never felt like a “proper” academic without the PhD. The termination of that Doctorate was the single most damaging experience and one I now have felt recovered from after leaving my former role.  There is much more to explore around these issues and intend to do it through writing poetry and exploring the themes that emerge (http://www.lcoastpress.com/book.php?id=284).

 I will begin to share the poems and thinking on this blog so I develop a routine that, I hope, helps me work my way through my murky thoughts.

If I don’t start exploring these issues in a disciplined and organised way then they will fester in my subconscious and will emerge as frustration and irritation. I am now in a position where i have to be mindful of myself in many ways and pay attention to the notion of “Resonant Leadership” (http://wendyjocum.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/EI-article-3.1.4-Primal-Leadership-Realising-the-Power-of-EI.pdf ).

Important stuff, enough for now...it’s a start

 

 

Return

I have been away a long time from this blog and a great deal has happened since last March. Too much to share in public at the time and much reflection has taken place to identify what I can and can not share to preserve confidentiality etc.
I have promised Sheree Mack I will write a piece for the "Time to change" campaign so this is my launch pad.
I will share tomorrow

Group poems

These poems were written in response to images on Evoke Cards

Wonderful stuff - if you want to know about the process that leads to this see previous blog on writing workshop...

Our little world

 

It's a hard life.

Escapism.

 

Some of us more

fortunate than others.

Anticipation

            Freedom

Travel, 

to your own paradise

full of colour – rainbow

 

Tranquillity, lilacs,

freshness. 

He always brought me fuchsias,

a riot of colour.

Transformation.

 

 

Time for change

 

Despondent,

 

left on the shelf, again.

 

Sadness.

it was my turn for a cuddle.

 

Which path to take?

 

Choices.

 

Up,up and away.

Flutter in the breeze,

flying high -                         

                                    anew.

Mapping a journey

Today saw my second writing workshop at the Lit and Phil. Today we explored experiences of health care and illness. We read some poetry and then drew maps
Below is mine - it represents some of the experience we had as a family nearly 14 years ago when Mum was taken seriously ill and ended up near death in ITU for many, many days.

 It is a subject I have wanted to explore in my writing but have not found a way in and I had a hunch that map drawing might be helpful - getting beyond words to start with...
At the end of the workshop we all wrote some short poems - cinquains mostly
Here is mine

News

Waiting
we are waiting
 signs, symptoms, ignoring

husband, four children, grandchildren
waiting

Making poetry : sharing learning 2

For the last 6 and half years I have been very fortunate to be the poet-in-residence at a local Hospice.  The wonderfully generous staff and volunteers have allowed me to hone my poetry facilitation skills over the years and together we have written over 20 poems.

This has been a very rewarding activity and everyone in the room contributes to a group poem. This has been a unique experience and many people have commented on how much they enjoy the process and surprise themselves with their language skills and creativity.

As this project has developed I have shared this process with a number of people and have become more confident with the contexts in which this approach to making poetry can be utilised.

With that in mind the team invited me to do “your stuff with words” as a finale to their new 6 week community based rehabilitation project. I agreed to this but went to the first session with some trepidation, mindful of the fact that the group had been together for 6 weeks and that I would be an interloper coming along to ask them to use words to explore their experiences of the group. I needn’t have been so worried; the staff are so good at including folk in their sessions that they made sure  I joined in with the exercises and immediately felt calmer about what I would do.

Listening to participants over a cup of tea it became clear that they had bonded as a group and that this was an important component of the sessions. Picking up on this I decided to use Evoke Cards to explore words that capture what they have appreciated about the programme. As this developed we realised that a poem needed to be the outcome. Below is an image of the  Evoke cards arranged by participants into a poem.

 

Today I have been back to meet the second group and this time I used both the Evoke cards and the Fink Cards that I have recently purchased. All participants enjoyed choosing words and then each took a turn to share why they chose the words. This was a moving session where both the programme participants and the staff would share what they valued about the group, each other and the processes they had been experiencing. After the sharing it was agreed that a poem ought to be made!! Below are a couple of images of the cards arranged into a poem.

