What have you discovered about yourself that you would not have known without the childless journey? When we go through something - and childless grief is a big something - we learn about ourselves in ways we might not otherwise. Join us to learn more about the gifts this challenging journey can bring.
DATE: Saturday 20th April
TIME: 7pm GMT - 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 on YouTube.
If you missed the January webinar, “How do you discover and identify your story when the traditional one no longer applies?” you can watch the recording HERE
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 through Magic Of Joy. 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.
Jody Day
Often referred to as the ‘founder of the childless movement’ because of her work with Gateway Women since 2011, Jody is also the author of the 'go-to' book on healing from the heartbreak of childlessness, ‘Living the Life Unexpected: How to Find Hope, Meaning and a Fulfilling Future Without Children’ (Bluebird/PanMac).
Chosen as one of the BBC’s 100 Women in 2013 & awarded as UK Digital Woman of the Year in 2021, Jody’s a global thought leader on female involuntary childlessness, a psychotherapist, a 2017 and 2022 TEDx speaker, a founding and former board member at what is now the UK Charity Ageing Without Children, and a former Fellow in Social Innovation at Cambridge Judge Business School.
After a lifetime in London, five years ago she moved to rural Ireland, and recently moved into her forever home by the Atlantic, where she’s working on finishing her first novel (featuring a childless heroine of course!) and midwifing the emergingGateway Elderwomen project.www.gateway-women.com
Helen Louise Jones
Helen Louise Jones is a singer from London UK. In 2020 she founded Our Healing Voice, vocal projects to support Involuntarily Childless women. Her own childless journey began at 18 with endometriosis.
Helen sings jazz, blues, and improvisational music. She says of her childless journey. 'Singing probably saved me'.
It was while living in Goa, India, making improvisational music, she came to understand the powerful transformative, healing alchemy of body, breath, and voice, from which she created The Chanting Circle. A sound healing and somatic practice that aims to calm and help empower involuntarily childless women.
Her 1st project, Childless Voices Singers, was researched by Laura Curtis. Weekly Sessions ran throughout the Pandemic. A few months ago, 'Calm After The Storm’ was written and recorded by the participants of that research. Sixty brave involuntarily childless women sent Helen their pictures, for a video, to raise awareness.
Sarah Bradley
I live a contented, fulfilling life with my cats in beautiful rural Gloucestershire, England. My journey through childlessness has been the toughest challenge I have faced and coming to terms with it has been life-changing. We can never predict how life will turn out, but we can give ourselves opportunities to find happiness and joy.
These days, having qualified as a life coach, Apricot Lane Coaching, I support childless women, men and couples to find a way through the loneliness and isolation of childlessness, to create a happy life without children.
I also work with women who are single and childless in our SIN+CH coaching groups, where we challenge stereotypes, build self-confidence and encourage brave decision-making.
World Childless Week gave me the courage to talk about childlessness when I thought I couldn’t. Now I’m proud to be a WCW contributor, helping others to see that there is life beyond childlessness!
Sarah Roberts
Sarah is a World Childless Week Ambassador for the Asia/Pacific Region and Founder of The Empty Cradle. Sarah’s media work in childlessness began almost a decade ago with a personal blog. It felt like screaming into the void as she sought connection with others who shared her story and to validate the disenfranchised grief and social isolation.
In relationship with childless women, (and a lot of personal therapy), her heart began to heal and she noticed the commonalities of our social and cultural experiences. These relationships, and her academic and clinical counselling work, honed her thinking and crafted her writing and messaging in her current media work.
Sarah is a passionate advocate for rights, inclusion, cultural and social change, and just social policy for all people, especially the involuntarily childless.
Sarah is deeply curious about what respectful, real and empowered childless media representation looks like and how to include our diverse voices and perspectives.
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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