Empowering thinking.

I use this blog as a way to express my thinking that’s going on inside me and a way to document changes that have been occurring in my life, 2013 was a great year of change in terms of my career life, the year was started by gaining a counselling placement at a women’s based service in SE London, my role would be the volunteer counsellor and I would be working with women exiting street prostitution, I was offered a 3hr a week space at the service and started my year working with 3 women every week, the placement work was incredible and I was so pleased to work with such incredible women with story's of strength and courage but also sadness and pain. I volunteered for 8 months before decided to end my time here and that came about due to an incident with another worker where I was horrified by her behaviour towards me and her unprofessionalism. 

Sadly the incident I encountered with the women is one that I have encountered many times with other women, going back to my school years to obviously present day. It really set me off on a spiral of trying to understand the behaviours of women, something I have being doing anyway over the past four years when looking at my own life journey with myself and how I have acted and behaved. My journey of my own understanding started when I moved to London and met beard, he has strengthened me in ways I can’t even describe but not only that he has made me unearth a part of me I wasn't even aware of that part of me that believes in things at a deeper level and not just on a surface level, the biggest of that is how important I am as a women in today’s world – my feminist beliefs have really grew in me and made me open my eyes to the way women are treated in society and the objectification of the female form. 

With this I decided to apply for a course with an amazing organisation called Women and Girls network http://www.wgn.org.uk/about-us who are a women based service who believe in women healing women they work with women and girls who have been affected by all gender forms of violence and offer a range of therapeutic services from counselling to body work. The course I completed with them was Counselling and Therapeutic Interventions for working with women affected by gender based violence. Like my Counselling the course has given me greater insight into the impact women face in society and has definitely been of great learning curve for me as a professional. Today I finished writing my essay around feminist theory and empowerment models and similar to how I work already the main focus of the work is to empower the client to see the strength they have in themselves. When writing my essay today some of the key messages in feminist theory is around the women understanding the wider context in which they live and not holding the problem as an individual problem but a wider societal one. The three main components are around the women developing these beliefs in her as they have made taken away from her by her abuser and society. Whilst writing and studying the same message kept coming across that society and media impact on how women are treated and it just makes me frustrated that in 2014 were still fighting for gender based violence to be taken seriously and recognise its not the women’s fault but the male who is carrying out the violence. 
The empowerment model of therapy used is a beautiful model it just saddens me we need specific empowerment models when really why don’t humans empower each other, wouldn’t the world be a nicer place to live?

Christmas Merriment and Yurting joy.

For those of you who I have been around recently would have heard me say I can’t believe how quickly 2014 has come around, my last blog was about moving out and now we only have two weeks left at our friends and three weeks till our trip, so with that hasn't time flown by….

Christmas was beautiful, I read my blog from last Christmas this morning and it’s interesting to look at where I was there to where I am now, I was reapplying for university, living in our flat and making decisions for my future. I guess at least the latter is still true, decision making is always at the forefront of my mind and my friends know I am always planning and making changes to my life, I am not happy sitting content and I don’t know what that’s about but as a Counsellor I could definitely look for a deeper meaning, today I will just look at as an excitement for adventure and filling my life with goodness!

After the intensity of my most recent course it was nice to spend 2 weeks relaxing at Christmas, I love being in my family home, it makes me feel very happy and relaxed and the feeling of Christmas is so strong it’s like a magic in the air. The run up to Christmas was nice but without being in our own nest it didn't feel the same and I missed that Christmassy feel of decorating a tree, crafting decorations and hanging stockings, so to arrive in Newcastle to my Mum’s grotto was bliss and filled me with delight.

We always stay in on Christmas eve, I used to go out but feel being at home is special and important, we eat delicious food, swap a Christmas present, put our Christmas PJ’s on and watch something Christmassy, its beautiful and I know it will be a tradition I will carry on when I have kids. Sam and I spent Christmas apart (again) this year which was hard and didn't feel right but it was what we decided due to our trip, I missed sharing Christmas morning with him and speaking on the phone is never the same as being present together. After this year we agreed next year we would be together and the year after (fingers crossed) where in our own place and have agreed it would be spent in our home – together, yeah!

Sam arrived on the 27th and we went and spent two nights in a Yurt at Wild Northumbrian http://www.wildnorthumbrian.co.uk/ , it was a present I bought for Sam in November but I thought booking it over Christmas would be a delight and would be really magical, it certainly was that. We stayed in the Merle Yurt and agreed to have our Christmas here, we took our family dog – bowdog and spent two glorious nights with Wild Northumbrian in the beautiful Kielder Forest. For those of you who don’t know Kielder it’s another amazing part of Northumberland and recently won the best darkest skies (basically meaning there is no light pollution so the stars are incredible), the yurt had been decorated beautiful and when we arrived they had the log burner going and the candles on, we spent the evening drinking mulled wine and feasting on veggie stew, exchanging gifts and talking of our Christmas days, I felt so happy and blessed it was more than I could have asked for.

The next day we enjoyed breakfast, watched Bow running around (and under) the Yurt and enjoyed the beauty of the scenery around us, wild northumbrian is positioned in a beautiful area and it was just incredible to be out in December in the wonderful countryside. We found a nice walk to go on that day and walked a good 8 miles through Kielder national park, the dog loved it and enjoyed the freeness of the country air, we had our cameras out and got some lovely shots of our walk and the beaming sunshine surrounding us.

NYE was spent in with the family, eating delicious food and enjoying plenty of sparkle; it was nice to not be out and about and just enjoying family time.

Flower Fever

After many a festival with my fave friends wearing beautiful flower garlands I decide it was time for me to try my hand. After making my feather headband I felt more confident at giving it a whirl, I had had a look at a few of my friends styles and stored all the ideas in my head for my craft session. 

With a night to myself I made my room I to a flower haven and got the sewing machine at the ready. It was really fun making, gluing and stitching and was really happy with the final results - so much so I made a few more for friends. 

Can't wait till 2015 when I head back to Glastonbury! 

Mine.

My lovely friend Rosa's (Christmas gift - which she told me she loved)

Caroline's.

My feather headband (don't think I blogged this).

I have been really enjoying try all these new projects out and my confidence in craft projects is growing so much, 2013 was a good year for learning.