I wanted to share this as it was such an affirming and affecting experience – I always say to myself at the beginning of each session to “trust the process” and this was very true today. So much learning but for the moment I just wanted to share the experience rather than intellectualise and analyse it.

 

 

 

 

Sharing Learning 1

Reflections on a writing workshop

On Saturday 1^st February I facilitated a writing workshop focussing on writing in the Hospice setting. I drew on my experience of running poetry groups in Hospices over the last six years to inform my exercises and discussions

Here is an overview of what I did and a bit of my reflections on the day.

Exercise 1

Choosing words :- participants were offered the opportunity to chose words from either cards, magnetic words or small wooden blocks. The instruction was to chose some words and then write something from them, either using them all or using them to develop ideas etc.

Cards used were Evoke Cards http://www.evokecards.com/ 

This exercise has developed following success with using words from poems or just collected as words that are worth playing with. The blocks were prepared as patients found the small magnetic letters and thin card a bit fiddly and the chunky blocks are nice to hold and have a word on 2 sides. The idea of using the blocks came from Carol Ross http://trioross.wordpress.com/2013/06/08/writers-blocks/

This exercise was enjoyed by all and feedback included the observation that the exercise provided the opportunity to think too much about the words and also the chance to play with words and explore where that might end up

 

Exercise 2

This was a group poem – here participants were encouraged to contribute words and phrases and these were collected onto some sheets of flip chart. This exercise helps identify the focus of the poem and begins a process of listening and negotiating. Everyone will have a word or phrase included and then decisions need to be made about writing poetry lines, length of stanza etc.

It was interesting to note how people used to writing (writers) found this much more difficult than patients at the Hospice. This exercise works really well with people who are not feeling very well – they don’t have to write anything but they can still contribute to the finished piece. For this exercise I used paint charts from a well known DiY retailer to harvest words (paint names etc). It was quite a lively activity and consensus was eventually reached!

Exercise 3

Scribing – each participant was invited to choose a picture of a person. They were then asked to start describing the person in the picture and start telling a story. The person listening was to take notes and ask questions about how the person telling the story wanted it presented.

This exercise requires the listener to really pay attention to what the person is saying and not try to put words into their mouth, analyse what is being said or interpret. I often use the phrase “say what you see” as a way of helping the person being listened to to not feel inhibited by literary convention etc.

This exercise is really good for people who are not feeling very well and may not have the energy to write for themselves. The picture chosen can enable the person to let their imagination fly and develop a poem or short story that demonstrates their creative ability. It can also be part of life writing and reminiscence but that does not have to be the intention but if does evoke this then it is important that this is followed up outside the session to ensure adequate attention is given to the story that needs to be told.  

 

My writing process – the blog tour.

So I have taken the baton from my lovely friend Kate Evans – the idea is to answer the same questions. Kate’s blog can be found here http://writingourselveswell.co.uk/blog/

What am I working on?

Good question as I am putting lots of feelers out at the moment but not just about writing – it may be career change time.
I am running a series of workshops about writing and health care at  the Lit and Phil in Newcastle and so spend a lot of time thinking about exercises and reading work by poets and writers about experiences of health care. It is a great excuse to immerse myself in this topic. The first workshop was on the 8^th February and was very enjoyable and some great work was produced by participants.

I find myself writing poetry at odd moments (usually in meetings) but I am also collaborating with a colleague to write a paper about writing workshops in Hospice care to encourage others to give it a go.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

For many years I have not thought my work was any different. After a period of self-doubt I now am beginning to own the idea of my nursing and education background being important in terms of how I might write about the experience of healthcare, either in poetry or in creative non-fiction.
Having had a stuttering start with poetry - my first year of MA was less than encouraging and that feedback lingers..
I am now determined to believe more in my project of making more visible the work of nursing and the experience of health care from the patient’s perspective. It is easy to think that it has all been told before but the more I read about people’s experience the more I am convinced that we must not take our eye of the ball.

