As many of us have watched on as the war in Ukraine has unfolded, my guests today stepped forward, travelling to Poland to bring tools of trauma relief, resilience, and stabilisation to aid workers, communities, and refugees in a small town called Slupsk through using EFT. 

EFT practitioners Aga Kehinde, who is originally from that town and  and Jessica Mór, who until February 2022 had been living in Ukraine due to her spouse’s work, join me today to talk about their experience of co-creating  ‘Support for Slupsk’ 

The project has now delivered training to more than 800 people working for the services of the town of Slupsk, Poland who are coming into direct contact with the Ukrainian refugee population. The training has involved participants learning tapping and somatic trauma relief tools, the neurobiology of how they work, and the confidence and skills to use and share this knowledge and tools as they move through this challenging time.

Aga's experience of having worked in the NHS gave her an ideal insight into what was needed to support those who were supporting the refugees and Jess's experience of living in Ukraine was invaluable in helping them strategise where they gave help and how. 

Mentioned in this podcast:
Thought field therapy
Dr. Feinstein's papers on using EFT in natural disasters.
Peaceful heart network organisation
ACEP
Lori Leyden

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Listener support: I love making The Therapeutic Poet podcast, but it does cost time and money. If you have enjoyed it, been informed by it or found it helpful then I would greatly appreciate your financial support. You can do this by:

Taking a paid subscription on my Substack - a weekly newsletter helping people have 'Permission to feel'. You'll receive tips on how to navigate our human tricky things, recorded poems and other goodies.

Buying my book ‘Stop the world I want to get off’

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Childhood trauma can have a devastating long term impact on a person, having a detrimental effect on their mental and physical wellbeing. Evidence suggests that ACEs (adverse childhood experiences) are a major factor in criminal behaviour and addiction.

Sharon Osterfield and Aga Kehinde have created The Arukah Project to raise awareness of trauma associated with adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and toxic stress and how it impacts the lives of those who are in contact with the Justice System. 

In this episode Aga and Sharon talk about how the project came about, why they are so passionate about it and what you can do to help.

They mention the ACE study and The Compassion Prison Project.

Photo of Aga courtesy of The Synthesis Clinic

Click here to go to my Substack page.

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Click here to buy my a coffee and show your support

Listener support: I love making The Therapeutic Poet podcast, but it does cost time and money. If you have enjoyed it, been informed by it or found it helpful then I would greatly appreciate your financial support. You can do this by:

Taking a paid subscription on my Substack - a weekly newsletter helping people have 'Permission to feel'. You'll receive tips on how to navigate our human tricky things, recorded poems and other goodies.

Buying my book ‘Stop the world I want to get off’

Or buy me a coffee 🤗.

In this episode we chat about what sustainable fashion is; how to get off the trend treadmill; Sophia's experiment in which she is not buying any new or preloved clothes (except for vital undies and socks!) and how 'sober dressing' can be creative, empowering and fun. 

Sophia's mission is to help you restyle and rework your wardrobe using what you already have. She makes up "new to you" outfits from clothes that you may have forgotten about, discarded, or loved... but never been sure what to put it with. She creates outfits that are true to your sense of style and the woman you want to show up as in the world.

Sophia has't bought anything new from a shop in 5 years, favouring pre-loved clothes instead. She's now taking this a step further...


You can find out more about Sophia at https://www.finetunedwardrobe.com/

Click here to go to my Substack page.

Click here to buy my book

Click here to buy my a coffee and show your support

Listener support: I love making The Therapeutic Poet podcast, but it does cost time and money. If you have enjoyed it, been informed by it or found it helpful then I would greatly appreciate your financial support. You can do this by:

Taking a paid subscription on my Substack - a weekly newsletter helping people have 'Permission to feel'. You'll receive tips on how to navigate our human tricky things, recorded poems and other goodies.

Buying my book ‘Stop the world I want to get off’

Or buy me a coffee 🤗.

This podcast episode started off about divorce, speaking to Samantha about her own experience about divorce and her reasons for setting up the award winning podcast The Divorce Social. That's how it began... but Samantha is also an author and activist championing the deaf community and as someone who is a fellow hearing aid wearer, I was keen to mine her experience and knowledge; all of which is in her most recent book Living with Hearing Loss and Deafness. Samantha also mentioned the RNID and Signature as helpful resource for hearing loss and deafness. You can find out more about Samantha at www.samanthabaines.com. The link to buy her new book is here

Samantha's bio:
Samantha Baines is a multi award-winning author, actress and broadcaster. She hosts the smash hit podcast The Divorce Social and as a hearing aid wearer herself, she is the author of critically acclaimed children's books with deaf main characters. You may recognise her from appearances on ITV's Loose Women, Sky News and Andrew Neil's This Week or acting roles in Netflix’s The Crown, Call the Midwife, Silent Witness and Magic Mike Live (directed by Channing Tatum). She is a regular on BBC radio stations.

Click here to go to my Substack page.

Click here to buy my book

Click here to buy my a coffee and show your support

Listener support: I love making The Therapeutic Poet podcast, but it does cost time and money. If you have enjoyed it, been informed by it or found it helpful then I would greatly appreciate your financial support. You can do this by:

Taking a paid subscription on my Substack - a weekly newsletter helping people have 'Permission to feel'. You'll receive tips on how to navigate our human tricky things, recorded poems and other goodies.

Buying my book ‘Stop the world I want to get off’

Or buy me a coffee 🤗.

