October's Gathering
Your journal prompts for this month and an invitation to connect with us
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Hi Friends,
This is your monthly Postpartum Matters Village post, where we come together to connect around a shared theme. You can read more about the process here. But, in a nutshell, I share a journal prompt/ theme and invite you to share your thoughts here on Substack. So we can witness one another, so we can see our shared experiences, so we can feel less alone.
On Friday I held the first Community Connection Circle for our community here. It was over on Zoom and it was so beautiful. This months journal prompts will be the same as our circle - so those of you who couldn’t make it along in person can also join in!
Before we dive in, here are some of the lovely things people have said about it…
Thank you for a really lovely circle this eve- it was so lovely to see you in person and meet the other mums. That kind of honest, open chat just lights me up!! … It was still really useful, even in between bedtimes, those moments of connection with other mums just make me feel less alone. And just turning up as I was in my pj's with the kids running around too and that being OK!
Thank you for last night's circle too. Was wonderful. Felt a lot better after rage writing 8 pages about the poem 😂. Xx
Thank you for holding the circle for us on Friday evening. I felt seen and heard and so glad I joined. To hear how mums are turning their experiences into change for others was truly inspirational. I look forward to more and what I can bring to make change too 🫂
I always get so much imposter syndrome before I do these things and by the end of them, I never want them to finish!
Our next Community Connection Circle will be Friday December 8th, 6:30pm on Zoom. This post here explains more about what it is, so you can see if it’s for you. On Friday, we had people there who were muted, screens off the whole time, we had people who were there alone and sharing and diving deep, and we had people there joining in and juggling bedtime. All of it is so so welcome.
We began by grounding ourselves into the space. Taking some deep breaths in through our noses and down into our tummies, before breathing slowly slowly out of our mouth. Maybe you’d like to do some of those with me now?
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A slow, deep breath never ever fails to make me feel better.
I shared a reading of Hollie McNish’s poem ‘Things my grandmothers warned me to conceal’. It’s from her newest book Slug. The invitation for you this month is to read the poem too. You can watch Hollie read it here. Before diving into the prompts below - choose one, choose several, follow your interest and know that you cannot do this wrong.
October Journal Prompts
How does the poem make you feel? - free write for a few minutes
Are there any words in your reflections above that stand out to you? Why is that?
Which parts of the poem do you most resonate with?
What have you concealed as part of womanhood?
Can you write your own poem about those parts of you?
How has concealing these parts of yourself impacted or guided your life?
What might it look like to show your full self?
Putting yourself in Hollie’s grandmothers shoes, what warnings or messages do you have to share with little Hollie? With little you?
The poem and the prompts sparked some really interesting shares and revelations. The overarching theme of my personal journaling was anger. Anger at all of the things we miss out on when we are socialised as female, anger at the lack of support. Angry because we’ve been conditioned, from childhood, to hide our ‘womanness’ and so we’ve became complicit in our own oppression. No wonder we can’t get support postpartum, when we’ve been conditioned our whole lives to hide our basic human needs and those around us have never been made to see them. No wonder we become fully invisible by age 50, the cycle of disappearing finally complete.
Which brings us back to how important it is to create spaces like this. Where we can re-learn how to show those harder parts of ourselves. Where we can see other women+ doing the same. Where we can begin to realise it’s not just us, it’s all of us and we have all been silenced. But together, we can find our collective voice again.
I’d love to hear from you - your thoughts and feelings the poem raises. Perhaps you would like to share in our private thread here, or in the comments section below. No pressure though - you are still such a valued member of the community, without having to share anything at all.
I closed the circle by reading a short meditation script from The Women’s Meditation Network. You can join in and listen to it here. It’s the perfect way to round up this work today, by letting go of all the shoulds and all the expectations and breathing in love, grace and acceptance.
I’ve really loved running this and am so excited to do it again in December.
Sending you love for the week ahead,
Zoe xx
p.s. Some of us hadn’t experienced Hollie’s poetry before Friday and so I wanted to share the poem that first stopped me and made me notice her. It’s called ‘What’s My Name Again’ and I first heard it when I was in the depths of single parenthood back in 2017. You can watch Hollie read it here. The book this comes from - Nobody Told Me - continues to be the most emotive thing I’ve ever read. Probably because of the life I was living when I read it but mostly, I think, because I’d never heard anyone else share these things I was feeling deep inside around what it means to be Mother.
Thanks for such a generous share, Zoe. I can’t wait to write in the prompts as well as join you in the future 💛