Why do I write what I do?

I haven’t always been a writer and in fact for most of my life I didn’t even really think about it. It was in 2004 when I met Julia Darling at a writing workshop for “tired academics” it was there that I first discovered the joy of creative writing and found myself writing poetry and script. Since then I have been on a bit of mission. Running headlong into doing the MA Creative Writing thinking I needed a qualification to give me legitimacy. That was a hard lesson as I wish I had waited a while but I am still learning and love discovering new writers.

However I am even more committed to enabling others to find their writing voice, patients, carers and practitioners. It is such a powerful vehicle for self-discovery and also support and nourishment. In the last few months I have stopped thinking that this is a soft option in healthcare and one I have to justify. It is in fact an essential resource that should be available to all. It won’t suit everyone but it should at least be offered.

How does my writing process work?

Intermittently is my honest answer, the lighter mornings help me write first thing but I find discipline a bit tricky. I get bored in meetings and find myself writing poetry then, I listen to radio 4 and I find I get ideas and inspiration from stories on You and Yours etc. There is no real pattern to my writing process but I do find myself finding time for it now and know it is very important to my well-being to find time to write.

I am handing on the baton to Sheree Mack who I met 9 years ago at a Writing and Health course at Newcastle University and a wonderful person who I admire greatly. Sheree first encouraged me to read my poems in public and has been a constant source of encouragement (and occasional nagging since). Sheree’s current blog can be found here http://adriftinthewilderness.blogspot.co.uk/

I am also offering the baton to my friend Eleanor who is a GP and writer – I met Eleanor at one of Sheree’s writing workshops at the Lit and Phil so I feel it right to offer the baton to them both. Eleanor’s blog can be found here. http://chekhovwasadoctor.wordpress.com/

 

Spring

Bought my first bunches of daffodils. A sure sign of Spring and one very important to me. I have been buying Daffs in February for a long time. Here's a poem I wrote a couple of years ago that involved a journey back to my first lot of nights at Old Addenbrooke's....

First Spring in Cambridge

 

Your compulsion to have dozens of daffodils

on the mantelpiece, a puzzle – when they only last

a week. You wonder why have them inside

when there are so many outside

along the Backs, along the Cam,

the reason why you came here.

 

On your third ward – night duty – alone.

Distracted by sighs, murmurs and moans

You try to be vigilant but struggle to stay awake.

Hope not to get caught out by night sister.

 

April being the cruel month,

you long for the drizzle to cease.

Your first birthday away from parents and siblings

no presents, few cards, just another shift

and then the weekend off to visit what was home.

Getting back

It's been a while since I wrote a blog. I haven't been here because I haven't had the energy to write it and I haven't been sure what I wanted to write about.
Looking back at my last post I can see the signs I had been ignoring for  quite a while; I was very depressed and quite unwell.
On 25th November I went to the GP - a locum "rolled with my resistance" about taking medication and challenged me. I was there for a reason - if it wasn't medication - what was it? Good question - I took the prescription and have slowly began to feel so much better. I now realise that I had got used to feeling rubbish for a very long time.

I didn't want to admit to myself that I was depressed/anxious, it isn't the sort of thing that is easy to share with anyone. First their is the stigma but for me the overwhelming feeling was that of a sense of failure. As a proponent of writing for well-being I thought I could look after myself - but I really wasn't doing very well.

Now life is not such a struggle I have found I quite like people I work with and am not fighting with myself and others.
I don't expect it to all be sorted over night but I just thought I would share where I have been. It is difficult to share mental health difficulties - if I had developed a chest infection I may have been a bit reluctant to take antibiotics but I bet you I wouldn't have put it off for quite so long.
I hope that I have learnt a lot from this and I hope to share this where and when appropriate.
I also realise how good the blog is for helping me order my thoughts. That's the mission I am on to encourage people to think about this and read and write poetry.
Now I can concentrate and read books again I can look forward to the year ahead instead of dread.

