What does it mean to live your own story? When we embrace a new life, it can mean that old relationships and interests recede in favor of something new. In this webinar, we discuss the challenges of letting go and what it means to live your own story.
DATE: Saturday 20th July
TIME: 7pm BST - Find your timezone HERE
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Please note: Whilst the panellists (see below) will be recorded, your camera and audio will be turned off.
If you are unable to attend the webinar live, you DO NOT need to register to watch the replay. Just subscribe to the World Childless Week YouTube channel and you’ll be notified when new recordings are added.
Story
Story is an important part of our lives. We all create stories from our experiences. Identities are a story, all cultural narratives and belief systems are a story, and all attitudes are a story. These various kinds of stories are our way of making meaning, and our feelings tell us a lot about whether the story is working or not.
Stories connect us with the world as it has been created and are how we learn about it. They do not tell us, though, about the world as it is becoming. They tell us what “reality” is, at least the reality that our social group or culture thinks it is. These stories are an important part of our connection with others and how we see ourselves. They can be constructive but too often fail us by not seeing or relating to us in a limited way. They can also be rejecting when life throws us a curveball and we do not fit the “story” we have been assigned, which, of course, happens for childless women.
Stories keep us connected, and that is a beautiful thing. Sometimes, though, we discover that the stories are not working. When you discover that you will be childless, the stories about life, what it is like, what it should be like, and what it could possibly be like are all put on the table. When the story does not work, we have to release it and discover a new one. No one knows that better than childless women.
The journey of childless women is not only a grieving process but also a journey to a new way of being. It is a journey to a new story, one that we create out of the ashes of a lost dream. Interestingly, childless women are making this journey while the human race is journeying to a new way of being as the old ways fall away.
No group is better prepared for the challenges of change than childless women. Our journey as childless women invites us to reground, change our perspective, and develop new skills. We have to release the old and find a new path for ourselves. It is a very challenging journey that helps us develop the skills of the emerging wise Queen.
Our purpose in our conversations about this Queen is to illuminate the ups and downs, the discoveries, and shifts that have helped us discover this new Queen energy in ourselves, invite her to the table, and help others do the same.
Stories can support us or keep us trapped in the past. In this webinar series, we explore how the childless journey challenges old stories and invites a new story for ourselves, others, and the times we live in as we discover the new emerging mature Queen in ourselves.
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Who is the Queen?
The Queen and our Queen conversations are about our becoming. It is not a stage of life, not an age. It is where we arrive after going through something; in fact, you have to go through something to activate the grounded, wise energy of the Queen. She has seen what is not true and discovered what is. She has questioned what matters and where she wants to put her energy. She is no longer just a role; she has become a person, and as a result, she has recovered her own agency and learned how to direct it wisely. She has learned to trust herself, her feelings, and her experience.
The purpose of these conversations is to explore this process of becoming, which is a current and ongoing journey for all of us. What is important is what you have noticed, experienced, and rethought and what you have changed for yourself. What is the inner change creating an outer change, and what does that mean for your life? We will be exploring using the theme of stories because we can reimagine our lives most easily that way.
Your Queens for this webinar are:
Maria Hill
I have worked in health care and the computer industry, and have an MBA. But when my life started falling apart, I took an opportunity to go to art school and then started Sensitive Evolution, an online platform for sensitive people, most of whom are childless, just like
me. I came to Gateway Women, now Lighthouse Women, about ten years ago, and enjoy supporting other childless women including our group for sensitive childless women. I have additionally trained in coaching, cultural and other frameworks, Reiki, and Theta healing.
My online work has become a transformative coaching practice teaching energy and cultural discernment skills to sensitive and/or childless women. I also participate in Jody Day’s Fireside chats as part of her Gateway Elderhood Project.
I believe women are being freed to come into their power in a way impossible in the past.
Stephanie Joy Phillips
Stephanie spent a large part of her twenties in an abusive relationship and took the contraceptive pill to ensure children would not be born into that situation.
In her early thirties she met her husband to be but they didn't try to conceive until nearing forty. At the age of 39 she was told by an unsympathetic doctor "if he manages to get you pregnant it is highly unlikely you'll carry full term". She knew in that moment, she would never be a mum.
In 2016 Stephanie Joy Phillips founded three childless support groups on Facebook: Childless Path To Acceptance focuses on support, Childless Chit Chat is a trigger free zone and Childless Perks!! is all about laughter and finding the positives of being childless, without a parent saying 'I told you so'.
In 2017 after realising there was no national recognition of the childless community she founded World Childless Week. Seven days that enables the childless community to have a platform where they can find their voice and share their stories with confidence.
Steph lives in Worcestershire with her husband and two rescue cats, Storm and Tea-Cup. She enjoys gardening, arts and crafts, a good book, dining out and relaxing in front of the television with a puzzle book and one of her two cats snuggled up beside her.
Anne Altamore
I am childless not by choice after spending more than a decade on the IVF roller coaster. I always thought I had a full life with a rewarding career, dreams and goals, of which motherhood was just one small piece. But the overwhelming grief I felt with each failed cycle showed me that even a small dream lost can be a devastating experience.
What I grappled with most was the lonely aloneness of infertility, treatment cycles, and then making the decision to live a childless life.
My journey to understanding grief and loss, healing and fulness, included completing a Masters in Counselling and Psychotherapy and founding Life After IVF to provide a safe healing space for all who have disembarked the fertility treatment roller coaster.
I am mom to two beautiful furbabies and when I am not cuddling them, I cook, read, and dabble in writing stories.
Catherine-Emmanuelle Delisle
At the age of fourteen, I was diagnosed with unexplained early menopause without having reached puberty. I learned I would never be able to have biological children. I also knew right away adopting was not the path for me: grieving was.
In 2012, I decided to be vocal about my experience as a single childless woman through my bilingual blog (French/English), Femme Sans Enfant. I am now a TRA, Therapist For Relationship Assistance ™ and World Childless Week Ambassador based in Montreal, Canada and I help childless women accept and embrace their lives through one-on-one therapy and workshops.
Bindi Shah
Bindi Shah is a meditation guide, and writer. Finding solace in meditation, Bindi now shares her learning with others.
In meditation, you move inwards, which is a tender place to be. I want childless not by choice women to feel comfortable as they meditate, and to be with others who understand their story.
Bindi's path into the well-being world began in India after leaving her corporate job. She established a healing practice, combining yoga, meditation, Ayurveda and life coaching.
Writing is a love of Bindi’s and a refuge during difficult times. Her healing words are published in the poetry book ‘The Eyes of Time’, under the pseudonym Grace Sumeria. Her healing writing is also the inspiration for her writing workshops.
Bindi's empathy for the childless community comes from her own multi-layered experience, including adenomyosis that led to a hysterectomy. Her work revolves around empowering and supporting others on similar paths.
Kate Kaufmann
Kate Kaufmann is fascinated by how those who don't have children craft their lives. There are no navigation charts for life outside the mainstream of motherhood. Or fatherhood, for that matter.
Kate got her first inkling how different life as a non-mom can be after she and her former husband abandoned infertility treatments, quit their corporate jobs, and moved from a suburb in an excellent school district to a rural community to raise sheep. Everyone in the country seemed to have kids. So began her quest for identity as a non-mom in a culture high on family.
Since 2012 Kate has talked intimately with hundreds of North American women who don't have children, ranging in age from twenty-four to ninety-one. She's relentless in her search for pertinent data about not having kids in both the academic and popular press.
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