Michael grew up with an alcoholic, drug addicted mother who cut Michael’s finger off at 4 years old and an abusive stepfather. This lead him to living with 30 separate families before he was a teenager. There is much more to his story, so let’s welcome him to share some of that and also to create hope and inspiration with sharing how he moved through such severe intergenerational trauma and adverse childhood experiences to be the inspirational coach he is today; from trauma to triumph. As he says, ‘The trauma may be our foundation, but it is not our future.’

Click here to go to my Substack page.

Click here to buy my book

Click here to buy my a coffee and show your support

Listener support: I love making The Therapeutic Poet podcast, but it does cost time and money. If you have enjoyed it, been informed by it or found it helpful then I would greatly appreciate your financial support. You can do this by:

Taking a paid subscription on my Substack - a weekly newsletter helping people have 'Permission to feel'. You'll receive tips on how to navigate our human tricky things, recorded poems and other goodies.

Buying my book ‘Stop the world I want to get off’

Or buy me a coffee 🤗.

Joining me today is Dr. Debi Silber and we are talking about betrayal  Dr. Debi Silber is the founder of the PBT (Post Betrayal Transformation) Institute and is a holistic psychologist, a health, mindset and personal development expert, the author of Trust Again, and is a 2-time #1 International bestselling author of: The Unshakable Woman AND From Hardened to Healed. 

Her podcast: From Betrayal to Breakthrough is also globally ranked within the top 1.5% of podcasts. Her recent PhD study on how we experience betrayal made 3 groundbreaking discoveries that changes how long it takes to heal. In addition to being on FOX, CBS, The Dr. Oz Show, TEDx (twice) and more, she’s an award-winning speaker and coach dedicated to helping people move past their betrayals as well as any other blocks preventing them from the health, work, relationships, confidence, and happiness they want most.

We talked about her 3 discoveries with the research that she has done, how betrayal is a different kind of trauma because of how it feels so intentional and personal and therefore relates to trust, how it affects one physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally - and she shared some really sobering statistics around that and how it is possible to move through from betrayal to breakthrough with her five stage process.

Click here to go to my Substack page.

Click here to buy my book

Click here to buy my a coffee and show your support

Listener support: I love making The Therapeutic Poet podcast, but it does cost time and money. If you have enjoyed it, been informed by it or found it helpful then I would greatly appreciate your financial support. You can do this by:

Taking a paid subscription on my Substack - a weekly newsletter helping people have 'Permission to feel'. You'll receive tips on how to navigate our human tricky things, recorded poems and other goodies.

Buying my book ‘Stop the world I want to get off’

Or buy me a coffee 🤗.

This episode is different! Unfortunately my recording for this week with my guest ran into difficulties, so I had a think about what I could offer you instead.
I write a weekly newsletter for my paid subscribers on Substack so I thought that I would give you an insight into what I write about.

I have always said that what I am trying to do is 'rehumanise, one poem at a time'. Whilst it's tempting to focus on one key thing such as addiction or trauma or even poetry, I want to help remind us that being human is a whole merry mix of things and so is our experience of being human. Whilst we may have a bunch of experiences which cause us to react or behave in a certain way, such reactions are not 'disorders'. I believe that we need to de-medicalise emotions.

So I have developed a weekly newsletter called 'Permission to feel' for my paid subscribers on Subtack which focuses on one emotion at a time.  I bring in various different psychological insights, poems that I have written and tools that you can use straight away, in my hope to educate, empower and entertain.

I have a bit of fun with a short story in this episode, along with sound effects. It was a lot of fun to do!

Have a listen and find out more on my Substack page. 

Click here to go to my Substack page.

Click here to buy my book

Click here to buy my a coffee and show your support

Listener support: I love making The Therapeutic Poet podcast, but it does cost time and money. If you have enjoyed it, been informed by it or found it helpful then I would greatly appreciate your financial support. You can do this by:

Taking a paid subscription on my Substack - a weekly newsletter helping people have 'Permission to feel'. You'll receive tips on how to navigate our human tricky things, recorded poems and other goodies.

Buying my book ‘Stop the world I want to get off’

Or buy me a coffee 🤗.

I met Dan when we were at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August 2022 and I went to his show 'Patience Zero'. The description of his show was:
'Dan's always wanted to be a father. But now he and his wife are going through constant loss and IVF, he starts to ask the question: is he good enough? But in a year with a serious accident, an NHS-induced bad K-trip, a letter warning of impending death and, oh, aliens, he begins to wonder - is the universe telling him no? It's a comedy. Somewhere between stand-up and theatre, this show explores how far you will go for family.' and was given a 4/5 star review by Chortle who said, 'I love this genre of thoughtful, emotionally truthful shows that come from unexpected directions. They always deserve a bigger audiences, and punters lucky enough to find these little gems will remember them long after the bigger, later, louder balls-out comedy shows have blurred into one.'

I was interested in having Dan speak on the podcast because it is rare to find places where men share about this experience. In this episode I speak to Dan about writing his story as a comedy show; how he and his wife dealt with miscarriage and loss and what impact his show had on other people.

Helpful resources;
www.tommys.org
www.sands.org.uk
https://babyloss-awareness.org/organisations/
https://themuttonclub.com/childless-not-by-choice-through-grief-to-acceptance/
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uufXWTHT60Y

Click here to go to my Substack page.

Click here to buy my book

Click here to buy my a coffee and show your support

Listener support: I love making The Therapeutic Poet podcast, but it does cost time and money. If you have enjoyed it, been informed by it or found it helpful then I would greatly appreciate your financial support. You can do this by:

Taking a paid subscription on my Substack - a weekly newsletter helping people have 'Permission to feel'. You'll receive tips on how to navigate our human tricky things, recorded poems and other goodies.

Buying my book ‘Stop the world I want to get off’

Or buy me a coffee 🤗.