Stories that need telling

I bought "The Other Side" by Kate Granger (http://theothersidestory.co.uk/)  last week and read it in two gulps. It is a compelling read and it made me reflect on why I found it so gripping.  I think it is such a visceral and honest account of the patient experience that it is like you are there beside Kate. I felt moved to tears on quite a few occasions and also shouted to myself about the issues that resonated in other areas of health care. Cancer is the hook – life limiting and perilous – the treatment debilitating and the trajectory so uncertain. Knowing the ending and Kate’s current dilemma made it even more of an emotional roller coaster. My main thought was whether other life limiting illnesses create equally compelling narratives and whether the public and health care professionals would be as interested in an account of diabetes clinic visits, trips to neurology for a differential diagnosis of vague and diffuse symptoms. I am so grateful (if that sounds patronising then it is not meant to be) for Kate Granger for being so clear minded that she wrote her story during sleepless nights and had the courage to put it out in the public domain. I have been interested in the stories behind people’s experiences of disease and its treatment for over 20 years. That's quite a scary statement - as I realised the other day that it is 20 years since I started my MSc in Health Research - the beginning of my research interests and my resulting love/hate relationship with all things scholarly...

My career as a diabetes specialist nurse (DSN) didn’t last very long but it was, I hope, person-centred. I didn’t last as a DSN because I got frustrated by the profession centred approach and the focus on clinical measurements and the organisation of the clinic rather than a focus on what mattered for the person with diabetes. I used to get very irritated with the powerful decision makers in diabetes care. I started my PhD research in response to my disquiet about what was going on and wanted to find out what people talked about when they were given an opportunity to “tell their story”. Each interview started  like a stopper had been taken off a bottle of fizzy drink – they gushed forth with the beginning of their life with diabetes(diagnosis), the trials and tribulations ( follow up clinics and annual reviews) and then the current experience. I didn’t have to ask much or prompt– the stories just kept on coming – back in 1999 after I had these stories as my data I couldn’t find a way of keeping the experiences whole.

Narrative research in nursing was very new and even service user views were still quite novel and no one seemed able to help me find a way of presenting my findings in a way that  honoured the diversity and complexity of each person’s life with diabetes and their encounters with health care professionals. The frustration of hospital parking, the irritation of inconsistent staffing at clinics, the anxiety of retinal screening, the ongoing exasperation of a total oversight of the emotional and psychological aspects of managing a life changing, demanding and intrusive condition. All the people I interviewed thanked me for letting them tell their story – a fact that still makes me feel guilty that I didn’t get my PhD. Maybe this blog can help with that as more people will read this than would have read any thesis I might have produced.

I guess my thoughts are that many people experiencing ongoing and demanding health care deserve to have their stories heard and that is one of my areas of learning since I joined Twitter. I follow quite a few people with diabetes (mostly type 1) and a lot of what I read makes me very cross as it seems like a lot of what I learned during my research by listening to people with diabetes has yet to filter into diabetes care in any obvious way.

It happens a lot in my writing workshops – patients and practitioners have a different conversation – not disease or symptom focussed but person and life focussed… this has to be the better way of informing care needs. How can we make that happen??

Below is one of the poems I wrote in response to the stories people told me – this was the beginning of my need to write poetry. There are a quite few of these I might put them here for you to read..

 

Beginnings

Rapid onset

Gradual change

Everyone is different
No two are the same

Playing in the woods

Sitting in the car

Unexpected symptoms

A slight change in the view

Going in for something else

Didn’t know I had it

Had an itch that wouldn’t go away

Doctor said it was my age

didn't know that was part of the deal!

Thought I was thirsty, peeing a lot

Thought it was my age

Didn't bargain for this!

 

 

River Walk

 Gorgeous walk along the river at Wylam... November Sundays can be OK!!

