Tuesdays

11am – 12.30pm

£7.50 per session

Writing for wellbeing is about creating space and making connections.

It can be as simple as just getting thoughts and feelings at the time of writing onto a piece of paper so that the page now carries the emotions and the mind is relieved, or it can involve creating a poem or story that captures part of our life experience.

With the writing, comes a process of reflection and, where we feel able, sharing too. The sessions provide a nurturing and supportive space in which we can stimulate our creativity and self-awareness.

We are encouraged to respond from our own experience of hearing the writing of others as opposed to offering a critique. This is the primary difference between writing for wellbeing and creative writing for literary development. Writing and voicing writing in this way can be therapeutic but these workshops are not group therapy and we need to be aware of this when choosing what to write or share.

Writing experience is not essential, just a willingness to join in and give it a go. There is no emphasis on writing style, paragraphs or punctuation. Mistakes are possible. We just write about what comes up for us… exploration, freedom, inspiration. And it is up to us if we share or not.

Join Mary and take the opportunity to wonder/ reflect/ express unspoken thoughts/ release emotions / better understand your world through a series of guided writing / story / poetry / discussion.

Mary Burns is an experienced person centred counsellor with a special interest in using writing as a tool to enhance wellbeing. She is committed to enabling wider access to the wellbeing benefits that writing together and sharing poetry and stories brings.

She has created and facilitated writing projects in many different health and community spaces, working with adults of all ages, life stages and backgrounds. She facilitates writing which encourages participants to temporarily suspend notions of ‘good’ or ‘poor’ writing. The framework is created by a clear, guided structure of writing time, reflecting time, sharing / listening time.

Mary is a member (and London branch co-ordinator) of Lapidus International, the organization for words and wellbeing practitioners and also a member of The National Association for Writers in Education.