My Shadow Side - the courage to share

Last week I had the privilege to be part of a retreat around courage, compassion and choice at the Global Retreat Centre, Oxford (more details here) . I was invited to attend by Andy Bradley founder of  Frameworks4change via twitter.

I have been thinking a lot about my learning from the Retreat last week. I found it difficult and returned home feeling uncomfortable about my experience. It wasn’t what I had expected and I guess as a somewhat impatient and restless soul I thought it would be a call to action. I have been looking for that rallying call to be in my vicinity and give me the chance to step forward and answer the call. I have been looking for my heroic leader, the one I can follow and to whom I can align my mission. Looking back this has been a recurrent theme throughout my career and has been dogged by disappointment and disillusionment; people who I have looked up to have not been up to it and have failed to see my potential. I have been over looked and ignored. As a consequence of this I have been quite cross for a very long time. Upset and hurt I have been festering away with resentment.

I took this to Oxford last week and hoped to find that hero within the participants. I realised I was a bit desperate to find people who I could follow (be asked to join their mission) but that wasn’t the focus. The retreat was about stillness and listening. I did a very good job in resisting any learning at the retreat. I wanted to run away the first morning and I felt somewhat disturbed by the proximity of the Retreat to my childhood town, Reading. We were even on the bloody bus route that my dad often uses when he goes on one of his jaunts. I felt quite distracted by this to begin with but sat with the emotions and recognised that the loss of my Mum 7 years ago is still unfinished business and maybe I ought to be a little gentler on myself.

Once I leaned into the stillness and began listening I started to feel calmer and less anguished, I stopped being miffed that there would not be any rallying calls and that action would come later. I also started paying more attention to what I was hearing about myself and taking on board  what wonderful folk were telling me about the skills I might have to offer.

I am still processing a lot of the learning and still inpatient to get on with using listening and support in practice. I want practitioners in healthcare to know that some of us are looking out for them, I continue to be frustrated about the distance HE has from practice but I also have started to spend less time in my head, reduce the drain of thinking. I have started to believe in role modelling compassion and thoughtfulness.

 I still get grumpy and I can still see that my default setting is melancholy and anger but I am also enjoying the times when I am feeling brighter and also hearing the positive in my interactions with other people.

Twitter is a wonderful place for learning and sharing and over the last few days I have a number of conversations that have helped begin to provide a solid foundation for my thoughts and ideas.

Thanks to a session facilitated by Francis Briers I have come to know about U theory ( more details here) and have also begun to see my own blind spots. I have always been fixated about writing things up and getting them published. This has often culminated in nothing, nada, depression and low confidence. I have often bleated on about how much better I am verbally, how I can express myself well and also that I really quite like an audience!! Well how about doing some clips about some of ideas, thoughts and projects? Thanks Andy for the suggestion I will explore this and as my daughter is skilled in the use of information technology I will make sure it will happen. Seems a bit scary because it might be ridiculed and mocked but that is a risk I am happy to take to see if I can share my thoughts around supporting practitioners and the role of values and beliefs in their practice.

When I stop thinking too much and I allow myself to calm I find the poems come..

Switching The Mind

It is in the stillness

that we can listen.

It is only in this time

can we really hear.

Nurture stillness, silence,

connection, clarity.

Declutter.

It is only by stopping

can we start again.

Hope, courage, growth

peace, resistance.

It is only by persistence

 

can we share the way forward

Together stronger –  joy.

 

Sharing Stories Part II

How many of you out there wanted to write about your nursing journey?
Did you feel excited about the prospect of getting it down on paper and then sharing?
Did you think that sounds like a  good idea? Did you think I'll have a bit of that?

If you did then how far have you got? Have you worried about it being good enough?
Are you certain that you can't write and that no one will want to read your story anyway?
Well all these reactions how expected and predictable. What I would like to happen is to see hose stories arriving in my in box. Stories to read, edit, collate and curate....

Winter is not my most productive time but if I have a project I might find myself optimistic and energised..

Project Ready!!

Changing the Conversation

“There is something very healing about working on the jigsaw of a poem, even though the subject matter maybe upsetting. Understanding and working with the craft of poetry frees us form the emotional glare of a situation and lessens our fears.”

Julia Darling p. 12 The Poetry Cure

I’ve been thinking about how you can celebrate what you do, how you can recognise the value in what you are doing without showing off, without over claiming, without being accused of being a fraud. Writing this make me realise what stops me shouting from the roof tops about how I believe poetry can make a difference. If I make too much of these things then maybe someone might come along and blow my cover, show me up for not knowing a thing about what I am talking about, expose my emptiness. Reading an article in the GuardianOnline this week about poetry in health care made me realise that my frustration about the lack of recognition for the power of poetry is more about me than the poetry. I tend to think I am an imposter wherever I am, as a nurse, as an educator, as a writer, it hinders me and represses me; stops me being what I can be. It has been hanging about for a long time and mining it for its origins is a risky business. However I think if I am to take my message forward about the power of poetry then I have to leave it all behind.

I have been running poetry workshops in health related settings for a number of years now, I discovered the power of creative writing and well being in 2004 and for the last 7 years (since my Mum died) I have sought to offer that possibility in a number of places.
In hospices it has been revelatory, where it is possible to regularly underestimate the power of language and memory, that ordinary people can find extraordinary ways to express themselves in poetry, all they need is permission, a piece of flip chart, a scribe and a safe space to explore words. When I run our writing sessions all people in the room contribute to the making of the poetry, patients, volunteers and staff. If someone happens to walk through the room en route to the photocopier they must participate. It is about generosity and sharing, it is about giving people space to think and have a journey of discovery. It is a time to have the opportunity to rediscover childhood games, childhood spaces, local myths, and local landmarks. The agenda is set by the people present, in early times I went equipped with a plan, this often didn’t work and all my preparation often inhibited the flow of ideas. For the last few years I have simply been part of the conversation at the beginning of the session, listening and responding until I notice an issue or theme that might be worth excavating. It never ceases to surprise me how profound and insightful people can be, changing the conversation, paying attention adds something to the relationships between folk in the room. The academic in me wants to find out more about what is going on but I often find that inhibits my thinking, shrinks the view. Instead I will just carry on just doing what I do and wait for the analysis and evaluation to happen. These workshops have been a life changing experience for me and I increasingly find I want to offer the same type of space to all those I come into contact, a safe exploratory space rather than a formal, prescribed space.
Simply by writing this I find I have more confidence in this approach, poetry is one way of creating this space but I am sure it is not the only one. However I think that offering poetry into the space changes the tone of how we communicate. The compression of language, the attention to expression and evocation of emotion makes a difference. I now carry poetry with me into many spaces and mention poetry when I can, some folk might see me as an eccentric outsider but I hope I can cultivate more places where I can offer this way of learning – it is important and it can save your life!

You will love again the stranger who was your self 

 Derek Walcott from Love after Love

Writing and art

Yesterday was the first time I facilitated a health linked writing workshop outside the comfort zone of health care education - it was at the Lit and Phil in Newcastle.  I wanted to facilitate a writing workshop that responded to the art exhibited there at the moment by people affected by Parkinson’s disease. I have written about the exhibition before, Brain Box, as I find it deeply moving and feel it deserves a larger audience. That said we had the launch evening at the Lit and Phil and it was wonderfully warm and intimate evening. Some of us read poems and Jan Sopher (the artist behind the work and the curator) read a piece from Waterlogged by Roger Deakin.

Participants at yesterday’s workshop produced some wonderful work and we are hoping to collate the pieces into a little pamphlet that can be read alongside the pieces in the exhibition.

I wrote a poem for Thursday’s event and I felt a little daunted but I gave myself the task of writing about celebrity and illness. I found some information out about a famous photographer from the 1950’s who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and I wrote about her. It took a while to develop but I felt it needed attention before I was OK about it and the response on the evening was positive.

I acknowledge the source of the inspiration and hope that I attribute the source and have changed the tone by writing poetry in response to the prose.

Anyway here it is for others to read....

Embracing Parkinson's

She wanted to tell her story, reveal it

all on the page tell it all to “Life” magazine.

 

A photographer of renown she had captured

Roosevelt, Stalin, Gandhi, to name but a few.

 

Maggie the Indestructible,

seemingly always in the right

place at the right time.

 

 Then she became frozen not shaken.

Her fingers stiffened so she could no longer

press the shutter, focus her lens.

 

Going public with private issues -

a diagnosis and experimental  destruction

of cells in her thalamus by her god like surgeon

 

Her celebrity raised awareness

but unwise choices may have had

 

consequence.

 

She didn't accept the disease

She tried to squeeze it out,

eliminate it.

 

A message that extends

across half a century as another

 

famous name comes out with her lost voice

Telling the world she’s not taking the pills

until she's spinning on the spot.

 

Do we seek a wise role model?

or do we revel in a celebrated warrior?

 

Written in response to an article in The Atlantic by Barron H Lerner about Margaret Bourke-White

 

Poetry, compassion and nursing; some thoughts

This blog is a follow up to a tweet chat I was involved in a couple of weeks ago with  Wenurses

 

The subject under discussion was whether compassion could be taught. I thought I would just lurk but ended up having say and I included links to some poetry that I find helps “remind” us of our human connections. This then led to some questions about why poetry and compassion. I had an answer in 140 characters but I wanted to explore it a bit more here on the blog. It has taken me a couple of weeks to get round to it because I have been pondering on why it is so important to me.

Poetry came into my life in an unexpected and wonderful way back in 2004. Meeting a local writer (Julia Darling) at a workshop changed how I expressed myself and this was when I began to write poetry and found a whole new way of looking at the world. The best bits of advice on writing poetry is to be reading poetry so that you can find out what others are writing but also it is the best way through mimicry and discovering what you like to find your own voice when writing poetry. If you offer your poetry up to scrutiny of others, either in a workshop, or a course then the feedback might often be about how your poem might remind someone of someone else’s work. This particular adventure has been the most rewarding and surprising as I have discovered a rich seam of poetry from all around the world and from ancient times to the present.

So the question asked is why is poetry so special? What is it about poetry that makes you brave enough to get a classroom of students/practitioners to read a poem in the expectation that they might get to discuss hopes, fears and aspirations in their practice?

To me it became a gesture that I could not ignore. Reading great poems about health care experiences like those written by Julia Darling, UA Fanthorpe and Jo Shapcott provide a crystallisation of an experience, an authentic snapshot that can evoke an emotional response. This response is often spontaneous and unedited, the words used or the sense created in the work can bypass the practitioners usually carefully orchestrated responses to the emotional aspects of delivering care. Poetry can take you by surprise, make you cry, make you angry, just stops you in your tracks. I believe this is a fine way to encourage reflective and thoughtful practice. My belief is that good poetry always comes from a truth, an authentic and genuine event, thought or emotion. Those beginnings often end up in a finely crafted piece of poetry that does something special.

The poetry offered doesn’t have to be about concrete experiences. The poems I shared during the tweet chat were about “being human”. One of my favourite poems is by Rumi, a Persian poet from the 13^th Century. Here is a link to The Guest House, a poem that I come to every week and get something new from it, each time. Another poem I shared was by William Stafford that I discovered via the wonderful Roselle Angwin. … here is a link http://roselle-angwin.blogspot.co.uk/

The other poem I shared is by Elizabeth Bishop, a poet I had on the bookshelf but hadn’t really read until 2006. Bishop is one of the finest poets ever and I wish I had known about her before, but it is never too late to discover wonderful things and here is a link to the poem I shared on the tweet chat Sonnet 1928

 

 

I really believe poetry can make a difference in this world and I am becoming more passionate about that project. If you have poems you want to share then please comment or if you want me to come along and run a poetry workshop then I will!! Lets spread the word..

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